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THE NONJTJEOES
<7 #
7 THE NON JURORS,
THEIR LIVES, PRINCIPLES, AND
WRITINGS
. 0*1
0*1
BY
? H. OYERTON, D.D.
RSOTOR OP QUMLEY, AND CANON OF LINCOLN
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
111195
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1902
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE
IT has been my aim in this book to disentangle, as far
as possible, the ecclesiastical from the political question ;
to trace the history of the Nonjurors, as a religious
community, from the time of their temporary alienation
from, to the time of their reabsorption in, the old Church
of England, of which they contended that they had
always been the most consistent and faithful mem-
bers ; to give the reader a clear and definite impression
of the personalities of all the chief actors ; and, finally, to
bring into prominence the later phase of the movement,
which appears to be little known, though it certainly has
a distinct interest of its own.
The nature of the work, which I have perhaps too
presumptuously undertaken, has rendered it necessary
for me to write many letters and to consult many
manuscripts in other words, to give, I fear, much
trouble to many people ; and it is my pleasing duty to
express here my grateful acknowledgment of the uni-
form courtesy of all who have assisted me. They are
(in alphabetical order) the Hon. Mrs. Bulkeley-Owen ;
the Kev, K. E. G. Cole, rector of Doddington ; the Kev.
Canon Cooper, vicar of Cuckfield; the Eight Eev.
J. Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh ; the Eev. J. L. Fish,
vi THE NONJUEOES
rector of St. Margaret Pattens; the Eev. J. E. Hake-
will, rector of Braybrooke; H. Jenner, Esq., British
Museum ; the Eev. W. D. Macray, Litt.D., Bodleian
Library; Professor J. E. B. Mayor and J. Bass Mul-
linger, Esq., St. John's College, Cambridge ; W.
Phillips, Esq., Shrewsbury ; the Eev. F. W. Eagg, vicar
of Marsworth ; the Eev. F. Sanders, vicar of Hoylake ;
the Eev. E. M. Serjeantson, St. Sepulchre's, North-
ampton ; the Eev. E. W. Taylor, rector of Wouldham ;
and the Eev. W. E. Watson, rector of Saltfleetby
St. Peter's.
Printed matter may be regarded as publici juris ; but
there is one printed work to which I feel bound to refer.
Mr. Lathbury's * History of the Nonjurors ' has stood
alone for many years as the one book which dealt
exclusively with the subject, and I desire to acknowledge
my great indebtedness to it; but more than half a
century has elapsed since its publication, and there seems
to be need of another work, not to supersede, but to
supplement it.
November 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A GENERAL INTRODUCTION . . " .., . . 1
II. THE DEPRIVED FATHERS . . V . . . 23
III. BISHOPS OP THE NEW CONSECRATION . , . . 84
IV. THE NONJURING CLERGY . . . . . . 153
V. THE NONJURING LAITY . -. . .. . . 228
VI. NONJURING MODES OF WORSHIP . . . . . 280
VII. THE LATER NONJURORS . . . . 309
VIII. THE TWO IRREGULAR SUCCESSIONS . . . . 346
IX. THE NONJURORS AND GENERAL LITERATURE . . 377
X. THE NONJURORS IN SCOTLAND . . . . . 418
XI. THE NONJURORS AND THE EASTERN CHURCH . .451
AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF NONJURORS, CLERICAL
AND LAY . ,. . ... . . . 467
INDEX .' . . . . . . .497
PORTRAIT GROUP OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS . Frontispiece
THE NONJUROBS
CHAPTEE I
A GENEEAL INTRODUCTION
" Perhaps the time has come when we may venture, without
offence or loss of intellectual caste, to challenge the vulgar
verdict upon the Nonjurors, and may at least call on their
censors to name any English sect so eminent, in proportion to
its numbers, alike for solid learning and for public as well as
private virtues. Faction has too long been allowed to visit the
violence of a few hotspurs on the entire class of loyal subjects,
not merely by ruining them while living, but also by blackening
their memory to this hour. The caricatures of hireling libellers
pass current with most as the final judgment of posterity ;
phantoms which will never be laid till brought face to face with
the authentic forms which they personate and defame." l
MOEE than thirty years have elapsed since these words
were written by one of the most finished scholars of the
day ; and everything that has appeared during the interval
has tended to confirm the high estimate which he then
formed of this interesting body of men. Many will dis-
agree with their ecclesiastical, still more, perhaps, with
their political views ; but as to their learning and their
virtues, the two points on which Professor Mayor lays
stress, the more that facts come to light, the more con-
vinced will an impartial critic be that they are not unduly
praised by him.
1 Life of Ambrose Bonwicke, by his Father ; edited by J. E. B. Mayor.
1870. To the Reader (by the Editor).
B
2 THE NONJUEOES
Now, learning and virtue are not so common that we
can afford to let signal instances of both in a whole body
of men slip into oblivion without a distinct loss ; so that,
even if the history of the Nonjurors were merely the
history of a bygone phase of thought and action which is
now obsolete, it would still be worth writing. But, on
the contrary, the turn of the wheel during the last quarter
of a century has brought the position of the Nonjurors
(as Churchmen, not as politicians) into much greater pro-
minence, and caused it to have a direct bearing upon the
present state of the Church. It is hoped, therefore, that
no apology is needed for drawing attention to their history.
To begin at the beginning :
By the term Nonjurors is meant, in the first instance,
chose Churchmen whose consciences would not allow them
to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary after
the Eevolution of 1688, because they had previously
taken similar oaths to James II., and who sacrificed
their incomes and future prospects in consequence. The
death of James II. in 1701 did not release them from their
obligation ; for they had sworn to be faithful, not only to
the King himself, but to ' his heirs and lawful successors/
Indeed, their difficulty was greatly intensified, because an
Act of Parliament was quickly passed requiring them
1 to abjure the pretended Prince of Wales,' whom they
honestly believed to be the * lawful heir ' of James II.,
and to acknowledge William III. and each of his suc-
cessors, according to the Act of Settlement, as ' rightful
and lawful King ' ; and in this form the oath was made a
necessary qualification for every employment either in
Church or State. 1
1 Previously the oath of allegiance to William and Mary had expressly
omitted the words * rightful and lawful ' which occurred in former oaths, in
order that it might embrace those who were willing to acknowledge the
new sovereigns as sovereigns de facto, though not dejure.
INTKODUCTION 3
On the accession of George I. in 1714 another Act
was passed requiring everyone who held any public post
of more value than 5Z. a year to declare his belief on oath
that ' George was rightful and lawful king, and that the
person pretending to be Prince of Wales had not any
right or title whatsoever.' Those who refused to take
the oaths of 1701-2 and 1714 were sometimes called
* Non-Ab jurors ' to distinguish them from the Non jurors
who refused the original oaths of 1689 ; but substantially
they all belonged to the same party and acted on the
same principle, so there is no need to dwell on the dis-
tinction at present.
As the practical outcome of their conduct was that
they were deprived of their posts, whether lay or clerical,
on account of their refusal to take the necessary oaths,
the term ' Nonjuror ' is a correct enough designation of
them so far as it goes. At the same time, it gives a very
inadequate notion of their principles, which extended
much farther than to a conscientious objection to take
fresh oaths in contradiction to those they had previously
taken. Quite apart from the oaths, the Nonjurors- and, it
must be confessed, many also who were not Nonjurors
were quite precluded by principles they had long professed
from accepting either King William, or Queen Mary, or
Queen Anne, or, above all, King George as their sovereign.
To appreciate the truth of this assertion, we must go
back to an earlier period. Rightly or wrongly (and I am
by no means prepared to say 'rightly'), the doctrine of
passive obedience or non-resistance (the two expressions
mean practically the same thing) to thqse monarchs who
had the divine, hereditary, indefeasible right had long been
considered not only as a doctrine, but as the peculiar
doctrine of the Church of England that is, the doctrine
which distinguished English Churchmen from ' papists r
4 THE NONJUEOKS
on the one hand who set the Pope, and ' plebists ' on
the other who set the people, above the Lord's anointed. 1
Those who held this doctrine appealed to Holy Scripture,
both the Old Testament and the New. They applied
the principles of the patriarchal government and of the
Mosaic law to the existing state of affairs in England.
They contended that kings were fathers of their people,
and ought to be implicitly obeyed as such. They appealed
to the government of the chosen people which was sanc-
tioned by the Almighty; to the precepts and practice
of our Blessed Lord and of His Apostles ; to the Church
in its earliest and purest ages ; to the formularies of their
own Church, especially to the Homilies, the Articles, and
the Canons. ' The Institution of a Christian Man ' taught
the same doctrine, and the post-Reformation period
furnished many confirmations of it. The great casuist,
Robert Sanderson, taught it in very strong terms ; 2 several
Acts of Parliament, passed between the Restoration and
the Revolution, condemn all resistance, and in such terms
as to exclude any exceptions ; Sir Robert Filmer's theories
of government met with wide acceptance ; the University
of Oxford stamped with its authority the doctrine of non-
resistance by three distinct and formal decrees of its
Convocation, in 1622, 1647, and 1683 respectively, the
last pronouncing resistance ' a damnable doctrine.'
Strange to say, none had committed themselves more
distinctly to the doctrine of non-resistance than those
1 See Preface to Filmer's ' Mixed Monarchy,' in Tlie Political Discourses
of Sir R. Filmer, published in 1680, twenty-seven years after the writer's
death.
1 For the sentiments of Dr. Sanderson and the others referred to, see
Compleat History of the Affair of Dr. Sacheverell, p. 140, where all are
given at a glance, with chapter and verse for each. Also, The History of
Passive Obedience since the Reformation (1689), where quotations from a
vaat number of authors of all schools in the Church in favour of the
doctrine are given verbatim.
INTRODUCTION 5
who afterwards became the staunchest supporters, on
the ecclesiastical side, of the Revolution. Tillotson and
Burnet 1 had impressed it upon poor Lord William Russell,
when he was under sentence of death, as if it were an
article of faith, without the explicit acceptance of which
there could hardly be any hope of salvation. Tenison
did the same when ministering to the unfortunate Duke
of Monmouth before his execution. Stillingfleet defended
it with his usual force and ability ; so did Patrick ; so
did Beveridge ; so did White Kennett ; and all these
accepted bishoprics under the Revolution settlement which
to the ordinary mind seems absolutely irreconcilable with
it. William Sherlock, afterwards Master of the Temple
and Dean of St. Paul's, wrote in 1684 one of the ablest
defences of it in its extremest form ' The Case of Re-
sistance ' and six years later an equally able treatise in
opposition to it ' The Case of Allegiance.'
It was the same with clergy of a lower rank. What
the Nonjuring Dean Granville says of the Durham clergy
is applicable, more or less, to the clergy generally. 2 It
was a bitter and unfortunately too well-grounded an
attack upon the Established Church when Pope made
his Goddess of Dulness say in the person of that Church :
Ah ! if my sons may learn an earthly thing,
Teach them that one, sufficient for a king ;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain :
Which, as it dies or lives, we fall or reign ;
May you, my Cam and Isis, preach it long !
The Eight Divine of kings to govern wrong.
' Dunciad,' Book IV.
1 Since the above was written, a most important and interesting volume,
entitled Supplement to Burnefs History of My Own Time, edited by H.
Foxcroft (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), has appeared. Appendix I.,
' Additional Note on Burnet's Change of View with regard to Passive Obe-
dience,' pp. 515-19, gives an exhaustive account of Burnet's attitude.
2 See The Remains of Denis Granville, Dean of DurJiam, especially his
6 THE NONJUBOES
It should be added that by the terms ' non-resistance r
a,nd ' passive obedience ' was not meant, at least by the
Nonjurors, a blind, unreasoning acquiescence in every-
thing which a headstrong and cruel tyrant might enjoin.
The epithet ' passive ' does not intensify, but mitigates,
the force of the word obedience, and the term * resist-
ance ' is taken in its literal sense of opposing by actual
one might almost say physical force. 1
But it certainly required some ingenuity to reconcile
what was then generally regarded as ' Church Doctrine '
with the acknowledgment of one who came with a large
armed force to ' deliver ' the nation ; and a great number
of those who managed to swallow the new oaths did so
with more or less wry faces. But about four hundred
beneficed clergy, a few unbeneficed, and a sprinkling of
the laity, could not manage it, and it is with these that
we have now to do.
It should be noted that their enthusiastic loyalty to
their lawful sovereign, as God's vicegerent, was balanced
by another sentiment, which was at least as influential.
They realised far more vividly than most of their con-
temporaries the existence of the Church as a distinct
spiritual society with laws of its own, whose connection
with the State, however beneficial, was purely accidental ;
and, as a consequence, they insisted on the independency
of the Church of any power on earth in the exercise
of her purely spiritual power and authority. This con-
viction pervaded all their conduct, and still pervades all
their writings ; and there was perhaps no greater service
rendered by them than the witness they bore to this
Letters ' to the Vice-Dean and Prebendaries ' and ' to the Clergy of the
Archdeaconry of Durham,' i. 111-16.
1 For an excellent and lucid explanation of what was meant, see A Corn-
pleat Collection of the Works of John Kettkwell, ii. 143, in the treatise,
Christianity a Doctriiw of the Cross.
INTRODUCTION 7
truth in an age which was sadly in danger of lapsing into
the grossest Erastianism. It also prevented them from
ever allowing their earthly sovereign, sacred being as
they almost regarded him, to encroach upon what was
not his province. In other words, their determination to
render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's, even if
they had to sacrifice every earthly advantage to do so,
was balanced by a still stronger determination to ' render
unto God the things that were God's.' 1
It was really the application of this principle, far
more than their refusal of the oaths, which brought the
Nonjurors into direct collision with the rulers of Church
and State, and led unhappily to the setting up of two
communions, each claiming to be the true Church of
England. The ejection of bishops, simply by an Act of
Parliament, without any synodical action, without any-
thing that bore the faintest resemblance to an ecclesias-
tical judgment ; and the putting into their sees that is,
into sees not canonically vacant new bishops by the
civil power, was about as glaring a violation of this
principle as can well be conceived ; and it is hard to see
how those who held the principle could help feeling, not
only justified, but in duty bound to continue to exercise
the functions which the Church had given them, and
which the Church had not taken away from them.
Hence arose the schism, which the Nonjurors main-
tained was no fault of theirs. They maintained that
they were in exactly the same position in which they had
ever been. They had not made the slightest alteration in
1 On this point, see inter alia, The Case of the Regale and the
Pontificate, in Leslie's Theological Works, iii. 291 ; Elements of Policy,
Civil and Ecclesiasti&il, in a Mathematical Method, by M. E. (that
is, Matthias Barbery) ; Jeremy Collier's Answer to Sherlock's Case of
Allegiance, passim; John Lindsay's Grand and Important Question about
the Church Parochial Communion, &c. Ac.; Hickes's Constitution of the
Catholick Church, p. 84 and passim.
8 THE NONJUEOES
doctrine, in discipline, or in worship. It was absurd to
say that those had made the separation who remained
exactly where they were before, ' unless ' (to use the racy
simile of a Nonjuring leader) ' you will affirm that when
a ship breaks from the shoar when she lies at anchor,
the shoar removes from her, and not she from the shoar.' *
The schism began, not when the Nonjurors refused the
oaths, not even when the bishops were deprived by secu-
lar authority ; but when new bishops were appointed to
sees not vacant. Then altar was set up against altar,
and surely those who set up the rival altars were really
responsible for the separation. 2
It will be understood that this is putting the matter
from the Nonjurors' point of view ; and, so far, they
were quite agreed in their principles. But they differed
from the very first as to how these principles were to be
carried out in practice ; whether, for example, they were
justified in attending the public churches, in the greater
part of the worship in which they could heartily join ; or
whether they should abstain from attendance on account
of what were called * the immoral prayers.' But these
were not really vital points. It was not until the death
of the last but one of the deprived bishops who claimed
their allegiance that the first rift in the lute was per-
ceived. The sole survivor was willing to waive his claim,
heartily desiring that the schism should be closed, and
his now like-minded successor be accepted. Then a
really essential difference arose between those who had
hitherto been in substantial agreement. And this
difference was, alas ! only a prelude to many further
1 Dr. Hickes's Apology for the New Separation, in a Letter to Dr. J. Sharp,
Archbishop of York.
* See this point clearly brought out in Leslie's Regale and Pontificate,
Theological Works, iii. 334-5.
INTRODUCTION 9
differences, which divided and subdivided the little
community until the vanishing point was reached.
A General Introduction is not the place to discuss these
differences in detail ; they will come only too prominently
before us in later chapters. But they suggest one answer
to a question which ought to be fairly met at the outset.
If, it may be asked, the Nonjurors as a body were, as
Professor Mayor describes them, men of solid learning and
private virtues, who might challenge comparison with any
body of equal numbers, how is it that they made so little
way, and that, having struggled on for about a century, they
entirely died out ? To put it more correctly, they were
re-absorbed into the great body of English Churchmen,
from whom they had never desired to be separated. But
that is a distinction which need not here be insisted upon.
But if there were no other answer to the question,
this would really be a sufficient one. They could not
agree among themselves ; and men in their position who
cannot present a united front have no more chance of
success than a small army opposed to a large army if it
cannot present a united front. Their principles abso-
lutely forbade them to make an arrangement by which
one party might form a body of its own, say, under the
leadership of Dodwell, and another under that of Hickes ;
and then the latter split up again, one section under the
leadership, say, of Collier, and another under that of
Spinckes, and so on ad infinitum, each meanwhile agree-
ing to differ from the other and recognising it as a
distinct Church. For they all held that there could be
but one Church in England, and if they were not that
Church what were they ?
Another obvious answer is that the Nonjurors were
politically embarked in a hopeless cause ; they identified
themselves with the Stuarts, and the Stuarts dragged
10 THE NONJUKORS
them down with them in their fall. At the same time
we must remember that it is easy enough to be wise after
the event ; but if by an effort of the historical imagina-
tion we throw ourselves into the situation as it appeared
to contemporaries, we shall find that the cause by no
means appeared hopeless. In spite of the just alarm
which the infatuated policy of James II. had raised, and
the need which was generally felt of ' a deliverer,' the
Revolution, or at any rate the course taken after the
Revolution, was not really popular. If the Stuarts and
their partisans had shown ordinary prudence, the restora-
tion of the old line might very probably have taken place.
William III.'s position in England had never been secure,
and it became still less so after the death of Queen Mary
and after the explosion of the warming-pan story though
that story was still believed in many quarters, and pro-
fessed to be believed in more, long after reasonable men
must have been convinced of its falsehood. The death
of the young Duke of Gloucester in 1700, which in itself
revived the hopes of the Jacobites by removing a formid-
able future claimant, led immediately to the Act of
Settlement, which gave the reversion of the Crown to
the aged Electress Sophia and her heirs. This was at
best accepted as a necessity, raising no enthusiasm in an} 7
quarter, and least of all in that family in whose favour it
was passed ; while it gave the Jacobites a handle which
they were not slow to turn. A race of foreigners was to
be introduced to rule England ; the hereditary principle
was to be violated in the most glaring way ; and, what
was to many worst of all, the throne was to be given to
one who was no direct descendant of the Royal Martyr.
Then followed in 1701-2 the Abjuration Oath, which
forced many to declare themselves who would otherwise
have remained neutral, or at least quiet.
INTRODUCTION 11
The accession of Queen Anne in 1702 made the Non-
jurors still more hopeful. The new Queen's church
principles would surely lead her to sympathise with them ;
natural affection would make her lean towards her
brother; and she was known to dislike extremely the
thought of being succeeded by her distant German
cousins. She seems to have been regarded by many as a
sort of Kegent for her brother, who was still only a boy
of thirteen too young to occupy so precarious a throne.
At any rate, it is clear that, by some peculiar process of
reasoning, many who had regarded the elder sister as a
usurper accepted the younger as a representative of the
divine, hereditary right. 1 On this ground the ' History of
the Rebellion/ by her grandfather, Lord Clarendon, now
published for the first time, was dedicated to her ; the
ceremony of the Royal Touch was revived ; and all
through her reign, but especially during the last four
years of it, there was an expectation of the return of the
Stuarts.
Nor did the peaceable accession of George I. altogether
destroy this expectation ; no, nor yet the suppression of
the rebellion of 1715. At any rate, if constant and varied
demonstrations of popular feeling could be trusted, the
Non jurors were fully justified in hoping that the political
cause which they espoused might again come uppermost.
But these appearances were fallacious ; from the col-
lapse of James in 1688 to the collapse of his grandson
in 1745 the legitimate line could never have been per-
manently established unless its representatives had
abandoned their religion, which they would never do.
1 See Leslie's Wolf stript of tlie Slieplierd's clothing, which is dedicated
to ' the Queen and the Three Estates of Parliament ' ; William Law's Sermon
on the Peace of Utrecht (Life, by Overton, pp. 10-12) ; Life of Fenton,
in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ii. 228, and innumerable contemporary
notices.
12 THE NONJUEOES
Englishmen might claim their traditional right of
grumbling, and that grumbling might sometimes show
itself in really serious riots ; but it never meant that they
were ready to accept another Koman Catholic sovereign.
A rooted conviction that Kome meant arbitrary power,
or a government framed after the model of France, over-
powered all other feelings ; and this conviction grew in
strength as the years rolled on. The body of the nation
observed with alarm, not with satisfaction, the unpopu-
larity of the Hanoverian dynasty. The dread of ' the
Pretender ' became quite a bugbear ; men feared that he
might succeed instead of hoping that he would succeed ;
and as his chances of success grew fainter and fainter,
the cause of the Nonjurors grew weaker and weaker,
until at last they quietly faded away altogether. And
yet there were no more uncompromising opponents
of Komanism than the Nonjurors, as a rule, were. It
was pure ignorance that led men to confound their efforts
to restore primitive doctrine and practice with a desire to
restore the system of Borne.
Before concluding this general survey it is necessary
to face fairly a question which is suggested by the asser-
tions of men whose names carry weight. Did the Non-
jurors degenerate into men of loose morals, injurious to
the interests of society? This is what Dr. Johnson
roundly asserts, and Lord Macaulay, more suo, amplifies
in vivid detail. The passage in Boswell's ' Life of Johnson '
is as follows :
He told us the play was to be ' The Hypocrite,' altered from
Cibber's ' Nonjuror,' so as to satirise the Methodists. ' I do not
think,' said he, ' the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable
to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Non jurors.
I once said to Dr. Madan, a clergyman of Ireland, who was a
great Whig, that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less
criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power than
INTEODUCTION 12
refusing them ; because refusing them necessarily laid him
under an almost irresistible temptation to be more criminal ;
for a man must live, and, if he precludes himself from the
support furnished by the Establishment, will probably be reduced
to very wicked shifts to maintain himself.
Then follows an illustration which one cannot quote
in these more delicate days. 1 Johnson repeats the accusa-
tion in his Life of Fenton, the nonjuring poet. 2
The passage in Macaulay runs thus :
To a person whose virtue is not high-toned this way of life
[that of a Nonjuror in the house of a patron] is full of peril.
If he is of a quiet disposition, he is in danger of sinking into a
servile, sensual, drowsy parasite. If he is of an active and
aspiring nature, it may be feared that he will become expert in
those bad arts by which, more easily than by faithful service,
retainers make themselves agreeable or formidable. To discover
the weak side of every character, to flatter every passion and
prejudice, to sow discord and jealousy where love and con-
fidence ought to exist, to watch the moment of indiscreet open-
ness for the purpose of extracting secrets important to the
prosperity and honour of families, such are the practices by
which keen and restless spirits have too often avenged them-
selves for the humiliation of dependence. The public voice
loudly accused many Non jurors of requiting the hospitality of
their benefactors with villainy as black as that of the hypocrite
depicted in the masterpiece of Moli&re. Indeed, when Gibber
undertook to adapt that noble comedy to the English stage, he
made his Tartuffe a Nonjuror ; and Johnson, who cannot be
supposed to have been prejudiced against the Nonjurors, frankly
owned that Gibber had done them no wrong. 3
He then refers in a note to the passage in ' The Life
of Fenton,' to a pamphlet called ' The Character of a>
Jacobite/ 1690, and to a passage in Kettlewell's Life
prefixed to his ' Compleat Works.'
1 See BoswelPs Life of Johnson, chap, x, under the year 1775. In the
Illustrated Edition in 4 vols., ii. 208-9.
J See Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ii. 227.
9 History of England, chap. xiv. ; in the edition in 2 vols. of 1873,
ii. 110.
14 THE NONJUEOES
The evidence is rather scanty. Dr. Johnson gives
practically none at all, but merely his own ipse dixit ; and
he must have had his information from hearsay, for at
the time when he entered public life the Nonjurors had
dwindled into a very small party, and he was not, so far
as I am aware, brought into personal contact with any of
them ] or any of their patrons. Lord Macaulay's reference
to * The Character of a Jacobite ' is hardly to the point,
for more reasons than one. (1) The pamphlet is a very
prejudiced, ex parte statement, which must be received
with the utmost caution. (2) The date of it is 1690,
when it was too early to predicate anything of the Non-
jurors as a body, for they were not yet a settled com-
munity. (3) A ' Jacobite ' and a * Nonjuror ' were not
convertible terms ; there were Jacobites, and most active
and aggressive Jacobites too, who were not Nonjurors ;
and there were Nonjurors who were in no active sense of
the term Jacobites, men who were content to live peace-
ably and quietly without a thought of disturbing the
existing government.
The evidence of Kettlewell is far the most important.
It is as follows :
The clergy here who have no business, but stay in town as
the best place of gifts, may be sent into the counties, where
they will be much better maintained at half the charge, and
where they may do service. And others will have no excuse to
spend most of their time in coffee-houses and hunting after
gifts ; but when they are not employed in their holy functions
may follow their studies to improve themselves.
Thus far Mr. Kettlewell himself, in his ' Model of a
Fund of Charity for Needy and Suffering Clergy,' 2 which
1 Unless we except Bishop Archibald Campbell, who was after all a
Scotch, not an English Nonjuror, though he was more in England than in
Scotland.
2 Compleat Works of John Kettlewell, with Life, i. Appendix XIX.
INTKODUCTION 15
was put forth in January 1694-5. His contemporary
biographer, who may be regarded as equally trustworthy
with himself, writes that, before the fund was started,
Not a few were imposed upon in their charity, and several
undeserving persons (who are always the most confident), by
their going up and down did much prejudice to the truly
deserving, whose modesty would not suffer them to solicit for
themselves. Yea, there were also some false pretenders, persons
of bad characters, and such as were not deprived on account of
the oaths, but for other reasons, and whose only merit consisted
in being secret spies and informers for the ministry ; one of
whom I knew who had forged Letters of Orders to qualify him-
self ; those by appearing more zealous than others made it their
business to insinuate themselves, and do all the mischief in
their power to those whom they pretended to side with. [This
Kettlewell saw.] He was also very sensible that some of his
brethren spent too much of their time in places of concourse
and news, by depending for their subsistence upon those whom
they there got acquainted with i and so forth.
This evidence may be taken as absolutely unimpeach-
able ; but what does it amount to ? That there were
unworthy members of the party, and impostors who traded
on the sympathy shown towards the pious and blameless
sufferers for conscience' sake. Human nature must have
been strangely different from what it is now if there had
not been. But it must be remembered that this was in
the early years of the separation ; and it is probable that
the black sheep were soon expelled from the flock, and no
others admitted into it; for, as will appear presently,
nothing was more common than for a deprived Nonjuror
to find refuge in the house of a sympathising patron ; and
I have not found one single instance of the patron's con-
fidence being abused, but many instances of his kindness
being repaid by services rendered. Dr. Johnson's is a
great name, but it is only the name of one man after all.
1 Compleat Works of John Kettlewell, with Life, i. 163.
16 THE NONJUROES
And when one finds scanty and vague statements on one
side, and a perfect avalanche of testimony on the other,
one naturally feels that the latter outweighs the former.
Part of this testimony will be found in the following
chapters which deal with individual Nonjurors ; and those
who have the patience to wade through these chapters
may be appealed to in the language in which Jehu appealed
to * the servants of his lord,' ' Ye know the men and their
communication.' Of outside testimonies there are most
varied kinds : some from their friends, of course ; some
from men who totally disagreed with them ; some from
contemporaries ; some from men in later times who have
really studied their history. To take a few out of very
many. Bishop Burnet was, perhaps, of all their contem-
poraries, the man who was most alien from their spirit.
He was regarded by them as their arch-enemy, and he
certainly stood quite at the opposite pole both in politics
and theology. And yet he could write to one of them
when the relations were most strained (January 29,
1714-15) :
I never think the worse of men for their different sentiments
in such matters ; I am sure I am bound to think much the
better of them for adhering firmly to the dictates of their con-
science, when it is so much to their loss, and when so sacred a
thing as an oath is in the case. But I have so great a regard
both to yourself and your friends, that as I am extremely sorry
that the Church hath so long lost the service of so worthy men r
so am I very glad to have it in my power, from what you write
to me, to vindicate you and them in that particular. 1
Another contemporary, Archbishop Sharp, 'had a
very great tenderness and pity for all those who could
1 Letter from Bishop Burnet to Thomas Baker just before the ejectment
of the latter from his Fellowship at Cambridge, quoted in Memoirs of the
Life and Writings of T. Baker, of St. John's College, Cambridge, from the
papers of Dr. Z. Grey, by Robert Masters, pp. 32-33.
INTRODUCTION 17
not satisfy their consciences on this point.' ' As for
those, whether clergy or laity, who were dissatisfied upon
pure principles of conscience, and behaved themselves
modestly and peaceably, keeping their sentiments to
themselves and giving no disturbance to the public, he
had as hearty a tenderness and compassion for all such as
was possible.' l Thomas Sherlock, the able son of an
able father, might be supposed to inherit a prejudice
against the Nonjurors, for no man had been so vituperated
by them as William Sherlock, the father, whom they
regarded as a renegade to their cause. But Thomas
Sherlock was a singularly clear-headed and fair-minded
man, and he recognised their merits. In 1716 (a critical
time) he was not afraid to say a word in favour of the
Nonjurors in a sermon preached on the Thanksgiving
Day for the suppression of the Kebellion :
The principles on which the legality of the present Esta-
blishment is maintained are, I think, but improperly made a
part of the present quarrel which divides the nation. There
are but few who have not precluded themselves on this
point, those, I mean, who have had courage and plainness
enough to own their sense and forego the advantages either
of birth or education, rather than give a false security to
the Government which under their present persuasion they
could not make good. To these I have nothing more to say
than to wish them, what I think they well deserve, a better
cause. 2
Hilkiah Bedford, a leading Nonjuror and afterwards
bishop, could boldly claim for his party what he could
not without manifest absurdity have claimed if they had
been what Dr. Johnson said they were. ' At worst,' he
writes, ' they are but unhappy mistaken men, who other-
1 Life of John Sharp, Archbishop of York, by his Son, Thomas Sharp,
Archdeacon of Northumberland ; edited by Thomas Newcome, pp. 264-5.
a Quoted by Dr. Doran in London in the Jacobite Times, i. 239.
C
UBRARY ST. MARH COllEGS
18 THE NONJUEOBS
wise are as eminent for good sense, piety, and learning
as any other denomination of men among all the con-
tending parties in these divided times.' l
Among the many testimonies from those who might
naturally be expected to be favourable to the Nonjurors
I select one written in 1825, because it has a certain
historical value as showing that the principles for which
these men contended were not altogether in abeyance in
the English Church until they were revived by the
Oxford Movement. The writer is John Bowdler, who
was of a Nonjuring stock; but he speaks, it will be
observed, not only for himself, but for others who lived
in his day.
The names of the principal Nonjurors were too eminent to
be easily lost, and the opinions which they asserted are so inter-
woven with the principles of our Church that they deserve not
only to be remembered, but to be carefully studied. . . . They
were men of unquestionable learning and unimpeachable in-
tegrity, of exalted piety and sound loyalty, and distinguished for
all the charities of life ; discriminating carefully between that
authority which, under the form of an established church, the
government of a country can bestow, and that which they had
received according to the appointments of God. . . . Whatever
may be thought of their conduct in particular instances, their
principles will be had in honour by all sound members of the
Church of England ; and at this time, when the controversies
which then took place are regarded with considerable interest,
their names and opinions have, perhaps, acquired increased
respect. 2
Another testimony has a special value of its own,
because it comes from one who had made a special study
1 A Seasonable and Modest Apology in behalf of the Bev. Dr. G. Hickes
and other Nonjurors, in a Letter to T. Wise, D.D., on the occasion of his
Visitation at Canterbury, 1710. Anonymous, but known to have been
written by H. Bedford.
2 Memoir of John Bowdler, with some account of Thomas Bowdler [by
John Bowdler, the younger, 1825], pp. 82-3
INTRODUCTION 19
of the life and writings of a man who was in some
respects the most eminent of all the Nonjurors, Jeremy
Collier, a study which he could not have made without
learning thoroughly what the mind and life of the Non-
jurors were ; for Collier did not, like Law for instance,
stand aloof, but threw himself thoroughly into all the
doings of his co-religionists. 'The just reputation/
wrote Mr. Barham in 1840, ' of the Nonjurors, too long
overcast by their enemies, is now recovering its true
sphere of elevation/ l
A word may be added about the incident which led
to Dr. Johnson's famous charge, which has so much
damaged the reputation of the Nonjurors. After the
Rebellion of 1715, Colley Gibber, who had achieved a
reputation both as a playwright and as an actor, improved
the occasion by bringing out (November 1717) a play
called ' The Nonjuror,' the history of which had better
be given in his own words :
At this time Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most
unprovoked Rebellion that our histories have handed down to
us since the Norman Conquest ; I therefore thought that to set
the Authors and Principles of that desperate Folly in a fair
Light by allowing the mistaken consciences of some their best
excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders of Conscience as
ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a subject fit
for the honest Satire of Comedy, and what might, if it succeeded,
do Honour to the Stage, by showing the valuable use of it.
And considering what numbers, at that time, might come to it,
as prejudiced Spectators, it may be allowed that the Speculation
was not less hazardous than laudable. To give Life, therefore,
to this design, I borrowed the Tartuffe of Moli&re and turned
him into a modern Nonjuror : Upon the Hypocrisy of the
French character I ingrafted a stronger Wickedness, that of an
English Popish Priest, lurking under the doctrine of our Church,
1 'Life of Jeremy Collier,' prefixed to his Ecclesiastical History, in
9 vols., by Francis Barham, p. xcix.
c 2
20 THE NONJUEOES
to raise his Fortune upon the Euin of a worthy gentleman, whom
his dissembled Sanctity had seduced into the treasonable cause
of a Eoman Catholic. 1
* Laudable ' as the design may have been, the personal
insinuations, for which there was not the shadow of a
foundation, were hardly laudable. The hero was a Dr.
Wolf, a Nonjuror who had been admitted into the family
of a Sir John Woodvile, an elderly baronet, who had
married, as his second wife, a lady much younger than
himself. This wife the Nonjuror attempted to seduce,
under the pretence of making love to her step-daughter.
The following passage occurs in it :
Sir John. Well, sir, what say our last advices from
Avignon ?
Dr. Wolf. All goes right. The Council has approv'd our
scheme and press mightily despatch among our friends in
England.
Sir John. But, pray, Doctor !
Doctor. Hold, sir ; now we are alone, give me leave to
inform you better. Not that I am vain of any worldly title,
but since it has pleased our Court to dignify me, our Church's
right obliges me to take it.
Sir John. Pray, sir, explain.
Doctor. Our last express has brought me this, which (far
unworthy as I am) promotes me to the vacant see of Thetford.
Sir John. Is it possible ! My Lord, I joy in your advance-
ment.
Now the see of Thetford had lately ' become vacant '
(though that is an absurdly inaccurate way of putting it)
by the death of Dr. Hickes ; and Hickes' successor, who
may be regarded as either Henry Gandy or Thomas
Brett they were both consecrated on the same day
had been appointed a few months before. There is not
1 An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Gibber, Comedian and Patentee
of the Theatre-Royal. With an historical View of the Stage in his own
Time. Written by Himself. Second Edition, 1740, p. 427.
INTRODUCTION 21
the faintest shadow of a suspicion that any of the three
whose lives will be noticed in a future chapter in any
way corresponded with Dr. Wolf, who was a hypocrite,
a Jesuit in disguise, a betrayer of female virtue and of
his generous benefactor in short, a most dangerous man
to admit into any decent household. All the Nonjuring
bishops, whose lives will be more or less fully described
in these pages, were men of totally different characters
from Dr. Wolf. Is it possible, with this knowledge
before us, to trust the accuracy of the play generally ?
I do not think Colley Gibber consciously misrepresented
the Nonjurors. He probably knew very little about
them; for he intimates that Dr. Wolf's predecessor in
the see of Thetford was Lawrence Howell, who never
was a bishop at all ! But there were reasons why he
would naturally be inclined to view them with an un-
favourable eye, and to lend a ready ear to any idle gossip
against them. He was a German by extraction, and
therefore his hereditary sympathies would be with the
Hanoverians ; he was a Whig by principle, and therefore
his personal sympathies would not be with those who
represented Toryism in its extremest form; he had
already received favours from the existing Government
and expected, and received, more. But there was a
matter which came more closely home to him than this.
One of the ablest of the Nonjurors, Jeremy Collier, had
attacked him on a very tender point. There is no more
sensitive being than a new writer about his first work ;
and Collier, in his crusade against the immorality of the
stage, had singled out Gibber's first play for a rather
captious animadversion. Gibber generously owned that
Collier produced a good result by his crusade, but it is
evident that he felt sore, and not unnaturally, about the
attack upon himself. Far too much importance has been
22 THE NONJURORS
assigned to this play, which was not even one of Gibber's
best. Dean Plumptre thinks * Gibber's transformation of
Moliere's "Tartuffe" into the " Dr. Wolf" of his once
popular comedy, " The Nonjuror," though doubtless a
libel and a caricature on the class, could scarcely have
won the applause of crowded theatres if it had not been
felt that it bore, in some cases, only too close a resem-
blance to the original.' l But those who have closely
studied the mind of the period, and have therefore realised
the frantic alarm and dislike which 'the Pretender' and
all who were in any way connected with his cause aroused,
will own that crowds would be quite ready to applaud
anything derogatory to them without stopping to inquire
whether it was true or not.
Enough, it is hoped, has now been said in this general
survey of the subject to enable the reader to enter into
the details which will be given in the following chapters.
1 Plumptre's Life of Bislwp Ken, ii. 75.
23
CHAPTEK II
THE DEPRIVED FATHEES
THOSE who were fondly called 'the deprived Fathers/
that is, those prelates who declined to take the oath of
allegiance to William and Mary in 1689, stand on quite a
different footing from the rest of the Nonjurors. It was
not that they were more able and learned than the rest ;
on the contrary, others will come hefore us who stood
far above any of them in point of literary achievements.
Nor was it that they suffered more ; others gave up their
all for conscience' sake, and they could not do more. But
they were the * fathers ' of the family, and that in more
senses than one; they were, in the first instance, the
only members of it who belonged to the highest order of
the ministry; and therefore it depended upon them
alone to keep up the succession of the episcopate, and to
supply the gaps which in the course of nature would
occur in the thin ranks of the clergy. It was to them that
the others looked up for guidance and counsel ; they set
the example, and the rest followed. Moreover, five out
of the eight had been among the immortal seven who
had gone to prison rather than execute the illegal orders
of King James, the aim of which, according to general
belief, was ' to bring in Popery and Arbitrary Power ' ; and
as the Nonjurors were freely charged with desiring to
bring in both it was a comfort and satisfaction to them
to be able to point to the conduct of their ' fathers ' on
that memorable occasion in disproof of the charge. The
24 THE NONJUROES
immense popularity which the bishops had then deservedly
gained was now a help to the Nonjuring cause. It was
no wonder, therefore, that the deprived Fathers were
regarded with a reverence and possessed an authority
which from the nature of the case could belong to none
besides ; and for these reasons, and also because things
will have to be said about them which apply to no
others, they require a separate treatment.
The. names of these prelates were William Bancroft,
Archbishop of Canterbury ; Francis Turner, Bishop of
Ely ; John Lake, Bishop of Chichester ; William Thomas,
Bishop of Worcester ; Thomas White, Bishop of Peter-
borough ; Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells ;
William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich ; Robert Frampton,
Bishop of Gloucester ; and (with a serious qualification)
Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester. Of these, San-
croft, Turner, Lake, White, and Ken had been among
those who were imprisoned in the Tower in June 1688.
Lloyd would also have been among the number had not
the letter inviting him to London to take part in pre-
senting the petition to King James miscarried by accident,
or been intercepted ; so also would Frampton, who was
actually hurrying on his way to join in the presentation,
but did not arrive in time ; l and these two were always
recognised by the rest as having been, if not actually, yet
* in full preparation of mind,' as themselves. 2 Cartwright
stands in quite a different category from the rest. He
died, indeed, in 1689 ; but if he had lived to be deprived,
it would have been because he could not have avoided it ;
he had been so complete a tool of King James that he
could never have been accepted by the Revolution Govern-
ment, and his character and antecedents were such that
1 See Life of Frampton, pp. 151-3.
2 See Plumptre's Life of Bishop Ken, ii. 68.
THE DEPEIVED FATHERS 25
he would never have been accepted by the Nonjurors,
who regarded the whole question at least as much from
a religious as from a political point of view. William
Thomas also and John Lake died before the sentence of
deprivation was carried out, the former in June, the latter
in August 1689 ; but these were men of a very different
type from Cartwright, and were gladly recognised by the
Nonjurors as confessors for their cause, to which they
were an honour when living, and which they strengthened
by the testimony they bore to it when they were dying.
As a matter of fact, then, there were only five who
were actually deprived; but Thomas and Lake were
always included in their numbers, and what will be said
of the other five will also apply to them. It was observed
as a good omen that they were still the sacred number
seven, ' the Bishop of Norwich, a man well-skilled in our
laws, and the Bishop of Gloucester making up the
number in the room of the bishops that fell from their
principle, being able to suffer imprisonment only, but not
the loss of all things.' l The two defaulters were William
Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, and Sir Jonathan Trelawney,
Bishop of Bristol ; and, with these two exceptions, the
bishops who effectually resisted King James in the time
of his power were the very same men who stood by him
in his adversity, suffering, for the first, imprisonment,
and for the second the loss of all their worldly goods and
prospects. And, so far from there being any incon-
sistency between their conduct on the one occasion and
on the other, it was exactly the same principle which
actuated them on both, and exactly the same moral
courage and supreme reverence for conscience on both
which enabled them to carry that principle into action.
The curious result, however, was that the men who
1 Life of Bishop Frampton, pp. 184-5.
26 THE NONJUKORS
were in a very real sense largely instrumental in bringing
about the Revolution were the first to suffer from it. 1
The trial of the seven bishops was the proximate cause
of the invitation to William of Orange to ' come over and
deliver the English nation from Popery and Arbitrary
Power ; ' the subsequent refusal of the bishops to comply
with King James's command to them to draw up a paper
expressing their abhorrence of the Prince's invasion
prevented a serious hindrance to the success of the
Prince's design ; 2 for the bishops were then so popular
that a declaration on their part would have weighed
enormously with the general public. But such a declara-
tion they could not conscientiously make, for they felt
as much as any the need of intervention. Thus they
rendered very material assistance to the Eevolution ; and
the reward which they received for their services was the
despoiling of their goods and the absolute ruin of all their
worldly prospects.
It may be urged that the Eevolution Government
could not help itself, for no government can subsist
which does not enforce its own laws. But was it wise,
was it necessary, to make a new law requiring the clergy
who held any office to take the oaths afresh ? It had
never been required before on the accession of a new
sovereign ; and if it be said that the doubtfulness of the
new sovereign's tenure rendered what was unnecessary
before necessary now, the argument on the other side is
surely far more weighty. Was it a time to drive very
1 Bishop Vowler Short brings this point out very well. See his History
of the Church of England, 803.
2 There is a most interesting paper among the Eawlinson MSS. (D 836)
written, no doubt, by Bishop Turner, in which he defends at length the
' non-swearing Prelates' ' conduct in the matter of 'the Abhorrence.' The
Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, 1687-90 (pp. 495-502), also gives some
vivid and interesting details.
THE DBPEIVED FATHEKS 27
valuable and influential men into a corner ? Was it not
emphatically a time to be conciliatory, to put no needless
strain upon men whose past conduct showed, on the one
hand, that they would never do anything to bring in
popery and arbitrary power, and, on the other, that their
consciences would be extremely sensitive as to the
sanctity of an oath ?
It is, however, as ecclesiastics, not as politicians, that
the deprived Fathers appeal to our sympathies. Many
will think though the thought would be quite foreign ta
the feeling of the seventeenth century that the less they
interfered with politics the better. For, truth to tell, their
political wisdom does not appear to have been remarkable.
They were all for a Regency. But was it reasonable to
suppose that a keen and ambitious statesman and soldier,
like William of Orange, would come over with an armed
force to ' deliver ' a country which he never loved, and
then go back again ? Or, that he would ever be content
with the strange position of having a roi faineant in the
background in other words, with doing all the work and
incurring all the responsibility, while another held the
honour ?
But when we pass from what was called in the
language of the time ' the State point ' to ' the Church
point,' the case is quite different. The bishops were here
on their proper ground, and it was hard to dislodge them
from it by argument. This seems to have been clearly
perceived by the new Government, which showed con-
siderable forbearance, and made various attempts ta
conciliate the recalcitrants. The sees were kept vacant
for some time in order that the late Nonjuring holders
might be won over. At length a conspiracy against the
Government was detected, or, as some think, fabricated,
in which the Nonjuring bishops were suspected of being
28 THE NONJUEORS
concerned, and this, as William's chief ecclesiastical
adviser naively puts it, ' gave the King a great advantage
in filling up these vacant sees. 5 1 But he met with some
rebuffs. Dr. Sharp, then Dean of St. Paul's, previously
Dean of Norwich, a man very generally respected,
had the choice of two or three bishoprics offered to him :
Norwich, which was thought would be most acceptable to him
on account of the friendships he had in that city, was pressed
upon him by Tillotson. But he waived all these offers on
account of the dispossessed bishops being yet alive ; in regard
to Norwich, he declared that, having lived in great friendship
with its Bishop, he could not think of taking his place.
Indeed, he asserted roundly that it was ' quite impossible
for him to build his rise upon the ruins of any one of
the Fathers of the Church, who, for piety, good morals,
and strictness of life, had left no equal.' And we are not
surprised to learn that * the King was not a little dis-
gusted at his peremptory refusal of these preferments.' 2
Dr. South acted in the same way as Dr. Sharp, and is
said to have used exactly the same words. 3 William
Beveridge, perhaps the most highly esteemed and
energetic clergyman then living, followed his example,
and refused to take Bishop Ken's place at Bath and
W'ells. John Scott, one of the best devotional writers of
the day, refused the bishopric of Chester and other posts.
Tillotson himself was most reluctant to go to Canter-
bury. And can we wonder at it ? The men whose posts
they were to occupy were loyal Churchmen, of blame-
less, indeed exemplary character, men whose courage
and consistency had helped to save the Church of England
in a crisis of her fate ; they were deprived by no Church
1 Burnet's History of My Own Time.
2 See Life of John Sharp, by his Son, pp. 108-9. Also Dean Luckock's
Bishops in the Tower, p. 199.
8 Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Robert South, prefixed to his Posthumous
Works (vol. vii. of Sermons), p. 115.
THE DEPEIVED FATHERS 29
authority, but simply by an Act of Parliament ; and
through the same civil power their successors were to be
appointed. It looked very like reducing the Church to a
mere appanage of the State.
Of course the Nonjuring clergy regarded the deprived
prelates as still being their spiritual fathers, and urged
them to continue to exercise their episcopal functions by
ordaining clergy and consecrating bishops to keep up the
succession. The latter wish involved a very serious
question which must be discussed a little further. They
consented to it, but were by no means unanimous. Bishop
Ken disliked it extremely, though at last he reluctantly
yielded. Bishop Frampton held quite aloof. Archbishop
Sancroft sanctioned the measure, and, indeed, nominated
the first new bishop, but he died before the consecrations
actually took place. The matter, therefore, was left in
the hands of Bishops Lloyd, Turner and White, who, on
St. Matthias' Day, 1693-4, clandestinely consecrated in
the house of Mr. Gifford, of Southgate, where White
lodged, George Hickes to be Suffragan Bishop of Thetford,
and Thomas Wagstaffe, of Ipswich. A fuller account of
the matter will come in more appropriately in the next
chapter. But so far as the * deprived Fathers ' were con-
cerned, it must be noted that the greatest care was taken
that everything should be done regularly, and that a door
should be left open for a reunion with * the Establish-
ment ' when a favourable opportunity occurred. Lloyd
to whom Sancroft had delegated his archiepiscopal
powers, and who must henceforth be regarded as the
head of the Nonjuring communion was careful that both
the new bishops should be connected with the diocese,
of which he still considered himself, and was considered
by his brethren, the lawful incumbent ; they were allowed
to exercise no episcopal functions ; they had no districts
30 THE NONJUEOES
assigned to them, Thetford and Ipswich being merely
their titles ; indeed, they had not even the titles of bishops
ordinarily assigned to them ; they were consecrated simply
to prevent the succession from being broken.
But, in spite of all these precautions, the deprived
Fathers have been very generally and severely blamed by
Churchmen for their action in this matter. And it is not
surprising that they should have been ; for, granted that
the separation had already taken place, the new consecra-
tions certainly tended to exasperate it, and to render the
possibility of a reunion a consummation devoutly to be
wished for by all good Churchmen much more remote.
It was an act to which they should only have had recourse
in the last resort, and have postponed to the latest possible
moment ; and they can hardly be acquitted of the charge
of acting too hastily in a matter of such grave moment.
It was quite different from an ordination ; as they were
still bishops of the Catholic Church, they were justified in
continuing to ordain; and there were amply sufficient
bishops still living to ordain the few who were likely to
seek ordination at their hands ; indeed, as a matter of
fact, it was not until nearly twenty years later that the
last of the deprived Fathers died.
At the same time, the question is a more difficult and
complicated one than is commonly supposed; and we
should not be in too great a hurry to condemn men who
had done so much and suffered so much for the Church
of England, to which, according to their lights, they were
assuredly loyal to the backbone. There is no doubt that
great pressure was put upon them, and touching appeals
made to them. They were placed in a most awkward
predicament. They were generous-minded men, and they
might well shrink from even the appearance of meanness
in leading their flocks into a most difficult position, and
WILLIAM SANCEOFT 31
then leaving them in the lurch. The Nonjurors, both
clergy and laity, might urge with some force : You
have taught us, both by example and precept, that the
true Church of England lies in our little remnant ;
that we are bound to adhere to it, at the expense not
only of our worldly advancement, but of our practical
usefulness ; and now, having led us into the wilderness,
are you going to leave us there, without making any pro-
vision which you alone can supply, of chief pastors to
guide us, and indeed to continue our existence as a part
of the Church Catholic when you are dead and gone ?
The story of those fathers who belonged to the famous
Seven has been told over and over again, and that in
works which are both accessible and popular. 1 It will
suffice, then, to limit the present account chiefly to that
part of their history which is connected with the Non-
juring episode.
William Bancroft (1617-93) claims, of course, the
first notice ; not only because he was the highest in
position, but because personally, more than any other,
he gave, so to speak, the keynote to the rest. Sancroft,
though no great writer, was essentially a bookish man,
more at home in his library than in the conduct of affairs.
This may, perhaps, give the clue to some apparent in-
consistencies in his later conduct. Had he consulted his
own inclination, he would probably have been happier as
Master of Emmanuel than as Archbishop of Canterbury.
As circumstances, however, had placed him, through no
seeking of his own, in that exalted position, where he
1 See Dean Luckock's Tlie Bisliops in the Tower ; Miss A. Strickland's
Lives of the Seven Bishops ; Macaulay's History of England ; Buckle's
History of Civilisation ; and the Lives of the individual bishops, such as
D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft; Lives of Bishop Ken, by Hawkins, Plumptre,
' A Layman,' and Bowles ; the Life of Bishop Frampton, by a contemporary,
edited by Mr. Simpson Evans, &c.
32 THE NONJUEOES
was necessarily plunged into the vortex of public life, he
carried out his principles unflinchingly ; but he gladly took
the opportunity of seeking his beloved retirement when-
ever he could do so without, in his opinion, violating any
of those principles. There can be no doubt what his
principles were : he was an English Churchman to the
backbone a High Churchman in the spiritual rather
than in the political sense of the term. He had been
trained in the school of the Caroline divines, and was so
great an admirer of Laud that is, of Laud the Church-
man, not Laud the statesman that it was the cherished
project of his life to give to the world the famous ' Diary.' l
His constant immersion in business never gave him time
to carry out his project ; but he enjoined it as an almost
sacred duty upon his chaplain, Henry Wharton, by whom
it was completed and edited after his death. Even of
Laud the Churchman it was the co?istructive rather than
the destructive work which he admired ; for he showed a
tenderness towards Dissenters which was not at all in the
Laudiaii vein, arid there was a marked change of policy
on the side of leniency towards them when Bancroft
succeeded Sheldon in the Primacy. He also projected a
scheme of Comprehension, of the details of which one
would have liked to have known more ; for a scheme
drawn up by a man of Bancroft's principles would never
have compromised the Church as some such schemes did ;
while his obviously kind feelings towards Dissenters would
have led him to go as far as a consistent Churchman
could. He was brought into intimate relations with that
stoutest of stout Churchmen, John Cosin, whom he aided,
pecuniarily and otherwise, in the time of * the troubles.'
Cosin amply repaid the obligation after the Restoration,
bringing Bancroft into his diocese, making him his
1 He spent his last days in preparing Memorials of Archbishop Laud.
WILLIAM SANCKOFT 33
domestic chaplain, giving him a rich living and a prebend
in Durham, and being ready also to provide him with a
good wife. The latter favour Sancroft declined, as he was
not a marrying man. No one could well be an intimate
friend of Cosin without being strengthened in his Church-
manship ; and Bancroft's was no doubt strengthened by
his two years' sojourn (1661-63) in the diocese of
Durham. But long before that time he had shown the
firmness of his Church principles by refusing to take
' the Engagement/ and in consequence losing his fellow-
ship at Emmanuel in 1651, and by writing two works
which must have been unacceptable to the ruling powers.
After the Restoration his rise was rapid. In 1662 he was
elected Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge a re-
markable instance of the estimation in which he was held
personally ; for the electors were more or less Puritans,
and therefore their ecclesiastical sympathies would not
be with Sancroft. In the early part of 1664 he became
Dean of York, and at the close of the same year Dean of
St. Paul's ; and then, in 1678, he rose at a bound to the
Primacy, to the surprise and annoyance of some over
whose heads he passed. He left his mark, in the literal
as well as the figurative sense of the term, in all these
places : the building of the College chapel of Emmanuel
was commenced in his mastership, and he subscribed
largely to it ; during his short stay at York he expended
two hundred pounds more on the fabric than the whole
income he received ; at St. Paul's he rebuilt the deanery,
and was'the very life and soul of the project for rebuilding
the Cathedral after the Great Fire of 1666, and to this
fund also he subscribed largely. It seemed necessary to
dwell on these points because he has been accused of
avarice. In the Revolution crisis he was very prominent.
It was Sancroft who drew up the petition to King James
D
34 THE NONJUEOES
respecting the Declaration of Indulgence ; Sancroft who
first propounded the Regency scheme ; Sancroft who set
the example of declining the oath of allegiance to William
and Mary ; Sancroft who, in a sense, established the Non-
juring communion ; Sancroft who was mainly responsible
for continuing the succession of the Nonjuring episcopate.
Such a man would be sure to make strong friends and
strong enemies. But there can be no doubt that he was
looked up to by his contemporaries to an extent which his
high position is by no means sufficient to account for.
Bishop Turner, of Ely, wrote to him in his own name and
that of his brother prelates, January 11, 1688-9, asking
him to ' draw up propositions of our doctrine against
deposing, electing, or breaking the succession.' 'This
scheme,' he says, ' we humbly and earnestly beg of your
Grace to form and put in order for us. Without com-
pliment, your Grace is better versed than all of us put
together in those repositories of canons and statutes
whence these propositions should be taken.' 1 Bishop
Nicolson, a man of a very different type and very different
opinions, wrote a letter to a clergyman on May 15, 1689,
persuading him to conform to the new regime. He
answers three objections, and one of them is the weight
of Archbishop Sancroft's example, which he evidently
thinks a very grave one. 2 Bishop Burnet, on the other
hand, bears very hardly upon Sancroft in his ' History of
My Own Time ; ' but Burnet's allegations are indignantly
denied by men of very varied opinions, such as Swift,
South, Granger, Salmon, and Lord Dartmouth, while
Dryden's panegyric of him, under the name of Zadok, is
classical. 3
1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 420.
2 Bishop Nicolson's Epistolary Correspondence, ii. 9.
8 See Miss Strickland's Lives of the Seven Bishops, p. 102 ; Swift's Ode
to Archbishop Sancroft's Memory, Lord Dartmouth's Notes on Burnet }
WILLIAM SANCEOFT 35
At the crisis of the Revolution the infirmities of age
were beginning to tell upon Bancroft, and his old love of
retirement and learned leisure was returning to him with
redoubled force. This may serve to explain several
passages in his conduct. For instance, one can perfectly
well understand why, as a sound Churchman, he refused
to act on the High Commission, which the infatuated
James revived in 1687, setting a layman, and so objection-
able a layman as Judge Jeffreys, at its head ; but it would
surely have been better to say boldly that he objected to
act because it was illegal, irregular, and contrary to all
sound Churchmanship, instead of pleading, as he did, age
and infirmities as the cause of his refusal. James naturally
replied that the same cause must prevent him from
appearing at Court or in Council ; and accordingly on more
than one occasion when his presence would have been
most desirable he did not appear. Again, no one can be
surprised at his refusal to crown William and Mary, or to
consecrate Burnet to the bishopric of Salisbury ; but it
did seem a strange ignoring of the dictum, ' Qui facit
per alium, facit per se,' when he issued a Commission
empowering the Bishop of London and any three
suffragans of his province to act in his name, and do
what he could not conscientiously do himself. It seemed
also a strange course, considering the prominent part
.he had taken, to retire entirely from public affairs after
the memorable meeting of the Peers at the Guildhall
in the spring of 1689. At that meeting Sancroft and
the other bishops signed a declaration to the Prince
of Orange, asking him to call a Free Parliament, and
binding themselves to assist him in rescuing the nation
iii. 102; Granger's Biographical History of England, iii. 102; N.
Salmon's Lives of the English Bishops from the Restoration to the Revo-
lution ; Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.
D 2
36 THE NONJUROES
from its dangers and disorders. This was the last public
measure in which Sancroft bore any part. 1 In vain Lord
Clarendon, among others, entreated him to attend, at any
rate, one meeting of the Convention Parliament. 2 His
presence, of course, was urgently needed, because it was
there that his own scheme of a Regency, which was all
but carried in the House of Peers, 3 was discussed. One
can understand his objection to the Lower House, as not
possessing the proper legal qualification of a parliamentary
assembly, but this would surely not apply to the Upper
Chamber.
Again, it was at least a doubtful proceeding on his
part obstinately to decline to leave Lambeth until he
was forcibly ejected ; if he so acted because he thought
himself bound to cling to the ship to the last, in the
hope that a crash might still be avoided, it showed a
strange lack of judgment considering the pass to which
matters had come ; if he did it to create as much trouble
to the Government as possible, it was not a very digni-
fied course to take.
And, finally, it showed an extraordinary lack of dis-
crimination on his part to publish in the interest of the
N on jurors ' Overall's Convocation Book,' that is, the
account drawn up by Bishop Overall of the Canons
promulged in 1606, which really tended quite the other
way. It is a curious thing that in the voluminous con-
troversy which this publication evoked, no stress appears
to have been laid upon one significant fact. The very
reason why the ' Book ' had so long been in abeyance
was that King James L, who, in spite of all his absur-
dities, had a remarkably clear and shrewd head, forbade
1 See D'Oyly's Life of Bancroft, i. 395-6.
* See Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, p. 247.
8 See Burnet's History of My Own Time, ii. 526-7.
WILLIAM SANCKOFT 37
its publication because one of its Canons (the XXVIIth)
decreed that a king de facto who was not de jure might be
accepted. Why, that was one of the principles for which
the Jurors contended and which the iVcwjurors denied !
And so the arch-Nonjuror, Bancroft, was really putting a
weapon into his opponents' hands. One, at least, of the
ablest of the Non jurors, William Sherlock, who was pro-
bably casting about for some decent pretext for changing
sides, seized it at once, and used it with great force. 1
But Bancroft, in spite of some weaknesses, was not
only a good and conscientious, but also an able and
learned man. His words on his deathbed, ' What I have
done I have done in the integrity of my heart, indeed, in
the great integrity of my heart,' were, I believe, applic-
able to all his conduct, strange as that conduct sometimes
was. The Nonjurors, as a body, always regarded him as
the chief bulwark of their cause ; and men do not often
make mistakes about matters in which de vita et san-
guine agitur ; they know who are their best and strongest
friends. 2 The touching words on his tomb at Fressing-
field (his native place whither he retired to die), which
-are of his own framing, tell the true tale of his life :
William Bancroft, borne in this parish, afterwards by the
same Providence of God, Archbishop of Canterbury, and at last
deprived of all that he could not keep with a good conscience,
returned hither to end his life where he began it, and professeth
here at the foot of his tomb that as he naked came forth, so he
naked must return. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh
away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.
1 Among the Eawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library is an able letter
from Sherlock to Bancroft on the subject.
2 See, inter alia, the touching and eloquent Letter out of Suffolk to a
Friend in London, giving some Account of the last Sickness and Death of
Dr. William Bancroft, late Archbishop of Canterbury. It was published
anonymously, but the writer was undoubtedly Thomas Wagstaffe, the
lder. See infra, p. 117.
38 THE NONJUKOES
Whither his thoughts turned at the last may be
gathered from these two petitions which he put up less
than an hour before death :
(1) That God would Bless and Preserve this poor
Suffering Church which by this Revolution is almost
destroyed ;
(2) That He would Bless and Preserve the King,
Queen, and Prince ; and in His due time to restore them
to their just and undoubted rights.
He died at Fressingfield in November 1693, and was
buried in Fressingfield churchyard.
At the very beginning of the separation Bancroft
delegated his archiepiscopal authority to the deprived
Bishop of Norwich (Dr. Lloyd), who was thus from the
first the real head of the Nonjurors.
William Lloyd (1637-1710) was a Welshman by
birth and education, being born at Bala, in Merioneth-
shire, and educated at Euthin School, until his admission
as a sizar at St. John's College, Cambridge, in February
1654-5. He had a varied experience in the Ministry.
He first served as chaplain to the English Merchants*
Factory in Portugal ; he was then made vicar of Batter-
sea, then chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Clifford, then
(1672) Prebendary of St. Paul's, then (1676) Bishop of
Llandaff, then (1679) Bishop of Peterborough, and finally
(1685) Bishop of Norwich. There is no evidence, so far
as I am aware, to show that he was inefficient in any of
these capacities. On the contrary he had the reputation
of being an excellent preacher, and is said to have owed
his early elevation to the Bench to this reputation ; he
was certainly an active and efficient bishop, and his loss
was especially lamented at Llandaff, when he was trans-
lated to Peterborough. During the short time of his in-
cumbency of Norwich before the Eevolution (1685-8),
WILLIAM LLOYD 39
he won the confidence and affection of the diocese in a
very remarkable degree. One who knew the circum-
stances well, and lived only in the next generation, affirms
that ' in him the diocese was deprived [when he became a
Nonjuror] of a very able and worthy pastor, a man of
great integrity and piety, who thoroughly understood all
the parts and duties of his function, and had a mind
fully bent to put them all in execution for the honour of
God and good of the Church on all occasions.' 1 The
friendship of the dean (Dr. Sharp) has been already
noticed ; on account of that friendship Sharp absolutely
refused to succeed him, and gladly joined in a petition
that some way might be found for retaining his services.
The petition was proposed by Luke Milbourne, the
younger, who was then a beneficed clergyman in the
diocese, and was a very different type of man from Lloyd.
Mr. Milbourne has written a most vivid account of the
affair, beginning : * At a numerous meeting of the clergy
I proposed that we should join in a petition to the
Government, that the rigour of the depriving Act might
be mitigated, and our Bishop might be permitted to live
and exercise his Episcopal function among us. To this
all subscribed very freely.' 2 It should be added that
Mr. Milbourne himself never became a Nonjuror, but
accepted afterwards more than one piece of preferment in
the * Revolution Church.'
Another instance of the confidence which his diocese
had in the Bishop of Norwich appears in an Appendix to
the contemporary Life of Kettlewell. It is in the form
of a 'Letter from the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of
1 Life of Dr. Humphry Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, published in 1748,
p. 73. '
2 See A Legacy to the Church of England, Vindicating her Orders from
Hi* Objections of Papists and Dissenters, ii. 341.
40 THE NONJUKOES
Sudbury, lying under suspension, to their Diocesan,
William, Bishop of Norwich,' and runs thus :
We, your Lordship's Curates, neighbours to Dr. Bisby, 1 lying
under suspension, and (which is worse) very hard censures from
most we converse withal, and finding the time of our depriva-
tion to be near at hand, do take the boldness by him to beg
your Lordship's Blessing, and withal earnestly to crave your
Lordship's direction. For though we can think of nothing but
losing all, yet we are passionately desirous to be instructed how
we shall leave our respective cures, whether voluntarily, or stay
till particular Intruders thrust us out by pretext of law: As
also, which way to behave ourselves, to preserve (if possible)
the old Church of England. We believe your Lordship thinks,
and we are bold to say, you shall find us dutiful in anything
you command or enjoin, as you shall think will serve for the
interest of the Church.
Then follow nine signatures and the names of their cures. 2
There were more Nonjurors in the diocese of Norwich
than in any other diocese except London ; 3 and the reason
seems to be simply the influence of its bishop, and the
respect which he had inspired.
It was a great disappointment to Bishop Lloyd that
he was prevented from being a Confessor for the Church
of England by joining in the Petition to King James II.
which led to the imprisonment of the seven bishops in
the Tower. He visited them in prison, took an active
part in helping them to prepare their defence, and in
fact so identified himself with their cause, that he was
warned that 'he might yet keep company with them.'
The two with whom he was most associated were
Bancroft and Ken. The biographer of the former tells
us that ' William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was a person
1 For an account of Dr. Bisby or Bisbie, see infra, pp. 224-6.
2 See Kettlewell's Compleat Works, with Life, i. Appendix, No. 2.
8 Unless, indeed, we count the Nonjurors resident at the two Universities
as belonging to the dioceses of Oxford and Ely respectively ; but they seem
to me to belong to a different category.
WILLIAM LLOYD 41
in whose wisdom and integrity Archbishop Bancroft
placed the greatest confidence.' l Lloyd influenced the
archbishop quite as much as the archbishop influenced
him. Sancroft was the more learned, but Lloyd was
the stronger character of the two. With Ken he was
associated in 1685 in a laudable effort to ' bring about a
greater vigilance in the admission of candidates to holy
orders ; ' 2 and the correspondence between the two old
friends, though, alas ! for one short period rather un-
friendly, is most interesting and voluminous.
In the Eevolution crisis Bishop Lloyd identified himself
heart and soul with the Nonjurors. We find him visiting
the Nonjuring Bishop of Chichester (Dr. Lake), on his
deathbed in 1689, and after he had read Lake's famous
' Profession,' desiring the Dean of Worcester (Dr. Hickes)
'to carry it with him to Lambeth.' 3 He joined with
the other prelates in indignantly repudiating any share
in producing ' The Jacobite Liturgy,' which created so
great a sensation in 1690 ; but his known principles made
him suspected ; and in the riots which broke out against
the Jacobites after the defeat of the English and Dutch
fleets by the French off Beachy Head just before the
battle of the Boyne, his London house in Old Street was
attacked by the mob, and he himself with his wife and
child obliged to take refuge in the Temple. 4
Sancroft had so high an opinion of Lloyd that in a
formal document, dated February 9, 1691 -2, ' from my
poor cottage (which is not yet made a sufficient covering
for me in this sharp winter) here in Fressingfield, at this
1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 269, note. See also Life of Ken, by a
Layman, pp. 586-7.
2 Mr. Abbey's English Church and its Bishops, i. 169.
3 See History of the College of S. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, by
T. Baker, edited by J. E. B. Mayor, part ii. p. 687.
4 See Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 66.
42 THE NONJUEORS
time indeed very hard frozen, 1 situate within the bounds
of your diocese,' he delegated to him all his archiepiscopal
powers. 2
Kettle well's first biographer says that Sancroft selected
Lloyd, as being his eldest suffragan. But this was only be-
1 This is, of course, a play upon words, which Sancroft, after the fashion
of Bishop Andrewes and those of that date, was fond of making.
2 The delegation runs : ' Wilhelmus, Providentia Diving Ecclesias Metrop.
Cant, humilis minister, reverendo admodum in Christo patri, et fratri in
Domino charissimo, Gulielmo, eadem Providentia etiamnum Nordovicensi
Episcopo, salutem et fraternam in Domino charitatem : Cum ego nuper ex
aedibus Lambhithianis vi laica pulsus, et non inveniens in urbe vicina ubi
tuto possem, aut commode commorari, procul secesserim, quserens ubi
fessus senio requiescerem, multa autem jam turn remanserint, et emergent
quotidie plura, eaque momenti maximi, Dei scilicet et Ecclesiaa negotia,
nullibi ita commode atque expedite ac in magno illo rerum gerundarum
theatro transingenda ; tibi igitur, frater dilectissime, qui pro ea qua polles
animi fortitudine, et pio, quo flagras, zelo domus Dei, adhuc in suburbis
Londinensibus (palantibus undique cseteris) moraris et permanes, adeo ut
neminem illuc habeam ita KTO^VXOV, quique ita yin\<ri<as rerum mearum et
ecclesiae satagat, tibi, inquam, ad hssc omnia pensitanda, et finaliter ex-
pedienda, hoc quicquid est muneris mei et pontificii, fretus prudentia tua et
solita in rebus gerendis solertia, committo in Domino, teque Vicarium
meum ad prsemissa rerumque mearum et negotiorum actorem, factorem et
nuntium generalem, vigore harum literarum eligo, facio et constituo. . . .
Dicam summari& et de piano, quoscunque tu, frater, prout res et occasio
tulerit, assumpseris et adjunxeris tibi, elegeris et approbaveris, confirma-
veris et constitueris, Ego quoque (quantum in me est et de jure possum)
assume pariter et adjungo, eligo et approbo, confirmo et constituo. Uno
verbo, quicquid in istius modi negotiis feceris ipse aut faciendum duxeris,
id omne quantum et qualecunque illud fuerit, mihi audenter imputa. Ecce
Ego Wilhelmus manu mea scripsi. Ego praestabo non solum ratum sed et.
gratum insuper habiturus. Splendor autem Domini Dei nostri sit super te,
frater, et opera manuum tuarum dirigat et confirmed Quin et eripiat te,
fratresque nostros omnes ex ore leonis, et de manu canis, et a cornibus
unicornium exaudiat vos. Mactetque denique et cumulet omni benedic-
tione spirituali in ceelestibus in Christo Jesu.
Datum e proprio conducto (quod enim mihi molior tugurium super-
veniente acri hyeme nondum exsedificatum est) hie in campo gelido, nunc
etiam profunde gelato, sito intra tuae dioeceseos pomaria, nono die
February, Anno Domini, 1691.
W. CANT.
Actum in pra3senti& mea, W. Sancroft, jun., Notarii publici.
There is also an English copy, and it is not quite clear whether the
English was a translation of the Latin or the Latin of the English.
Sancroft probably wrote both.
WILLIAM LLOYD 43
cause Lloyd attained a bishopric at an unusually early age.
In point of years, Lloyd was one of the youngest, if not
the youngest, of all the ' invalidly deprived Fathers.' The
real reason was rather that Sancroft thought Lloyd the
man best fitted for the post. He dwells on his fortitude
of mind and his pious zeal, as shown in his dwelling
near the centre, London, where he would be most
accessible, but at the same time most in danger, and to
his activity in business. Lloyd seems to me to have
fully justified Sancroft's choice. He was placed in a
very trying situation as head of a shadowy episcopate,
with which, however, a great number of both clergy and
laity were in their heart of hearts in sympathy ; or at any
rate, for whom, in the euphemistic language of a con-
temporary, they ' had a reserved kindness.' An injudicious,
hot-headed man might, under such circumstances, have
created endless disorder and trouble, especially if he were,
like Bishop Lloyd, a Nonjuror of the extreme type and
an ardent Jacobite to boot ; but Lloyd managed his flock
with great firmness and judgment; and both the Esta-
blished Church and the civil Government had reason to be
grateful to him if they had only known it. Indeed, some
who threw in their lot entirely with the new Government
did know it. Dr. White Kennett, for instance, who will
hardly be suspected of partiality for a pronounced Non-
juror, bears this remarkable testimony to Lloyd's good
management of his delicate task :
The -character given of him by his Metropolitan is above any
other that can be given. And the trust which he reposed in
him is certainly so great, as nothing possibly could be greater.
Whether one or the other were in the right, either he in giving
or this in accepting, is not the question. How likewise he dis-
charged the high trust committed to him, and with what pru-
dence and piety he transacted matters relating to it, so as not
to give thereby any umbrage to the Government, or as little as
44 THE NONJUEOES
possible, will be proper for an Ecclesiastical Historian of those
times to explain distinctly. 1
And Dr. D'Oyly, who strongly disapproves of Lloyd's
action in the matter of the new consecrations, also testifies
to his prudence and caution. 2
The men with whom Lloyd was bound to come into
collision were the moderate Nonjurors, and he did come
into a temporary collision with one of the very best of
them Bishop Ken. Ken never approved of the commis-
sion given by Bancroft to Lloyd, and protested against it.
Lloyd indeed writes (May 9, 1691), ' I have been able to
silence the phancifull objections of my brother.' But San-
croft seems still doubtful, and replies, * I am glad if our good
Brother is satisfied concerning his former objection against
my Commission.' 3 Ken probably saw, what anyone who
reads between the lines can see, that the commission
extended, by implication, to making new consecrations of
bishops, to which he strongly objected ; and Lloyd must
have felt in honour bound, by his acceptance of the com-
mission, to join in making them, if required. However,
the matter was tided over ; and Ken and Lloyd were in
amicable and frequent correspondence until the close of
1703, when the question of Ken's cession of his diocese to
Hooper arose. Then there was a sharp contention between .
the two good men, which almost reminds one of the sharp
contention between St. Paul and St. Barnabas. They
really were at cross-purposes. Ken only thought of keeping
the depositum of the faith safe, and he was sure that this
would be done by the like-minded Hooper. Lloyd quite
agreed with Ken in his high opinion of Hooper, and
expressed it strongly both before and during the dispute.
1 Quoted in Brydges' Restitute,, i. 577.
2 See D'Oyly's Life of Bancroft, ii. 32.
3 Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 76-7.
WILLIAM LLOYD 45
But that was not the point ; a man may be an excellent
man, and yet have no right to occupy a post to which he
is not lawfully appointed ; and that was just what Lloyd
thought with regard to Hooper. Ken suspected that Lloyd
was drawing back from the views which he had expressed,
through fear of his Jacobite friends. But Lloyd seems to
me to explain his conduct quite clearly and satisfactorily.
If those who appointed Hooper had the right to appoint
him, he would warmly have welcomed the appointment of
so good a Churchman and so good a man. But one of the
very raisons d'etre of the Nonjurors was that the intru-
ders into sees not canonically vacant, not being them-
selves lawful bishops, were not the persons to consecrate
others.
Bishop Lloyd lived for nearly twenty years of his life
at Hammersmith, then a suburb, though not a very distant
suburb, of London. There * he governed his Church with
piety, candour, and zeal, of which many instances might
be produced, handed down to us by the clergy of his
different dioceses.' L In his later years he held a position
among the Nonjurors which from the nature of the case
was unique. All but three of the 'invalidly deprived
Fathers ' had passed away. Two of the three, Ken and
Frampton, had virtually ceased to be members of the
Nonjuring community, though they never actually took
the oaths. Lloyd alone was left, and he was evidently
regarded with a reverence to which no one else could
aspire. .Men went to see him, as on a pilgrimage, to ask
his blessing. He died on New Year's Day, 1710, and the
event is thus noted by the learned Thomas Smith in a
letter to Hearne :
The same day my misfortune befell mee [he had had a bad
1 Lives of the English Bishops from the Restoration to the Revolution*
by N. Salmon, 1733 ; sub nomine Lloyd, William.
46 THE NONJUEOES
fall] dyed the truly venerable Bp. Lloyd of Norwich : a very
wise man and an undaunted Confessor of this depressed and
afflicted Church ; upon whose life rolles Mr. Dodwell's odd
hypothesis in his * Case in View.' 1 What will be the con-
sequences of it, time only must shew. I went to Hammer-
smithe on H. Innocents' Day to receive this good Bps last bless-
ing: and it added to my paine new degrees of trouble that
I could not attend upon him to his grave. 2
The learned Thomas Baker, who occupied somewhat
the same position at Cambridge that Thomas Smith did
at Oxford, writes also in terms of the highest praise of
Bishop Lloyd. 3 That Bancroft was greatly influenced by
prudential motives in his choice of Lloyd as his vicar-
general seems probable from the fact of his preferring
him to the next bishop who comes under our notice
a rather older and much more prominent man.
Francis Turner (1636-1700) was by far the most
active and zealous of all the deprived Fathers in behalf
of the exiled Stuarts. His life before the Eevolution had
been simply that of an earnest and active priest, and
afterwards bishop, in full sympathy with the teaching of
the Caroline divines, with some of whom he had held
the closest intimacy. From the time when they were
schoolfellows together at Winchester tie maintained a
very close friendship with Thomas Ken, which was
slightly, but only slightly, interrupted towards the last by
rather divergent views on the subject of the [Revolution.
Like Ken, he proceeded from Winchester to New College,
Oxford, where both of them were scholars and fellows
together. He took Holy Orders, and in 1664 was pre-
sented to the living of Therfield, in Herts, in succession
to that staunch Churchman, John Barwick. It was pro-
1 See infra, p. 235.
2 See Hearne's Collections, Oxf. Hist. Soc., ii. 335 and note.
9 See History of St. John's College, Cambridge, by T. Baker ; edited by
J. E. B. Mayor, pp. 270-1.
FEANCIS TUENEE 47
bably this that brought him into intercourse with Peter
Gunning, then Master of St. John's College, Cambridge,
though he may have known him, at least by reputation,
before ; for Gunning had been chaplain at New College.
Gunning was a great divine of the Laudian school, and
just the man to influence such a one as Turner. He
persuaded him to become incorporated at Cambridge,
soon after his institution to Therneld, and in 1664 Turner
was admitted as a fellow-commoner of St. John's. In
1670 he succeeded Gunning in the mastership of the
college. In 1683 he became rector of Great Haseley,
and in the same year was made, first, Dean of Windsor,
and then Bishop of Eochester. Finally, in 1684, he again
succeeded his friend and patron, Gunning, as Bishop of
Ely. But he had a more powerful friend than Gunning.
He was chaplain to the Duke of York, and when the
duke became king in 1685, Bishop Turner preached the
Coronation sermon. James was always his steady friend
and patron, and there is no doubt that Turner conceived
for him a deep personal attachment, which accounts to a
great extent for the bishop's future conduct. But this
attachment did not prevent him from taking an indepen-
dent line of his own. He had no scruple about offending
James by preaching before him ' a very severe sermon
against the errors of the Romish Church on November 5,
1685,' l and he bravely protested against James's proceed-
ings after the suppression of the Monmouth rebellion.
He also- joined heartily the ranks of the seven bishops
who presented the Petition to the King about the Decla-
ration of Indulgence, and was one of the imprisoned. In
fact, in the language of a contemporary, he was
as zealous as any one of the Seven Bishops in setting himself
against two contrary religious factions then united at Court, and
1 Lives of the Seven Bisliops, by Agnes Strickland, p. 178.
48 THE NONJUEOES
in opposing the King's intentions about the Declaration of
Indulgence ; but is said to have very heartily afterwards re-
pented for having gone so far therein as he did, and to have
acknowledged that their going to the Tower, when they might
easily have prevented the same by entering into mutual recog-
nisances for each other, as the King would have had them, was
a wrong step taken, and an unnecessary punctilio of honour in
Christian bishops. 1
The whole of this description is exactly what one
would expect. Bishop Turner opposed King James out
of the very love he bore him, for he felt it was the part
of true friendship to try to rescue him from evil counsel-
lors ; but he never intended matters to go so far as they
did ; and there is an air of painful surprise in his excla-
mation when the King accused the seven of being rebels :
' We rebels ! "We would die at your Majesty's feet ! *
One can well understand his bitter regret when he found
that the refusal of himself and his brethren to take the
advice of Lord Clarendon, and enter into recognisances
for one another, 2 led to King James's downfall a regret
which it is said that Bancroft also shared.
When the catastrophe came, Turner of course did not
hesitate one moment about refusing the new oaths ; and
there seems to me to be no moral doubt, though there
might be legal ones, that henceforth he set himself heart
and soul to the work of restoring his beloved master.
Another of the seven, Bishop Lloyd, of St. Asaph, tried
in vain to influence him in favour of William and Mary ;
Turner replied, 'he would never take an oath to any
monarch during the life of James II.,' and on Lloyd's
further asking ' what he would do if James were dead ? '
' It is possible,' he said, * I might take the oath to his
successor,' evidently meaning his son. 3 In that very
1 Life and Compleat Works of John Kettlewell, i. 168.
3 See Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, for June 7, 1688, p. 175.
8 Lives of the Seven Bishops, by Agnes Strickland, p. 196.
FEANCIS TUENEE 49
interesting contemporary record, Lord Clarendon's Diary,
we have many notices of Bishop Turner at this time.
On December 31, 1689, Clarendon writes :
The Bishop of Ely was with me, and told me that the Bps.
of London [Compton] and S. Asaph [Lloyd] had been with Lord
Canterbury [Sancroft sic] to know what he and the rest could
do to prevent being deprived ; that Feb. 1 drew near. Could
they make no steps towards the government ? Some expedients
they proposed, as that a short bill should be passed, giving the
king power to dispense with them [the oaths ?] during pleasure ;
to all which the Archbishop, Norwich and Ely said they could
do nothing ; if the king thought it for his own sake that they
should not be deprived, he must make it his business ; they
could not vary from what they had done. 1
' The Archbishop, Norwich and Ely,' these were the
three irreconcilables but for them, matters might pos-
sibly have taken a different course ; and Ely was the
most irreconcilable of all. When the fatal 1st of Feb-
ruary arrived, and he was deprived, Turner protested
against the validity of the sentence in the Market Place
of Ely, and continued to preach every Sunday in his
robes in the chapel of Ely House, Hatton Garden. 2 Lord
Clarendon was one of his regular congregation, and fre-
quently refers to the chapel services in his diary. 3
Turner joined with the rest of his brethren in their
indignant repudiation of the charge, made by the anonymous
author of the 'Modest Enquiry,' that they were the
authors of the Jacobite Liturgy ; in which repudiation
they also added that they never held any correspondence
with France ; that they were concerned in no plots, and
that they should make it their practice to study to be quiet,
to bear their cross patiently, and to seek the good of their
native country. ' We have,' they add, ' all of us not long
1 Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, p. 299.
2 Lives of the Seven Bishops, by A. Strickland, p. 201.
3 Diary, pp. 303-4, January 30, 1690-1, February 11, Ac.
50 THE NONJUEOES
since, either actually, or in full preparation of mind,
hazarded all we had in opposing Popery and arbitral^
power in England ' (this was perfectly true of Turner as
well as of the rest), ' and we shall, by God's grace, with
greater zeal again sacrifice all we have, and our very lives,
too, if God shall be pleased to call us thereto, to prevent
Popery, and the arbitrary power of France, from coming
upon us and prevailing over us.' This ' Vindication '
Turner signed in July 1690: In December 1690 he
was suspected of being involved in Lord Preston's plot,
and it has not been obscurely hinted that he must have
committed perjury. This is a grave charge to bring
against a Christian bishop, and the facts must be looked
into. By some writers the Gordian knot has been boldly
cut in two different ways : (1) by denying that there was
any genuine plot at all ; (2) by denying that there is any
sufficient evidence that the compromising letters were
written by Turner.
Anthony Wood's account of the affair runs thus :
' In December 1690 there was a pretended discovery of
a pretended plot of the Jacobites or Nonjurors, whereupon
some of them were imprisoned ; and Dr. Turner being
suspected to be in the same pretended plot, he withdrew
and absconded.' 1 Dean Luckock enters into the sub-
ject more at length, and comes to the same conclusion.-
Miss Strickland, while not denying the reality of the
plot, contends that there was not the slightest proof that
the incriminating letters were written by Turner ; 3 and
Mr. Lathbury doubts whether there was any plot, and
maintains (rightly) that it was never proved that the
letters were written by Turner. 4 Dean Plumptre is
1 Atliencz Oxonienses, sub nomine Turner, Francis.
- The Bislwps in the Tower, by Dean Luckock, p. 197.
3 Lives of the Seven Bishops, &c., by Agnes Strickland, pp. 201-2.
4 History of the Nonjurors, p. 78.
FEANCIS TUENEE 51
evidently of opinion that there was a real plot and that
the letters were really Turner's, 1 but acquits him of the
charge of perjury, of which Lord Macaulay and others
have insinuated that he was guilty. 2
Dean Plumptre's view seems to me, on the whole, to
be the correct one. The memorable words in the inter-
cepted letters, which seemed to compromise all the
deprived Fathers, and indeed the Nonjurors generally,
were : ' I speak in the plural, because I write my elder
brother's sentiments as well as my own, and the rest of
the family, though lessened in number ; yet if we are not
mightily out in our accounts, we are growing in our
interest, that is, in yours ; ' and in the second letter, ' I
say this in behalf of my elder brother, and the rest of my
nearest relations, as well as for myself.' 3 The letters are
addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Bedding, by whom, it has
never been doubted, are meant King James and his Queen.
That there was no legal proof against Turner, and
that the idea of a plot, in which the Nonjuring prelates
were involved, was eagerly seized upon without too close
inquiry by the Government, as furnishing a very con-
venient pretext for filling up the sees, is fully admitted.
But that the letters were really Turner's, that by his
1 elder brother ' he meant Bancroft, and by * the rest of
his nearest relations ' the other Nonjuring prelates, that
the expressions were intended to reassure King James
that he had still powerful friends, that there was really
' a plot 'or, as the actors themselves would have put
it, that ' measures were being taken to enable the King
to enjoy his own again ' appears to me to be morally
certain.
1 Life of Bishop Ken, vol. ii. ch. xxi. pp. 70-1.
2 Ibid. pp. 82-3.
3 Quoted by Mr. Lathbury (Hist, of Nonjurors, p. 78) from Ralph's
History of England, ii. 255, where the correspondence is printed.
i 2
52 THE NONJUEOES
There seems at this time of day [says a writer of the next
generation] to be little reason to deny or conceal what must at
the long run turn out to his [Turner's] credit, viz. : loyalty and
gratitude to his prince and patron, and zeal for the Church of
which he was a bishop, and which at that crisis was in the
utmost danger from the party which brought in theEevolution. 1
This is written with express reference to the ' Preston
Plot,' not to Turner's later conduct, about which there
is no doubt ; and its truth is surely borne out by Turner's
own letter to Bancroft, written from his hiding-place,
after a proclamation had been issued, and a reward offered
for his discovery. The letter is worth quoting at some
length.
You see, no disappointments or discouragements shall (by
the grace of God) make me give over what I think my duty ;
though I am disabled from doing any service at home, and
must seeke abroad ; I have almost settled my business, and laid
my designs a little better, I hope, than the unfortunate Lord
did 2 to gett out of their clutches ; for, after so fatall a mis-
carriage, I'me well aware, that there will bee no staying for me,
unless I could find in my heart to make upp with the Govern-
ment, which I abhor the thought of. It must at least cost me
a long imprisonment, should I appeare, which is bad and hard
enough, tho' I believe I could scarce bee a sufferer by any fair
tryall. But what if it should prove a foule one ? Upon the
whole matter I thinke myself (blessed be God) mighty safe in
my present concealment ; and had I adjusted but the rest of
my domestique settlements, I would vanish till another Eevolu-
tion, if God lett me live to see it. Meantime I hope in God by
the course I mean to take, I may putt myselfe into a better
capacity than ever of serving the Church as well as my country.
But to tell my resolutions more particularly is not desirable at
present, nor convenient for you to know this : rather lett me
leave you in condition to protest your innocense if examined
hereafter. Nothing troubles me so much as that my intercepted
1 History of St. John the Evangelist's College, Cambridge, by Tho.
Baker ; edited by J. E. B. Mayor, part ii. p. 987 ; continuation by Cole.
2 Viscount Preston.
FEANCIS TUKNEE 53
letters (through the almost incredible supineness of the unhappy
gentleman, 1 and contrary to the assurances hee gave us) may
prejudice my brethren. But you must take pains to cleare
yourselves and protest your innocence. . . . Doe what you will,
and whatever you think most expedient, to take off any blame
from yourselves, and leave me to shift for my selfe, &c. 2
This letter surely needs no comment ; but how is it
to be reconciled with the Declaration of July, in which
Turner and the rest expressly affirmed that ' they never
held any correspondence with France ; that they were
concerned in no plots, and that they should make it their
practice to study to be quiet, to bear their cross patiently,
and to seek the good of their native country ' ? For none
except Turner is there any need of explanation ; it was
an entirely unwarranted insinuation on his part that his
brethren were ready to join him, and it is not surprising
that they were indignant against him for making it. But
for himself ? In those excited times, when events moved
rapidly, it was a far cry from July to December; and
there is not the slightest evidence that any plot was being
hatched, or even meditated, when Turner signed the
Declaration. Moreover, the object of the ' Preston Plot '
(if there was a Preston Plot) was not the same as that
indicated in the Jacobite Liturgy, which the bishops so
indignantly repudiated in their Declaration in July.
The memorial drawn up by the conspirators in December
distinctly disavowed the idea of making England a subject pro-
1 Mr. Ashton.
2 Tanner MSS., vol. xxvii. fol. 235. In reference to this letter, Bancroft
writes to Lloyd : ' Shall we declare our innocence ? But then nothing is
proved against him [" our brother of Ely," as he calls Turner in an earlier
part of the letter], and men and angels will hardly be able to prove any-
thing against us ; ' and on May 18, 1691, doubtless referring to Turner,
' I am sorry that our good brother has got so high up the pinnacle. It
was dangerous to fall from thence, could the informers have tript up his
heels ; ' and on April 2, 1692, he has ' news about Fr. of Ely that makes
me tremble.' See Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 71-2.
54 THE NONJUBOBS
vince of France. It could not be governed as a Boman Catholic
country. The French force which was to accompany James
was to be only for his personal protection and that of his loving
subjects, and was then to be dismissed. The king was to
promise to govern according to law, to protect the established
religion, to refer all points in dispute between himself and his
people to a free Parliament. 1
Admitting, however, that a conscientious man like
Turner might, with a little manipulation, reconcile his
conduct in the summer with his conduct in the ensuing
winter, it must be confessed that his declaration that ' he
should make it his practice to study to be quiet,' &c., was
not exactly fulfilled in his future life. It is certain that
from 1691 onwards he was in constant correspondence
with the Court of St. Germains, that he was deeply in-
volved in the Fenwick plot of 1696 ; in fact, that during
the last ten years of his life the restoration of King James
was the object he continually set before him. It was a
very sad life. At first he seems to have been in less
straitened circumstances than the rest ; for among the
Macpherson Papers is one containing proposals from
King James's friends, in 1694, to the exiled monarch in
which the following passage occurs : ' They desire that if
your Majesty desires to call any of the Bishops [to
St. Germains] it may be the Bishop of Ely. They think
he would be for your service, and he is in a condition to
live without being burdensome to your Majesty.' But
this comparative independence did not last long ; he was
for the rest of his life more or less a wanderer. Now we
find him in France; now at Putney; now in France again ;
now ' in a retired condition in the lodgings of his brother,
Dr. Thomas Turner,' at Oxford ; now in hiding under
the name of Harris. In 1698 he is in London attending
1 Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 84.
FEANCIS TUENEE 55
the funeral of Bishop White, about which he wrote a
most interesting letter, which will be noticed presently ;
in 1699 he removed with his only daughter (so often and
so prettily referred to in Bishop Ken's letters l ) into the
country; in 1700 he dies, and the restless spirit is at
rest. It seems a thousand pities that the closing years
of a valuable and useful life should have been spent, not
to say wasted, in matters in which, as a Christian bishop,
he surely had no direct concern. All that we hear of
him when he was in his proper sphere as a working
bishop is to his credit. He won the good opinion of
people who by no means agreed with his views. Thus
Eachel, Lady Eussell, representing the Whig and Low
Church element, writes to her spiritual adviser, Dr. Fitz-
william (afterwards a Nonjuror) : ' Lord Bedford expresses
himself hugely obliged to the Bishop of Ely, your friend,
to whom you justly give the title of good, if the character
he very generally bears justly belongs to him.' 2 His
admirable ' Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of Ely,' 1686
in preparation for his coming visitation, gives one the
impression, not only of a spiritually minded man most
anxious to do his duty, but also of one who from long
practical experience knew what a clergyman's duty was.
In short, he was a thoroughly practical bishop, and fully
maintained the high standard of efficiency in the diocese
which had been bequeathed to him by his great prede-
cessor, Bishop Gunning. Bishop Ken, his early and
lifelong . friend in spite of divergent views, evidently
regarded him not only with the greatest personal affection,
but also with deep respect, and after Turner's death
always referred to him as 'that good man now with God,' 3
1 See Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 52-3, and passim.
2 Letters of Lady Eacliel Russell, p. 308.
3 See Ken's Letters in Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 107, 126, and passim,.
56 THE NONJUEORS
or ' our deare friend now with God/ Those who knew
Turner best loved him most, and he bore a much higher
character among his contemporaries and those of the
next generation than he does in popular histories. Thus,.
Hawkins, the great-nephew and first biographer of Ken,
writing only thirteen years after Turner's death (1713),.
calls him * a most truly pious prelate ' ; l Thomas Baker r
who belonged only to the next generation, ' a most excel-
lent prelate ' 2 ; and Dean Hickes, who knew him intimately,
' that most learned and very reverend father in Christ,,
Francis Turner, not so long since Bishop of Ely 6
MaKaplTfjs the recollection of whose friendship I, the
survivor, so enjoy that I seem to have lived happily in
that I have lived in the closest union with him.' 3 That
he was rash and impetuous and a thoroughgoing Jacobite,
who, to the dismay of his friends, was apt to commit not
only himself but them, goes without saying ; but if he
was a traitor he was what was called in a pamphlet of the
time ' a loyal traitor ' ; and if he had lived in quieter times
he would have done better, if less exciting, work for the
Church he loved. His few writings will be noticed in a
later chapter.
One naturally associates the names of the two friends,
Turner and Ken, together ; but regarded from the point
of view of this work they must be separated, for they
belonged to different types of Nonjurors ; and there is yet
another deprived Father who was certainly of the Turner
type, and must therefore come in between the friends.
Thomas White (1628-98), like Turner, had passed
1 Life of Ken.
1 ' Prsesul optimus.' History of St. John's College, Cambridge. ' Cata-
logus Episcoporum qui e coilegio Divi Joannis Evangelistee prodierunt.
Franciscus Turner. 1
3 'Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus ' (1705), Prsefaticx
p. xlvi.
THOMAS WHITE 57
through a varied course of parochial experience. Having
graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1646, he
contrived, like several Koyalists, to hold during the Pro-
tectorate the post of lecturer (at St. Andrew's, Holborn),
' the door being left so widely ajar that there was room
for Eutulian as well as Trojan to enter in.' l After
the Kestoration he became successively incumbent of
Newark-on-Trent (1660), Allhallows the Great, London
(1666), and Bottesford in Leicestershire (1679). A story
is told of him, giving a promise of pugnacity on his part,
which happily was not fulfilled. He was remarkable for
his physical strength and agility, and on one occasion,
certainly after he was a clergyman, he was insulted by a
trooper of the King's Guard, who, on being reproved by
White, challenged him to a fair fight. White accepted
the challenge and won the victory, and the trooper asked
his pardon. Charles II. was characteristically delighted
with the exploit, and jokingly threatened to impeach
White for high treason for assaulting one of the King's
guards. In 1683 he was made chaplain to the Princess
Anne, daughter of the Duke of York, on her marriage
with the Prince of Denmark. He became her favourite
chaplain, and had much to do with the formation of her
Church principles. In the same year he was promoted to
the archdeaconry of Nottingham, and in 1685 to the
bishopric of Peterborough, where he set himself to the
much-needed work of remedying the abuse of pluralities.
As Bishop of Peterborough he was appointed by James II.
to exercise, together with Bishops Crewe and Sprat,
ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the diocese of London on the
1 Bishop Pearson's Minor Theological Works, with Memoir of the
Author, by E. Churton, p. xxxi. Pearson was a London lecturer during
the same period at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and the immortal Exposition
of the Creed contains in substance a series of lectures delivered by him
there.
58 THE NONJUEOES
suspension of Bishop Compton. James, to whom White
owed his rise, doubtless thought that he should find him,
like the other two, a convenient tool ; but he soon found
that White was a man of very different metal. When
the infatuated monarch issued his second Declaration of
Indulgence, Bishop Cartwright drew up a form of thanks
to the King, and persuaded Bishops Parker and Sprat
to sign it. Thinking, no doubt, that White was also a
Court bishop, he requested him also to sign ; but White
asked for a day to deliberate, and then absolutely refused. 1
Consistently with this refusal he became one of the im-
mortal Seven, and was imprisoned in the Tower. Like
the majority of the Seven, who opposed the King in his
prosperity, he refused to desert him in his adversity. It
was expected that the influence of his patroness, the
Princess Anne, would lead him to follow her example,
when she abandoned her father ; but those who expected
this did not understand the independence of White's
character. He refused the oaths to William and Mary
without a moment's hesitation, and identified himself with
the N on jurors indeed with the most advanced section of
them heart and soul. He was, of course, one of the
five who issued in 1698 ' The Charitable Recommenda-
tion of the Deprived Bishops,' in behalf of the relief fund
started by Kettle well for distressed Nonjurors, and had
to appear before the Privy Council. But before this, in
the early spring of 1693-4, he had committed himself
still further, by not only taking part in the first new
consecrations of Nonjuring bishops, but by allowing the
ceremony to be performed in his own lodging in the
house of Mr. Giffard, 2 at Southgate, in Middlesex. His
1 See Bishop Cartwright's Diary, p. 47.
9 See infra, p. 88 note, where a full account of this Mr. Giffard i
.given.
THOMAS WHITE 59
last public act showed the same courageous spirit. In
1696-7 he attended Sir John Fenwick on the scaffold
a bold thing to do, for shortly before some other
Nonjurors had been brought into trouble by a some-
what similar act. Sir John refused to see any clergy-
man who had taken the oaths, and two or three
Nonjuring clergy who were applied to naturally shrank
from the dangerous task. White dared to accept it,
but with characteristic independence afterwards offended
some Jacobites by protesting with horror against
the supposition that he had any sympathy with the
plot if plot there was for the assassination of King
William.
Bishop White appears to have been one of those men
who combine an iron determination of will and a most
undaunted courage with a meek and gentle nature which
loves privacy and shrinks from thrusting itself to the
front. Though his principles were evidently those of
the more extreme Nonjurors, he never joined in any
plots ; he lived quite contentedly in his poverty, and
practised such economy that he was able to give much
out of his little to the poor; he made no enemies and
many friends ; he never entered into controversy, and
attracted no attention except by the sweetness of his
disposition. When he passed quietly away in 1698, an
unpleasant incident occurred at his funeral. He was
buried in the churchyard of St. Gregory's, which, the
church having been destroyed, was incorporated in the
precincts of St. Paul's, under the jurisdiction of the dean,
but with a separate curate for the parish. This curious
arrangement will account for the circumstances recorded
below. The funeral was attended by forty Nonjuring
clergymen, and several laymen who held the same
opinions. The rest may be told in the words of Bishop
60 THE NONJUROKS
Turner, written to his brother, the President of Corpus.
Christi College, Oxford :
I stayed in town till yesterday that I might attend the
funeral on Saturday night. It was earnestly desired by many
that I should perform the office at the grave (in St. Gregory's,
that is, in the churchyard, for there is no church). I yielded, if
it might be permitted, which I told them would hardly be, and
that my poor name would hardly pass muster. Yet the curate
of the place agreed with all the ease and respect imaginable.
But his de facto Dean, Dr. Sherlock, coming to know it, forbade
it expressly, nor could any intercessions prevail with him to
suffer any one of the deprived, not the most obscure or least
obnoxious, to officiate. This did not hinder me nor anybody
else from waiting on the corpse to the grave, the Bishop of
Kilmore l and myself with four others holding up the pall. As-
soon as our bearers set down, we made our exit, and all the
clergy with most of the gentry followed. The great reason
alleged by Dr. Sherlock for refusing it was the daring im-
prudence of the Bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Ken) for bury-
ing Mr. Kettlewell even in his habit. Is not this a precious
manikin of a Dean ? 2
Bancroft, Lloyd, Turner and White are distinguished
from the other four with whom we have to do in this
chapter by the doubtful recommendation of being instru-
mental in perpetuating the separation ; and therefore it
seemed necessary to treat them consecutively. Otherwise,
next to Sancroft, if not before him, the bishop who
might certainly claim the first place, alike for his saintli-
ness, his ability and attainments, for the prominent part
he took in Church affairs, and for the reputation he still
holds among Churchmen, would be Thomas Ken.
Thomas Ken (1637-1710), Bishop of Bath and Wells,
has been the subject of so many biographies, sketches,
1 Dr. Sheridan, the only Nonjuring Irish bishop.
2 Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library. A similar account is given in
a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury by J. Mandeville, MS. 930, No. 22,
at Lambeth Palace.
THOMAS KEN 61
and essays, 1 that there is no need to dwell on the facts of
his life. In almost every history, whether of Church or
State, in England during the period when he lived, there
will be found the name of Thomas Ken deservedly hold-
ing a high and honoured place. His character and career
are just of the kind to lay hold on the imagination, and
writers of almost all schools seem to find a special charm
in him. But his connection with the Nonjuring question
is somewhat complicated and requires elucidation.
Now there is no trait in Bishop Ken's attractive cha-
racter more conspicuous than his moral courage. If,
therefore, he was hesitating and vacillating in regard to
the new oaths, it was not because he had not the courage
of his convictions, but because he simply wished to do what
was right, and was much perplexed to know what was
the right course. The man who boldly set his face against
immorality at the risk of incurring the wrath of a great
Prince, which he did when chaplain at The Hague the
man who absolutely refused to allow his prebendal house
at Winchester to be used as a lodging for King
Charles II. 's mistress the man who preached at the
Chapel Koyal itself, urging Churchmen and Dissenters to
unite against the encroachments of Rome at the very time
when King James II. was doing all he could to encourage
those encroachments the man who, when called to
account for that sermon by the King, to whom it was
reported, bravely replied, 'If your Majesty had not
neglected your own duty of being present, my enemies
had missed this opportunity of accusing me ' the man
who was an active and prominent member of the Seven
who were imprisoned in the Tower was not the man to
1 Biographies by Hawkins, Bowles, 'A Layman' (Anderdon), and
Plumptre; sketches by Miss Strickland, Dean Luckock, Lord Macaulay,
<fec., &c.
62 THE NONJUEOES
be afraid of acting up to his convictions. He was afraid,
but it was a fear of acting wrongly, whichever course he
took. On the one hand, he felt keenly and who shall
blame him for feeling ? that it was a very serious thing
to make anything like a schism in the Church. On the
other hand, he felt quite as keenly the sanctity of the
oath which he had already taken to King James, and to
which this new oath was plainly contradictory. He also
realised that, in common with others, though in a far
more moderate degree than many, he had committed
himself to the doctrine of non-resistance, and how was
that doctrine consistent with the acceptance of a king
who had ousted the King de jure with an armed force ?
He was also torn different ways by his nearest and dearest
friends. Perhaps there were no two for whom he had
more regard than Francis Turner, with whom he had been
intimate from boyhood, and George Hooper, who had
been, now his predecessor, now his successor, by curious
alternations, in various posts, and had won Ken's esteem
by his admirable management of them all. Ely House,
where Turner resided, and Lambeth Kectory, the house
of Hooper, had been the places where he stayed when
visiting London. At the critical period when he was in
doubt about the oaths he was brought more into contact
with his later friend, Hooper, than with his earlier friend,
Turner; and Turner was evidently nervous as to what
the result might be; for he writes to Bancroft on the
Ascension Day, 1689, 'This very good man [Ken] is
warping from us and the true interest of the Church
towards a compliance with the new Government,' and he
is afraid that 'your parson of Lambeth has superfined
upon our brother of Bath and Wells.' l The expression
' your parson ' of course refers to the fact that Archbishop
1 Plumptre, ii. 40.
THOMAS KEN 63
Bancroft when residing at Lambeth Palace was, in a waj-,
a parishioner of Hooper, the rector of Lambeth. Others
also thought as Turner did. Dr. Fitzwilliam, of whom
we shall hear more presently, ' knew him to be fluctuat-
ing,' and feared that ' the consideration of the peace of
the Church ' might lead him to comply. 1 Dodwell wrote
a letter of remonstrance which nettled him extremely
(the good man's natural temper was sharp, though subdued
by grace), and called forth from him an indignant reply. 2
There were undoubtedly grounds for the Nonjurors' alarm.
Turner could never ' draw ' his friend ' up to the same
height as himself in the matter of the oaths ; ' s and the
other friend, Hooper, all but won him over. The story is
very curious and very characteristic of the man. He had
gone to Lambeth to consult Hooper on the matter, and
On parting one night to go to bed, the Bishop seemed so
well satisfied with the arguments Dr. Hooper urged to him,
that he was inclined to take the oaths. But the next morning
he used these expressions to him : ' I question not but that you
and several others have taken the oaths with as good a con-
science as myself shall refuse them ; and sometimes you have
almost persuaded me to comply by the arguments you have
used ; but I beg you to urge them no further ; for should I be
persuaded to comply, and after see reason to repent, you would
make me the most miserable man in the world.' Upon which
the Doctor said he would never mention the subject any more
to him, for God forbid he should take them. 4
And so Bishop Ken became a Nonjuror because he
thought it was the ' safer ' course ; but it was ' safer ' for
exactly the opposite reasons to those which would weigh
with less sensitively conscientious men. To speak para-
1 Letters of Lady Rachel Russell.
1 Plumptre gives the reply in full, ii. 41-2.
* So writes the contemporary author (or authors) of the Life of Kettle-
well, with evident regret.
4 Quoted by Dean Plumptre (ii. 43-4) from Prowse MS. and Hawkins.
-64 THE NONJUROES
doxically, it was safer because it was more dangerous,
because it was against, not because it was for, his interest.
If he took the oaths, and suspected afterwards that he
had been biassed, however unconsciously, by interested
motives, he would be miserable. He seems, however, to
have had an uncomfortable feeling that he might be
mistaken after all ; but it was better to make a mistake
which rendered him all but a pauper than to make one
which would keep him still in affluence.
One can, however, well understand how from the very
first the thoroughgoing Jacobites would regard him as a
rather weak-kneed brother, and his subsequent conduct
tended to strengthen that opinion. He still intimated,
not obscurely, that James might yet forfeit his allegiance
if, for instance, he gave up Ireland to France, as it
was suspected that he intended to do; and on James's
death he would probably have complied had it not been
for the ill-advised imposition of the Abjuration Oath.
Unless, indeed, ' the Church point ' which, as was
natural with such a man, weighed far more than * the
State point ' still barred the way. The lay depriva-
tions were a very great shock to him as a Churchman ;
he still considered himself as the canonical Bishop of
Bath and Wells ; he publicly protested from the pulpit
of Wells Cathedral against his uncanonical deprivation ;
he professed himself still ready to perform his episcopal
functions for all who were ready to accept them ; he
made a point of continuing to sign himself ' Thos. Bath
and Wells,' though another Bishop of Bath and Wells
was appointed. He was the more ready to do all this
when he found that the intending bishop was one whom
he characterised, rather too severely, as ' a Latitudinarian
.traditor ' who would not keep the depositum safe.
But he does not seem to have been comfortable in his
THOMAS KEN 65
strange position ; he regarded it as a cross to be endured,
and a cross much harder to bear than the loss of his
worldly wealth and rank, which he counted as naught.
It will, perhaps, be a shock to some readers, as it certainly
was to the writer when he was reluctantly convinced of the
fact, to learn that in the oft-quoted passage in Bishop Ken's
will, in which he declares that he ' dies in the Communion
of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from
all Popish and Puritan Innovations, and as it adheres to
the Doctrine of the Cross,' the Doctrine of the Cross does
not mean the Doctrine of the Atonement, but the Doctrine
of Passive Obedience; in fact, just what Ken's friend
Kettlewell meant by it. 1
Ken, like many Nonjurors, accepted, in a way, Queen
Anne as his sovereign; he declined, indeed, the offer
which she made to restore him to his beloved see in
1703-4, but that was on the ground of age and infirmi-
ties. He gratefully accepted from her a slight addition
to his very modest income, 2 and he was more than ready
to recognise as bishop one who was a younger and, as he
in his humility thought, a better man than himself. So
he at once, and gladly, ceded to Hooper all his rights,
and henceforth signed himself simply ' T. K.' He fondly
hoped that this would tend to close the separation
a consummation for which he had long devoutly prayed.
He had deeply regretted the new consecrations, though
he reluctantly gave his assent to them. He never joined
in any Jacobite plots. He consorted as intimately with
1 See Christianity a Doctrine of the Cross; Kettlewell's Compleat
Works, vol. ii., esp. pp. 143-4. Also i. 167, where the writer, who knew
Ken personally, says expressly: 'The "Doctrine of the Cross" in Bishop
Xenn's will is equivalent to asserting the Doctrine of Passive Obedience as
the proper Characteristic of the Church of England. . . . Neither can there
be any manner of doubt that it was approved of by him in the same sense
as Mr. Kettlewell wrote it in.'
* See Plumptre, ii. 149.
F
66 THE NONJUEOES
Jurors as Nonjurors. He did not, like many, consider
the Established Church in a state of schism ; he encouraged
1 private persons ' to attend its services, though as ' a
public person ' he himself could not join in services where
the ' characteristics ' (that is, where the reigning sovereigns
were prayed for by name) were used. There was, there-
fore, nothing really inconsistent either with his principles
or his past conduct in the cession of his see to Hooper ;
but Bishop Lloyd who was, in a sense, head of the
Nonjurors seems to me to have had some reason to
complain that he made it without consulting his fellow-
sufferers ; and in the painful little controversy which
ensued the fault was surely not, as is commonly supposed,
altogether on the side of Bishop Lloyd. Quite enough,
however, has been said about this temporary misunder-
standing. 1 Any faults there may have been on Ken's
side were but as spots in the sun. Most deservedly
has his character, with its happy mixture of gentleness
and firmness, of tenderness and boldness, been admired
on all sides. There is hardly a discordant note in the
chorus of praise in which he has been celebrated by
posterity.
But it was not so with all his contemporaries. Ken
was very far from incurring the woe pronounced against
those of whom all men speak well. Bishop Burnet,
being a partisan of quite a different school both in theo-
logy and politics, naturally writes in a depreciatory tone
about him. He was an object of great abuse among
those Jacobites who thought he had deserted his friends
by recognising ' a schismatic ' as his successor. * The
Jacobites,' he writes, ' at Bristoll, fomented by those at
London, are thoroughly enraged against me for my
cession to one whom all mankind besides themselves have
1 Se* supra, pp. 44-5.
THOMAS KEN 67
a high esteem of ; ' * and, again : * The ferment against
me rises higher and higher, insomuch that when the
neighbours at Bristol come hither ' that is to Naish
Court, the home of the Misses Kemeys, where he was
staying ' they manifestly insult me.' 2
But it takes two parties to make a quarrel, and one
of the parties Ken resolutely refused to be. He was
naturally sharp tempered, and, when he was attacked,
vindicated himself with vigour sometimes with a little
asperity ; but having done so, there he let the matter
drop, and nothing could induce him to resume it; and
sometimes when the heat had passed away he would cry
1 peccavi ' as in the case of Dodwell and of Lloyd in
a way which necessarily disarmed all further criticism.
Controversy he abhorred, and it has been truly remarked
that ' there is nowhere to be found any one controversial
tract by Bishop Ken; he preached boldly, especially
when King James's designs became more apparent, but
his peaceful spirit was unfitted for the strife of con-
troversy.' 3
The fact is, Ken was just the reverse of some men
who only seem to come to the front when a quarrel
arises; Ken, on the contrary, was always in evidence
when some plain, practical good was to be done ; never,
if he could avoid it, when internal disputes arose among
Christians. Was there need of Christian intercession in
behalf of sufferers cruelly treated, as in the case of those
who were used so barbarously after the suppression of the
Monmouth rebellion ? There was Ken ready to rush, as
it were, into the lion's mouth, and to intercede for them,
not ineffectually, with their infuriated and powerful
1 Letter 'To Mrs. Hannah Lloyd' (that is, Bishop Lloyd). See
Plumptre, ii. 141.
2 Ibid. ii. 146.
3 Life of T. Ken t by ' A Layman,' 2nd edit., p. 254.
F 2
68 THE NONJUEOES
oppressors. Was there a careless, godless King to be
admonished, in sickness or in health, living or dying, of
his faults ? There was Ken ready to admonish him
faithfully, without fear or favour. Was there an in-
fatuated King rushing to his own destruction ? There
was Ken ready to stop him, if possible, in his headlong
course. Was there a libertine, friend of a powerful
prince, to be urged to do justice to a poor girl whom he
had ruined? There was Ken ready to undertake the
thankless task, and carrying it out successfully, though
with the loss of the prince's favour. Was there a poor
man condemned to death for actions of which Ken
utterly disapproved ? ' Still, there he was, to comfort him
and pray with him in his dying hours. Was there urgent
need of the aid of the charitable to stave off starvation
from sufferers for conscience' sake? There was Ken in
the forefront of the effort, and ready to justify boldly the
course which he had taken. The kind of work, in which
the broad principles of Christian faith and charity were
at stake, he loved to take part in. No one better than he
could play the part of a St. John the Baptist, and, * after
his example, constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke
vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake.' But to
contend about disputable points was not in accordance
with his nature. There was certainly no lack of dis-
putants on such points in the times of the Nonjurors ;
and it is refreshing, if only for the sake of variety, to find
one who shrank from joining their ranks, but who never
shrank from plain, practical, Christian work, however
difficult, thankless, or dangerous it might be; and such
a one was the saintly Thomas Ken. He will meet us
again in other connections ; but considering how well he
is known, even to the most superficial readers of Church
history, enough has been said of him in his capacity
EOBEET FEAMPTON 69
as one of the deprived Fathers ; and we may now
turn to
Robert Frampton (1622-1708), who was a Nonjuror of
the type of Ken, but does not, like Ken, appear to have
had any hesitation whatever about declining the oaths.
Like Ken, he continued, in spite of his deprivation, to
regard himself as canonical Bishop of Gloucester, and
was ready to perform his episcopal functions whenever
required ; and, as Dean Plumptre frequently reminds us,
he was of all others the prelate most after Ken's own
heart, though, of course, not so intimate with him as
Turner was. But he was fifteen years older than Ken,
and this may in part account for the far less active part
he took in public affairs after the Revolution. Another
reason, indeed, has been given, and that on very high
authority. ' Some,' writes the contemporary biographer
of Kettlewell, ' thought he [Frampton] had too low an
opinion of himself ; and was, therefore, not bold and
active enough. He was sensible that he wanted courage,
but commended it in Ken and others/ with more to the
same effect. 1 Now it may seem presumptuous to disagree
with the judgment of contemporaries who were in the
thick of the fight, and who ought to know better than a
writer two hundred years later. But facts are facts ; and
the known facts of Frampton's life are certainly incom-
patible with the theory that he was a timid man, who had
not the courage of his opinions. Moreover, we must
balance one contemporary against another ; and, through
the enterprise of Mr. T. Simpson Evans, we happily have
an anonymous biography written by ' an intimate friend
of the Bishop ' who was ' in attendance on him during
his last illness and at his death,' and who wrote the
memoir only a few years after that death, ' on purpose,'
1 See Life of Kettlewell, prefixed to his Compleat Works, i. 157.
70 THE NONJUEORS
he says, ' to keep his glorious character fresh in my
mind, when, by age or oppression, other things may
wear out/ l It may be objected that an admiring bio-
grapher must be taken cum grano ; but one who wrote
so near the time could hardly be mistaken about,
or safely misrepresent, plain facts ; and the facts are
these.
Robert Frampton was old enough at the time of the
Great Rebellion to be obliged to take a decided line, and
he did take a very decided one. He left Oxford without
his M.A. degree, because he could not take it unless he
signed the Covenant, which he refused. After having for
a short time earned his living by tuition, we find him
fighting on the Royalist side at ' the engagement of
Hambleton [Halidown ?] Hill.' Then he received Holy
Orders from Skinner, deprived Bishop of Oxford, at the
instance of the well-known Dr. Davenant. His first
sermon was a courageous defence of the Royal authority
at a time when it was highly dangerous to utter such
sentiments. He boldly adhered to the Liturgy in opposi-
tion to the Directory ; and when his father died, and the
officiating minister refused to bury him with the Church
Service, undertook the office himself and performed it in
a flood of tears. 2 Becoming a noted preacher, he was
frequently called upon to preach in London ; and he was
so outspoken that he would have fallen into trouble had
he not been appointed chaplain to the factory of the
Turkey Company at Aleppo, whither he set off in 1655.
But there was some delay about his departure, and during
the interval he continued preaching against the errors of
1 See the interesting and modest Preface of Mr. Simpson Evans to
Tlie Life of Robert Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, Deprived as a Nonjuror
1689, which 'is an exact reproduction of the manuscript Memoir of Robert
Frampton,' p. viii.
2 Life, p. 12.
ROBERT FRAMPTON 71
the times, until Mr. Harvey, to whom he owed his appoint-
ment, remonstrated with him, saying, ' What do you
intend to do ? To bring yourself and your friends into
trouble ? You'l be preaching about until you'l be hanged
for an application. Your ship is ready, repair to that ;
then you may safely discharge your office.' 1 He ministered
at Aleppo for twelve years, making friends not only with
Christians of all sorts, but also with Mussulmans. He
returned to England in 1667, but, hearing that the plague
had broken out at Aleppo with great virulence, he returned
thither and fearlessly ministered to the sufferers, not
returning finally to England until 1670. In 1673 he was
preferred to the deanery, and in 1680 to the bishopric, of
Gloucester. All through his public life he showed the
same courage that Ken showed, not scrupling to offend
Charles II. by preaching against the atheism and irreligion
that prevailed at Court, nor James II. by lifting up his
testimony frequently against Komanism ; and, as he was
one of the most popular and effective preachers of the day, 2
his words carried weight. The living of Slimbridge, in
his diocese, was, and still is, in the gift of Magdalen
College, Oxford, and he absolutely refused to institute to
it the nominee of the Roman Catholic president, thrust
upon the College by James II. It was only through the
impossibility of reaching London in time (he was too late
by half an hour) that he was not one of the bishops
imprisoned in the Tower; and he so entirely identified
himself with their cause that he desired to present to the
King a private petition to the same effect as theirs, and
was only dissuaded from doing so by the opinion of
Bancroft, his Metropolitan. He not only refused to
1 Life, p. 26.
2 Ibid. p. 152. See Pepys's Diary, passim, for an account of Frampton's
early preaching.
72 THE NONJUEOES
obey the King's order to direct his clergy to read the
Declaration of Indulgence, but actually forbade them to
do so.
These acts were not the acts of a timid man ; and if
he kept in the background after the Revolution it is not
difficult to see his reasons. He was verging on seventy
when the deprivation actually took place, and was eighty-
six when he died. The other two who survived the rest
(Ken and Lloyd) were much younger men, and there is
no more characteristic symptom of declining years than a
tendency quieta non movere. ' Dr. Frampton, Bishop of
Gloucester/ writes Hickes, in reference to the new conse-
crations, ' absolutely refused all correspondence with his
brethren, from which he desired to be excused, alleging
that he had retired from all business, but what related
to his soul, in preparing himself for death.' : But there
was another reason Frampton never was a Non juror of
the type of Hickes. So far from regarding the Established
Church as in a state of schism, he held, as far as he
possibly could, communion with it. He retained, with
the connivance of the Government, the poor living of
Standish (the net income was only 40/. a year) which he
had held in commendam with his bishopric, officiating in
its parish church, as far as his conscience would allow,
and leaving his curates, who had presumably taken the
oaths, to do what he could not. He preached from his
pew, catechised the children, and even said the prayers,
omitting, of course, the ' characteristics.' He was not,
in any active sense of the term, a Jacobite ; and was
extremely annoyed at Bishop Turner's letter to the
English King in France, which committed all the Non-
juring prelates to James's interest. But in spite of this
he did not escape the charge of favouring popery, and
1 Hickes's Introduction to The Records of the New Consecrations.
EGBERT FRAMPTON 73
was, in fact, arrested and imprisoned on the absurd sus-
picion of being concerned in a plot to assassinate King
William; but it was soon found that he was only con-
cerned in the fund for the relief of the distressed clergy,
and he was speedily released. He remained on excellent
terms with several of the complying bishops; we hear
of friendly interviews between him and Bishops Tenison
and Lloyd (of St. Asaph), while Bishop Compton, of
London, was his firm and constant friend to the last. In
fact, he was so favourable to the ' Revolution Church '
that Dodwell (himself a very moderate Nonjuror) wrote
him a wrathful expostulation on the course he was taking ;
and Bishop Lloyd had hopes of inducing him to comply.
But Lloyd was quite mistaken in his man. Bishop
Frampton was firm in his principles and knew what he
meant. The oaths he never intended to take ; and when
Queen Anne offered to make him Bishop of Hereford, an
offer which he was urgently importuned to accept, he
replied that ' he could not hold two, for that the care of
one he had found enough, and that he, if he must have
any, had rather have his own than any, but, says he, " I
can take no new one any more than hold the old one, and
that which put me out when in will keep me out when
out." ' x Holding this view, it may seem strange that he
could be so friendly with those who were not ' put out.'
But, as his biographer intimates, 2 his experience in the
East had tended to widen his sympathies ; for, having
consorted there with men of all sorts of opinions, he was
prepared to think more lightly than other Nonjurors of
differences between men who after all meant to be English
Churchmen.
The two remaining bishops were ' Confessors in will,
but not in deed,' being called to their rest before the
1 Life, p. 224. 2 Ibid. p. 207.
74 THE NONJUEOES
sentence of deprivation came into execution; but their
trumpet gave no uncertain sound, and they rank virtually
among the deprived Fathers.
Of William Thomas (1613-89), Bishop of Worcester,
we have happily a full account, written by a descendant
for Nash's ' Collection for the History of Worcestershire ; '
and what we learn from other sources shows that this
was not merely the partial account of a relative. He
was a Welshman by extraction, but was born at Bristol ;
on the early death of his father he was brought up by his
grandfather at Carmarthen, and was educated at the
Grammar School in that place up to the time of his going
to Oxford, where he became fellow and tutor of Jesus
College. Like Frampton, who was born in the same
year, he was thus old enough to show his colours at the
time of the Rebellion, and he took the same line that
Frampton did. He had received Holy Orders, and been
presented to the living of Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire.
But in order to keep this (and perhaps other) preferments
during the troubles he would have been obliged to take
the Covenant. This he refused to do, and was conse-
quently ejected. Like Frampton, he earned his livelihood
by tuition until the Eestoration, when he was reinstated
in his living. In 1661 he was presented to the rectory of
Lampeter-Velfrey, 1 in Pembrokeshire, by Lord Chancellor .
Hyde, and made chaplain to the Duke of York, who
henceforth became his steady patron, and it was evidently
a great grief to Thomas to be obliged by conscience to
oppose him. In 1665 he was promoted, again through
the influence of the duke and the chancellor, to the
deanery of Worcester, in which capacity he won the
esteem of the county gentry, especially Sir John Paking-
ton, who,
1 Llanbeder in the Valley ' (Nash).
WILLIAM THOMAS 75
that he might enjoy more of his company, presented him to the
rectory of Hampton in 1670. He quitted Langharne and re-
moved his family to Hampton ; here he enjoyed an easy and
pleasant retirement, and was often heard to say that this was
the pleasantest part of his life, and that here he had more quiet
and satisfaction within himself than when he was afterwards in
the highest order of the Church ; here he found time to search
into antiquity, and enlarge his mind, and enrich it with fruitful
knowledge, 1
the deanery apparently not weighing very heavily upon
him. In 1677 he became Bishop of St. Davids, holding,
as was frequently the evil custom of the time, the deanery
of Worcester in commendam. This was a happy appoint-
ment, for he was a Welshman himself, and, unlike most
Welsh bishops of the period, ' thoroughly identified himself
with the interests of his diocese.' 2 He was ' very accept-
able to the gentry and clergy of the diocese ; he had been
bred among them, spake their language, and been a fellow-
sufferer with many of them in the late troublesome
times ; .... he preached frequently in several parts of
the diocese in the language of the country, and was very
instrumental in promoting the translation of the Bible
into Welsh.' 3 In 1683 he was translated to Worcester,
where he was hospitable to the rich and charitable to the
poor, almost to lavishness, and to the impoverishment of
his own family. When the Seven Bishops were sent to
the Tower,
This was a great grief to our Bishop, not that he was con-
cerned for any fault or misbehaviour in his brethren, or for the
calamity that had befallen them, for he often wished that he
had been with them, to bear his testimony for so good a cause,
and to have a share with them in their honourable sufferings,
but he was troubled to think on that impending storm which he
foresaw might fall upon the Church. 4
J Life (Nash). 2 Sevan's Diocesan History of St. Davids, p. 196.
3 Nash, ut supra. * Ibid.
76 THE NONJUEOES
This is borne out by an interesting letter, dated ' Wor-
cester, June 3, 1688, ' and written by Thomas, apparently
to Saner of t's chaplain. It runs :
Worthy Sir, I pray present my dutifully devoted observance
to my Lord's Grace of Canterbury. I pray God direct and prosper
his steerage of the Church of England in these tempestuous
times. In a cordial compliance with his Grace's pious conduct
in the late Petition presented to the King I have retained in
my custody the pacquet of the printed copyes of the Eoyal
Declaration of Indulgence which I could not transmit to the
clergy of my diocese committed to my pastoral charge (salvd
conscientid, salvo hoiiore Ecclesia Anglicance). It is a piercing,
wounding affliction to me to incur his Majesty's displeasure, to
be misinterpreted guilty of the least degree of disloyalty or in-
gratitude (which my soul abhorrs) towards my inexpressibly
obliging master and benefactor, patron and soveraigne, whose
special mandate I have received in the concerne of the Indul-
gence imparted to me by the Lord Bishop of St. David's ;
\vherein nothing could divert or slacken my intire submission
and utmost conformity, but my dread of the indignation of the
King of Kings, to whom, being neare the brinke of the grave, I
must shortly give an account of my managing of the Episcopal
station (wherein God be merciful to me), I apprehend it a duty
incumbent on me, indispensibly strict, to be a skreene to my
clergy, to endeavour to secure them from sinnes and perils,
not to lay traines for either, by recommending the publication of
that to their parishioners wherein my own judgment is abun-
dantly dissatisfy'd and theirs also. I resolve by God's gracious
assistance to suffer the greatest temporal evil of distresse rather
than teach or promote the least spiritual evil of guilt. 1
This letter prepares us for the course which Bishop
Thomas took at the Kevolution. It was hard enough
work for him to disobey the King to whom he owed so
much, and there is evidently a personal feeling that he
might appear ungrateful ; to renounce that king, and swear
allegiance to another, was what he could never dream of
doing. ' If my heart/ he said, ' do not deceive me, and
1 Gutch's Collectanea Curio&a, i. 332.
WILLIAM THOMAS 77
God's grace do not fail me, I think I could suffer at a
stake rather than take this oath.' If there had been any
doubt in his mind (which there was not), there was one
at hand ready to dispel it. The bishop and the dean,
William Thomas and George Hickes, stood shoulder to
shoulder in the crisis, and Hickes took the bishop's dying
declaration of unshaken loyalty, made only three days
before his death. The two are said to have ' stood almost
alone in their refusal in that diocese.' l There were at
least twelve others, but this is a small number considering
the example set by the two highest dignitaries. The
dean had a very high opinion of his bishop, and calls
him ' that excellent bishop worthy of everlasting me-
morjr.' 2 The end came rather suddenly at last, on
June 25, 1689. The bishop evidently did not expect it
quite so soon, for ' he prepared himself for leaving his
palace and vacating his see, and agreed with Mr. Martin,
Vicar of Wonnley, to come and live with him, and wrote
to Stillingfleet, telling he would use all his interest that he
might succeed him.' 3 But he also made full prepara-
tions for the other alternative.
According to his own appointment he was buried in the
Cloisters, being used to say that the church was for the living,
and not for the dead ; his funeral was ordered by himself, as
many old men going before his corpse cloath'd in black as he
was years old. He ordered this inscription : ' Depositum
Gulielmi Thomas, S.T.P., olim Decani Wigorniensis indigni,
postea Episcopi Menevensis indignioris, tandem Episcopi
1 Lathbury's History of tlie Nonjurors, p. 52, quoted from Kettlewell's
Life, 85.
2 Preface to the Collection of Dean Hickes's Letters, vol. i.
3 Nash, ut supra. This reference to Stillingfleet, who, of course, did
succeed him, shows that, had Thomas lived, he would probably have been
a Nonjuror of the type of Ken, not of his friend and coadjutor, Hickes ;
and other circumstances of his life point to the same conclusion
e.g. his interest in and munificence to the French Protestants.
78 THE NONJUEOES
Wigorniensis indignissimi, meritis tamen Christ! resurrectionis
ad vitam aeternam candidati.'
But on the marble monument erected to his memory in
the cathedral, Dean Hickes added :
Sanctissimus et doctissimus Praesul, pietatis erga Deum,
ergaEegem fidelitatis, charitatis erga Proximos illustre exemplum
expiravit An. Eedemptionis MDCLXXXIX. ^Etatis, LXXVI.
Junii XXV. et moribundus hoc quicquid est epitaph i pro
modestia sua tumulo inscribi jussit.
The last of the prelates to be noticed in this chapter
is John Lake (1624-89), Bishop of Chichester, the
chief characteristic of whom, all his life through, was
a most undaunted courage, both moral and physical. ' I
thank God,' he once said, ' I never knew what fear was,
when I was once satisfied of the goodness of my cause,'
&nd he never did. He was a Yorkshireman by birth and
education, being born at Halifax and educated there until
his admission at St. John's College, Cambridge, at what
was even then the early age of thirteen. When he had
taken his B.A. degree, while he was still a mere lad, ' his
college being made a prison for the royal party, he was
kept a prisoner there,' refusing, as a Eoyalist, to take the
Covenant. He managed, however, to make his escape,
and fled from Cambridge to Oxford, then the head-
quarters of the Eoyalist s. He joined the King's army as
a volunteer, and served in it for four years with con-
spicuous bravery, especially at the defence of Basing
House and at Wallingford Castle, which was one of the
last garrisons that held out for King Charles I. His
military instincts adhered to him through life, and some-
times served him in good stead. In 1647 he received
Holy Orders, probably from Skinner, the ejected Bishop
of Oxford, and preached his first sermon at his native
place, Halifax. With characteristic courage and decisive-
JOHN LAKE 79
ness he refused the * Engagement,' which several excellent
Churchmen took, 1 and had to flee from Halifax to Old-
ham, where for a year or two he contrived to exercise his
ministry. We then lose sight of him until the Restora-
tion, when he was presented to the vicarage of Leeds ;
but the Puritans were so opposed to the appointment
that at his induction soldiers had to be called in to keep
the peace a not inappropriate incident, considering that
it was a soldier-priest who was being inducted. In 1663
he was collated by the Bishop of London (Dr. Gilbert
Sheldon) to the living of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate ; and
in 1667 was also made Prebendary of Holborn, in
St. Paul's Cathedral ; in this capacity he formed an inti-
mate friendship with Sancroft, then Dean of St. Paul's.
In 1669 he was appointed to the living of Prestwich, in
Lancashire, and in 1671 to the prebend of Fridaythorpe,
in York Minster ; and in 1680 was installed Archdeacon
of Cleveland. His connection with York Minster brought
out, but in a very proper way, his warlike propensities.
There was a bad custom of people lounging about in the
nave of the minster while divine service was going on in
the choir ; this kindled the wrath of the intrepid preben-
dary, who went into the nave and pulled off the hats of
all who were wearing them. A still worse custom was
that of the city apprentices holding a revel in the
cathedral on Shrove Tuesday. Lake's determined oppo-
sition to this raised a riot ; but he defied the rabble,
declaring that he had faced death in the field too often
to dread martyrdom. He was advised to retire to his
country living, but he manfully stayed at his post until
he succeeded in putting a stop to the desecration of the
minster. In 1682 he was nominated by the Earl of
Derby to the bishopric of Sodor and Man, and ' sacrificed
1 E.g. Eobert Sanderson.
80 THE NONJUEORS
a rich prebend for a poor bishopric ; ' and in 1684,
through the influence of Bishop Turner with the Duke
of York, was translated to Bristol. 1 Here again his
military experience stood him in stead. The Monmouth
Rebellion, the scene of which was the West of England,
naturally disturbed Bristol ; and its gallant bishop has-
tened from London, where he was attending to Parlia-
mentary duties, to keep order in his cathedral city. This
greatly pleased King James, and led (through the in-
strumentality of Sancroft) to Lake's final promotion to
the bishopric of Chichester in 1685. He was a most
active and popular bishop in that diocese, was one of the
Seven who were imprisoned in the Tower, and one of
the Eight who refused the oaths of allegiance to William
and Mary. Strong influence was used to induce him to
take the oaths, but he persistently refused, and on being
told that, if he persisted, his suspension would take place
on August 1, and his deprivation on the following Feb-
ruary 1, he replied in words which have become almost
classical, that ' He considered that the day of death and of
judgment are as certain as the 1st of August and the 1st
of February, and acted accordingly.' ' The day of death '
was very near at hand. On August 27, 1689, feeling that
the end was approaching, he dictated to his chaplain,
Eobert Jenkin, whom he had lately collated to the pre-
centorship of the cathedral, and who afterwards became
master of his own college, St. John's, Cambridge, the
following remarkable * Profession ' :
Being called by a sick and I think a dying bed, and the
good hand of God upon me in it, to take the last and best
viaticum, the sacrament of my dear Lord's body arid blood, I take
myself obliged to make this short recognition and profession.
That whereas I was baptized into the religion of the Church
1 Defence of Bishop Lake's Profession, by R. Jenkin, p. 9.
JOHN LAKE 81
of England, and sucked it in with my milk, I have constantly
adhered to it through the whole course of my life, and now, if
it be the will of God, shall dye in it; and I had resolved,
through God's grace assisting me, to have dyed so, though at a
stake.
And whereas that religion of the Church of England taught
me the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience, which
I have accordingly inculcated upon others, and which I took to
be the distinguishing character of the Church of England, I ad-
here no less firmly and steadfastly to that, and in consequence
of it have incurred a suspension from the exercise of my office
and expected a deprivation. I find in so doing much inward
satisfaction, and if the Oath had been tendered at the peril of
my life, I could only have obeyed by suffering.
I desire you, my worthy friends and brethren, to bear
witness of this upon occasion, and to believe it as the words of
a dying man, and who is now engaged in the most sacred and
solemn act of conversing with God in this world, and may, for
ought he knows to the contrary, appear with these very words
in his mouth at the dreadful tribunal. 'Manu propria sub-
scripsi.'
JOHANNES CICESTBENSIS.
When the Communion was over [Dr. Jenkin goes on to tell
us] he called to Mr. Powell, his Secretary, and ordered him to
make an Act of it [the Profession]. The Lord Bishop of
Norwich l coming to visit him soon after, his Lordship pray'd
him to look over the Paper, and then desired the Dean of
Worcester 2 to carry it with him to Lambeth, and discoursed of
it to my Lord Bishop of Ely, 3 who that evening made him a
visit ; so that nothing, perhaps, in all its circumstances was
ever more solemnly and deliberately done. 4
Within three days (August 30, 1689) Bishop Lake was
called to his rest ; and on September 3 was buried in his
old church, St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate.
1 Dr. Lloyd. 2 Dr. Hickes. 3 Dr. Turner.
4 ' A Defense of the Profession which the Eight Beverend Father in
God, John, late Lord Bishop of Chichester, made upon his Death-bed
concerning Passive Obedience and the New Oaths ; together with an
Account of some Passages in his Lordship's Life,' 1690.
G
82 THE NONJUKOKS
Dr. Jenkin adds this very pertinent postscript to the
' Defense ' :
It is very observable that the only two Bishops who have
dyed since the refusal of the Oath, have declared, when they
had now done with this world, and had no other expectations
but of death and judgment, they refused it only upon a principle
of Conscience. And all who have any conscience or charity
themselves, or the least respect for the Church of England,
must give great regard to the dying words of two such Bishops,
in whom their worst enemies can find nothing to blame, but
that which shall be to their eternal honour, that all the tempta-
tions and inducements, which probably can happen in any
case, could never prevail with them to take an oath against
their consciences.
Enough has now been said about the deprived Fathers
individually. One general remark may be added in con-
clusion. The estimation in which they were deservedly
held arose rather from their moral than from their intel-
lectual qualities. They lived in times when there were
intellectual giants in the land ; but though none of them
were deficient, none of them attained to the gigantic
stature of the great Caroline divines, such as Barrow,
South, Bramhall, Jeremy Taylor, Sanderson, Cosin, Ham-
mond, and Thorndike. The one who approached nearest
the standard was perhaps Bishop Ken. On this point
Lord Macaulay says truly, ' Ken both in intellectual
and moral qualities ranked highest among the Nonjuring
prelates ; ' l but even Ken, to judge by his literary achieve-
ments, was not the equal of the earlier divines intel-
lectually. Neither can he, and still less can any of the
rest, bear comparison in this regard with many of the
other Nonjurors who will come before us such, for
instance, as Hickes, Leslie, Collier, Brett, Spinckes, Law,
Dodwell, Baker, and many besides. But the moral
1 History of England, ch. xiv. (vol. ii. p. 103, in the edition in 2 vols.,
published 1873).
THE DEPEIVED FATHERS 83
courage of the deprived Fathers as leaders of the van,
their self-sacrifice, their quiet demeanour (exceptis exci-
piendis) under very trying circumstances, their blameless
and exemplary lives compelled admiration. Justice, but
not more than justice, has been done to them by posterity.
Whether equal justice has been done to those who
certainly followed their lead remains to be seen.
o 2
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
84 THE NONJUEOES
CHAPTEK III
BISHOPS OF THE NEW CONSECRATION
IT was a most serious step which the deprived bishops
took when they determined to consecrate others to take
their places when they were gone. The reasons which
seem to have weighed with them have been noticed in
the opening chapter, and we have now to consider the
results of their action. The measures which were adopted
have been described in the fullest detail and the most
vivid manner by one who was very nearly concerned ; and,
as it would be impossible to improve upon this description,
it shall here be inserted at length. It is Dr. Hickes's
introduction to ' The Eecords of the New Consecrations,'
and we probably owe its preservation, as we owe so
much valuable information concerning the Nonjurors,
to Dr. Kichard Kawlinson. 1 It runs thus :
After the deprivation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
his brethren, on the first of February, 1689 [sic], they began to
think of continuing their succession by new consecrations, and
often discoursed of it ; but without taking any particular resolu-
tion till after the consecrations of the intruders into their sees ;
which happened on Whit Sunday, 31 of May, 1691. Then the
deprived Archbishop and Bishops in and about London resolved
to continue their succession, and in order thereunto to write to
1 Personally, my thanks are due to the Eev. J. L. Fish, rector of
St. Margaret Pattens, who also showed me an original copy of the Record
of the New Consecrations, at Sion College, and another belonging to Kenneth
Gibbs, Esq. Thirty copies of the Record &c. were distributed by Dr.
Eawlinson, who had them privately printed. He gave a bound copy to the
Bodleian Library, where it still is.
THE NEW CONSECEATIONS 85
the king about it. In their discourses on this matter the Bishop
of Ely acquainted the Archbishop and his brethren that there
were some letters in the library of St. John's College in Cam-
bridge, which had passed between Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards
Earl of Clarendon and Lord Chancellor, and Dr. Barwick,
afterwards Dean of St. Paul's not long before the Eestauration,
concerning the continuation of the succession of the bishops of
the Church of England, then reduced to about seven. This
obliged them to write to Mr. B ,* fellow of St. John's
College, to desire him to send up these letters ; which accord-
ingly were sent. It brought them also a resolution to impart
the secret to my lord Clarendon, who had been his father's
secretary in the correspondence with Dr. Barwick. It appears
from these letters, which were but part of what passed on the
occasion, or from the information of my lord Clarendon, or
from both, that difficulties arose at that time about the manner
of continuing the succession of bishops ; because either there
wanted deans and, chapters, to whom the conge d'elire with a
letter missive should be sent, or because the deans and pre-
bendaries of any church, then surviving in a sufficient number,
could not legally hold chapters out of their respective churches.
On this account it was thought the best way, because the only
way practicable, to ordain Suffragan Bishops according to the
statute of Henry VIII. But soon after this resolution was
taken the king was called home by an unforeseen providence,
which prevented the execution.
Upon this information the archbishop and bishops resolved
upon the same method for the continuation of their succession,
because though there were legal deans and chapters in most
churches, yet they were not such to whom his majesty could
direct his Conges d'Elire, or who would have received them. On
this resolution the deprived archbishop and bishops determined
to write to the King to desire his Majesty's consent in the way
directed by the statute, for consecrating new bishops. My lord
Clarendon was accordingly desired to write to my lord Melfort,
the King's secretary, about this affair ; which he did, and soon
received from him his majestie's most gracious answer to this
purpose : that he was well pleased with the design, and would
readily concur with it. After the receipt of this answer my
1 Probably Hilkiah Bedford, who published a translation of the Latin
Life of John Barwick by Peter Barwick.
86 THE NONJUROES
lord Clarendon wrote him a second letter by the dictation of the
archbishop and bishops in pursuance of the same design accord-
ing to the statute aforesaid. But to this no answer was returned
for a long time. This gave occasion to suspect that his majestic
had been persuaded from consenting to the continuation of the
succession of our bishops by such as desired nothing more than
to see it interrupted. Which made the good fathers resolve
rather to do this important matter without his majestie's con-
sent than not at all. However, they determined to renew their
application to the King, but whether before they had sent a
third letter or after it, I cannot well remember, they received
an answer from my lord Melfort signifying his majestie's great
desire to have the new consecrations finished, and requiring
them in order thereunto, to send some person over, with whom
his majestie could confer about this matter, and send a list of
the deprived clergy by him. The person of whom they made
choice [Dr. Hickes] set out from London, May the nineteenth,
1693, and went by way of Holland ; which by reason of many
difficulties and disappointments made it six weekes ere he
arrived at St. Germains. He came thither at night as his
majesty was concluding his supper, after which he kissed his
hand ; and having received his majestie's directions, whom only
he should see there, he was conducted to a lodging prepared for
him. Next night at the same hour he was sent for to the King,
who in the first place was pleased to make an apology for
having so long delayed his answer to my lord Clarendon's
second letter, above-mentioned viz. that before he proceeded
further in this matter, he thought himself obliged fully to satisfy
his own conscience, as to the lawfulness of his own part in it ;
which, said he, I did first by consulting of those I thought the
best casuists of the place where I am viz. the archbishop of
Paris and the bishop of Meaux, and they by laying the case
before the Pope. The resolution of the two bishops, says
he, I have here ; and they both agree in this determination
though consulted separately : that the Church of England being
established by the laws of the Kingdom, I am under no obliga-
tion of conscience to act against it, but obliged to maintain and
defend it, as long as these laws are in force. And then his
majesty put the papers containing the said case and those
bishops' resolution of it into the doctor's hands, desiring him to
read them ; which he did, and found them as his majesty repre-
sented. His majesty said he had not yet received the pope's
THE NEW CONSECRATIONS 87
answer, but did not doubt he should before the doctor returned,
which accordingly happened ; and the doctor saw it before his
departure : and it was to the same effect with that of the two
bishops. The King shewed these three determinations to my
lord Fanshaw, about two years after who went over about some
business, and after his return assured the doctor that he had
both seen and read them. After the doctor had that night read
the said two papers, the King proceeded to tell him that his
majesty had on all occasions ' justified the Church of England,
since the Revolution, declaring that the true Church of England
remained in that part of the clergy and people, which adhered
to her doctrines and suffered for them : and that, Sir/ said he,
' is the Church of England which I will maintain and defend,
and the succession of whose bishops I desire may be continued,
and when it shall please God to restore me or mine, we may
meet with such a Church of England, and such bishops : and I
desire for that end that the new consecrations may be made as
soon as conveniently they can after your return.' At that and
other audiences his majesty expressed his esteem of the deprived
bishops and clergy, and of the laity that suffered with them, in
the most tender and affectionate manner even with tears in his
eyes, and he declared that he was very sensible that the greatest
part of the complying clergy still loved him, and had fallen only
through their infirmity, and very few through disaffection and
malice to him.
The doctor had his ' cong6 ' of his majesty the latter end of
July and arrived at Rotterdam on the seventh of August, where
he waited all that month and the next to return in a fleet of
merchants under the convoy of the same men of war that con -
voyed the yatcht [sic] in which the prince of Orange returned,
but when he should have gone on board, he was seized with an
ague and fever which detained him near four months longer,
viz. : till January the twenty-fourth on which day he went from
Rotterdam, and going on board the packet boat on the twenty-
sixth arrived at Harwich on the twenty-ninth. Where he
escaped being examined by one Mackay a Scotchman placed
there to examine passengers, by sitting next to a foreign minister
in the boat which brought the passengers on shore. After three
days stay at Harwich he came to London on the fourth of
February and on the feast of S. Matthias the twenty-fourth of
the same month the consecrations were solemnly performed
according to the rites of the Church of England by Dr. William
88 THE NONJUROES
Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely,
and Dr. Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, at the bishop
of Peterborough's lodgings, at the Rev. Mr. William Giffard's
house l at Southgate in Middlesex : Dr. Kenn, bishop of Bath
and Wells giving his consent. Here it is to be noted that Dr.
Frampton, bishop of Gloucester absolutely refused all corre-
spondence with his brethren, alleging that he had retired from
all business, but what related to his soul, in preparing himself
for death ; and that Dr. William Bancroft, Archbishop of
Canterbury dyed while the doctor lay ill at Rotterdam, but he
joined in everything relating hereto, while he lived, and par-
ticularly recommended to the King one of the two persons to
be consecrated, as the bishop of Norwich did the other. All
the time of his Grace's retirement in Suffolk he corresponded
with the bishop of Norwich notwithstanding that he had given
him a deputation in due form in the Latin tongue, impowering
him to act in all cases relating to Church affairs in his stead
which yet the bishop seldom made use of, without first acquaint-
ing him with it, and receiving his Grace's directions thereupon.
GEORGE HICKES.
Looked at from the modern point of view this in-
teresting and important document suggests several reflec-
tions.
(1) The great importance attached to the consent of
one who was after all a layman, and not even a lay
member of the Church of England, may seem to savour
of Erastianism, the very last thing which one associates
with the Nonjurors. But it will be observed that here, as
elsewhere, the Church is put above the State. ' The good
fathers resolve rather to do this important matter without
1 The name of 'William Giffard, B. of Great Bradley,' occurs in
all lists of Nonjurors, and in a MS. book given to the Library of St. John's
College, Cambridge, by the Eev. J. H. Lupton, and kindly lent to me by
Professor J. E. B. Mayor, I find, among the accounts of the characters of
various Nonjurors, the following extract from the Daily Post, on Friday,
April 9, 1731, headed * Mr. Giffard's Character ' : * On Wednesday night
(viz. April 7, 1731) died the Eev. Mr. William Giffard, who had borne the
shocks of fortune for several years with singular patience and courage. He
died in a very advanced age.'
THE NEW CONSECEATIONS 89
his majestie's consent than not at all.' Nevertheless, it
was most important, indeed essential, to have that consent
if everything was to be done as they wished. If the Non-
jurors were the true Church of England, then of course
their bishops must be appointed as the Church of England
appoints bishops. In other words, the old constitutional
doctrine of the Eoyal Supremacy must be recognised, and
none the less so because it was at present a shadowy
supremacy far away, and not a substantial supremacy on
the spot. When ' the King should enjoy his own again,'
as they all hoped he would do, endless complications
would arise if he had not given his sanction to the new
consecrations by sending the conge d'elire. Moreover, the
Act of Henry VIII., under which the consecrations were
supposed to be made, laid great stress upon the part
which the King was to take. ' Two honest and discreet
spiritual persons, being learned and of good conversation/
were to be presented by the archbishop or bishop ' dis-
posed to have any suffragan ' to the King ' by writing
under their seals, making humble request to his majesty
to give to one such of the said two persons as shall please
his majesty such title, name, style, and dignity of bishop
of such of the sees specified, as the King's highness shall
think most convenient for the same,' 1 and there are several
other regulations in which the King plays a chief part.
It will be seen that they could not comply with the Act
literally by giving the King the choice of two, probably
for lack of material all the more reason why they should
be very particular about complying with it where they
could.
(2) An English Churchman's choler is inclined to rise
when he hears that the Pope and two bishops in the
Koman obedience were consulted in the matter. It was
1 See Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law, p. 78.
90 THE NONJUBOES
like the infatuated policy of King James to refer pointedly
to his having done so. Of course, as a conscientious
Roman Catholic he could not act otherwise ; but one
would have thought that past experience would have
taught him that the less said about the matter the better.
(3) The clandestine nature of the whole transaction
was repellent to the frankness and openness of the
English character. Perhaps at this time of day we are
hardly in a position to judge how far all this secrecy was
necessary ; but certainly if it could have been avoided it
would have been very desirable. The Non jurors them-
selves, except those few who had been let into the secret,
do not appear to have known what took place. Robert
Nelson lived close to Hickes in Ormond Street, and on
the most intimate terms of friendship with him, without
knowing that ' My neighbour the Dean ' was a bishop.
Thomas Hearne certainly knew nothing about the new
consecrations in 1711 that is, seventeen years after they
had taken place and probably not for several years later.
There may be, perhaps, nothing actually contrary to
Church principles in the concealment. This very question
is asked and grappled with in one of the appendices to
Lee's * Life of Kettlewell,' and also in other writings of
the Nonjurors ; l but Englishmen do not like mystery ;
and it is clear that, both at the time and ever since, the
mystery in which the consecrations were shrouded has
tended to raise a strong prejudice against them.
(4) The awkward questions arise, Was the Act of
Henry VIII. under which the first consecrations took
place really intended for any such purpose as that for
which it was used ? And if it was, had the suffragan any
power beyond what he received by commission from his
1 In one of the MS. books in the Library of St. John's, Cambridge,
already referred to, there are several letters on the subject.
GEOEGE HICKES 91
diocesan? And when the diocesan died did not the
suffragan's commission die with him? It is a curious
fact that Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, who revived this
system of so-called suffragans by putting into force the
Act of Henry VIII. in our own time, foresaw this difficulty
some years before the revival ; indeed, some years before
he was a bishop himself. 1 Of course the Nonjurors were
too well-read men not to perceive the difficulty ; and they
grappled with it bravely whether successfully or not is
another question. Indeed, the original idea was soon
tacitly dropped. The first two were the only bishops
who were consecrated as suffragans under Henry's Act.
Thetford and Ipswich were carefully chosen as towns in
the diocese of Norwich, and the Bishops of Thetford and
Ipswich were supposed to be suffragans of the Bishop of
Norwich ; but none of the later bishops had any titular
sees attached to them ; they were bishops at large of the
Catholic Church. It is only fair to add that two of the
very ablest of the Nonjurors Dr. Hickes in his ' Con-
stitution of the Catholic Church,' and Charles Leslie in
his ' Case of the Regale and Pontificate ' dealt with the
whole subject of the new consecrations most learnedly
and exhaustively ; but they had a hard task w r hich taxed
even their abilities.
But when we turn from the question of consecration
to the two individuals who were first consecrated, it
must be owned that they were more than worthy of the
doubtful elevation to which they were advanced.
George Hickes (1642-1715) was, in point of abilities
and attainments, quite equal to the great divines of the
Caroline era. He was fast rising to the highest ranks of
his profession when the Revolution occurred, and put a
stop to any further advancement. It was by the sheer
1 See Life of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, p. 223 (First Edition).
92 THE NONJUEORS
force of his own talents that he rose, for he had no par-
ticular advantages of birth or education, and no powerful
friends, except those of his own making. He was the son
of a large Yorkshire farmer perhaps, one should say, a
gentleman farmer and was educated first at Thirsk and
then at the Grammar School of North Allerton, the
master of which, Thomas Smelt, throughout the Common-
wealth instilled monarchical principles into his pupils,
much in the same way as Dr. Busby did on a far larger
scale at Westminster. As George Hickes's mother was
the daughter of a clergyman, it is possible that the same
seeds were sown at home ; at any rate, he proved very
receptive of them, and they bore ample fruit in later life.
At the age of sixteen he was sent to his brother, John
Hickes, who was nine years his senior, and who had
imbibed quite opposite views. It was intended to make
a merchant of him, but he showed so much intellectual
promise that it was determined to send him to college,
and accordingly he went to St. John's College, Oxford.
The Puritan reign was nearly, but not quite, over, and
George Hickes, an ardent Royalist and Churchman, was
involved in trouble with the authorities, and had to leave
the college. Upon the Restoration he returned to Oxford,
not to St. John's, but as 'poor scholar' or servitor to
one of the restored Fellows at Magdalen College, and from
thence took his degree of B.A. Then he migrated to
Magdalen Hall, and in 1664 was elected to a Yorkshire
fellowship at Lincoln College, and for seven years was
what would now be called a college tutor. In 1675 he
became rector of St. Ebbe's, Oxford, and in the same
year chaplain to the Duke of Lauderdale, having been
satisfied by his friend, Bishop Fell (who was also Dean of
Christ Church), that the charges of immorality against
the duke were unfounded, arising only from party malice.
GEOEGE HICKES 93
In 1680 he was made prebendary of Worcester, and
in the same year vicar of Allhallows Barking, which
preferment he owed to Archbishop Bancroft. In 1681
he became a Royal chaplain, and in 1683 Dean of
Worcester. In 1684 he declined the bishopric of Bristol,
though it was intimated to him that he might retain his
deanery in commendam. In 1685 the Eector of Lincoln
College, Dr. Marshall, who was also Dean of Gloucester,
and a man of considerable eminence, died, and Hearne
tells us that * Bishop Fell, who knew Dr. Hicks's worth,,
and had a true value for Men of Learning, labour'd all he
could to have him Eector of Lincoln ; but the Fellows,
who knew he would have been for keeping up Discipline,,
preferr'd a Person of a quite Different Temper.' 1 This
seems a rather unnecessary fling at the fellows and the
successful candidate for the rectorship (Dr. Fitzherbert
Adams), but it is borne out by Wood, who gives us also
the following additional particulars :
1685, May 2, S[unday]. Fitzherbert Adams chose rector of
Line. Coll. against Dr. [George] Hicks. He had 9 voices and
Dr. Hicks but 3. Occasioned by John Radcliff and [Edward]
Hopkins 2 that they might have a governor that they might
govern. Radcliff represented him to be a turbulent man, and
that if he should be rector they should never be at quiet. 3
In 1686 Hickes resigned the living of Allhallows
Barking, and accepted that of Alvechurch, to hold in
commendam with the deanery. Dean Hickes, though
frequently accused of a leaning to popery, was, in point
of fact, from first to last a staunch Protestant, in the
literal sense of the word that is, he was always ready to
1 protest ' in the strongest terms he could command, and
1 Hearne's Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 322.
- Curiously enough this ' Edward Hopkins ' afterwards became a Non-
juror.
1 Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 142. .
94 THE NONJURORS
these were very strong, both against papal errors in
doctrine and papal encroachments in practice. All
through his life he was a very malleus Romanensium,
writing several most telling pieces against them. He
also saw perfectly well what his Royal master was aiming
at, and determined to resist him. In 1687 the Bishop of
Worcester was seriously ill, and not expected to recover.
Dean Hickes, like a war-horse sniffing the battle from
afar, prepared himself and others for the attempt which
he felt sure King James would make, in case of a vacancy,
to foist one of his Roman or Romanising friends into the
see. He wrote ' to assure the prebendaries that in such
a case he would first write to the King, asking him to
recall any conge d'elire for such a person, and then, if
necessary, endure any penalty rather than summon the
chapter to elect/ Happily, the bishop recovered, so
the case did not occur. But the dean rushed into the
fray though, of course, he had no call to do so when
the infatuated King issued his Second Declaration of
Indulgence the same year. He was equally staunch in
supporting James in his adversity as he had been in
resisting him in his prosperity, and at the Revolution
became one of the most uncompromising of Jacobites
and Nonjurors. He was first suspended, and then
deprived in the usual course, but was allowed to remain
unmolested at the deanery for three months after his
deprivation that is, from the beginning of February to
the beginning of May 1691. Then, on hearing that his
successor had been appointed (Talbot, who rose in time
to the Palatine see of Durham), he took the bold course
of affixing with his own hand to the entrance-gate of the
choir of his cathedral a protest, an extract from which
may be here inserted :
Whereas the office, place and dignity of Dean of this
GEOEGE HICKES 95
Cathedral Church was given and presented unto me for a free-
hold during my natural life by Letters Patent under the Broad
Seal of King Charles II. :
Whereas I am given to understand that my right to the said
office and dignity has of late been called in question, and that
one Mr. Talbot, M.A., prefers a title to the same :
I do hereby publicly protest and declare that I do claim a
legal right and title to the said office and dignity of Dean
against the said Mr. Talbot and all other persons pretending
title to the same and so forth. 1
This was regarded as an affront to Government, and,
in order to prevent arrest, Hickes was obliged to make his
escape, and to lie for some time in concealment and dis-
guise. He found a refuge, of all places in the world, in
the country parsonage at Ambrosden, or Amersden, of Mr.
White Kennett, the man who, next to Bishop Burnet,
was perhaps most obnoxious to the Nonjurors, and who
certainly wrote and spoke most severely of them. This
bringing together of the extremest of Nonjurors and the
extremes t of anti-Non jurors seemed like a cat and dog
arrangement, which must infallibly result in an immediate
and violent quarrel. But, strange to say, this was not
the case. For a time the plan answered admirably, and
brought about most important results, quite apart from
controversial divinity and politics. Perhaps at the time
of the residence of the two men under the same roof they
were not quite so wide apart as they afterwards became ;
White Kennett certainly drifted further and further away
from his old moorings (he had been bred up a Tory and
a High Churchman) ; Hickes probably grew stricter and
1 The document will be found, printed in full, in an Appendix to the
Life and Compleat Works of Kettlewell. The protest, addressed to ' Dr.
John Jephcot, Sub-Dean of the Cathedral, &c.' is all in manuscript among
the Rawlinson MSS. (D 373) in the Bodleian Library. It is 'corrected
from an Original under the Dean's own hand and seal, this 2nd of July,
1731. Witness, Wm. Bedford.'
96 THE NONJUEOES
stricter, both in his theological and his political prin-
ciples, as his years advanced. Still, at the time when the
two men lived together at Ambrosden that is, during
part of the last decade of the seventeenth century the
differences between them were quite sufficient to make the
harmony almost phenomenal.
How it was managed had best be told in the words of
Kennett's biographer :
Having contracted an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Hicks,
he [Kennett] received him freely into his vicarage-house there
[Amersden] ; and finding that by his condition of suffering for
the cause of King James, his head and thoughts were too much
determined to Politics ; by which he would be apt to disturb
the world and expose himself, Mr. Kennet, to divert him from
that mischief (as well as for other reasons) desired his instruc-
tion in the Saxon and Septentrional Tongues, &c.
While Dr. Hickes was thus pleased by the Country Vicar,
it gave the latter the opportunity to interest the Doctor to look
more upon those studies, to review his Saxon and Islandic [sic]
Grammar &c. It was upon this frequent Discourse and Impor-
tunity of Mr. Kennett, that Dr. Hickes, then and there, laid the
foundation of that noble work which he brought to perfection in
about 7 years after. 1
But the Doctor, being then under a legal Incapacity (which,
however, was soon taken off without his Trouble or charge by
the generosity of the Lord Somers), 2 he wore a lay-habit, and
affected to be unknown, till a Fellow of a College in Oxford
coming over, and calling the Doctor by his name, he thought
there was a danger in staying, and so he went off immediately
to some more obscure retreat. 3
1 That is The Thesaurus, &c., described in the chapter on ' Nonjurors'
Literature,' infra, p. 414.
2 In 1699 Lord Somers, the Whig Lord Chancellor, procured for him a
nolle prosequi, which stayed all further proceedings against him, in con-
sideration of the great services he had rendered to literature on non-contro-
versial subjects. Lord Somers is said to have interposed in his behalf in
gratitude for having been made counsel for the Seven Bishops.
3 Life of Bishop White Kennett, 1730, published anonymously, but
known to have been written by the Eev. William Newton, vicar of Gilling-
ham, Dorset.
GEOEGE HICKES 97
Dr. Hickes, having stayed for a while in London,
found shelter under the hospitable roof of Lady Pakington
at Westwood, in Worcestershire, then in a small cottage
on Bagshot Heath, then in Gloucester Green, Oxford,
then for many years in Great Ormond Street, London,
where he died on December 15, 1715, and was buried by
his friend Spinckes in the churchyard of St. Margaret,
Westminster. 1 He regularly officiated at one of the most
noted of the Nonjuring Oratories, as will appear in a
later chapter. 2 He had married a kindred spirit in 1679,
Frances, daughter of Charles Mallory who had suffered
for his loyalty during * the troubles ' ; with her he lived
most happily until her death, which occurred just a year
before his own. They had no family. He had two
brothers : Ralph, to whom no doubt Hearne refers when
he says, ' Dr. Hicks has a Brother a Physitian, who was
first a Presbyterian, and afterwards converted to y e Ch. of
Engl. by his Bro. and now practises Physick in London,' 3
and John Hickes, of whom a little more must be said.
It is a remarkable fact that two brothers, John
and George Hickes, should have suffered for conscience*
sake, the one death, the other the loss of all his worldly
prospects, on quite opposite sides. John Hickes held
under the Commonwealth the perpetual curacy of Saltash,
in Cornwall, from which he was ejected by the Act of
Uniformity in 1662. He became a champion of Non-
conformity, joined the Monmouth Kebellion in 1685, and
was executed at Taunton in the autumn of that year.
He wrote to his wife from prison : ' Monday last my
1 The following is an extract from the Burial Register of St. Margaret's,
Westminster : ' 1715, Dec. 18. The Eev. (or fit. Rev.) George Hicks [sic],
D.D., Dean of Worcester, which Deanery he lost by refusing to take the
Oaths at the Revolution ; he was consecrated Bp. Suffragan of Thetford by
Dr. Lloyd, the deprived Bp. of Norwich.'
2 See infra, p. 283. Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 260.
98 THE NONJUEORS
brother went to London to try what could be done for
ine ; what the success will be, I know not.' The dean
offered 100L to Lord Shannon to procure a pardon for his
brother by the King's personal favour. But he was in a
most embarrassing position; natural affection led him
one way, his ideas of justice another. Holding as he did
the doctrine of non-resistance in its strictest and most
uncompromising form, he no doubt believed that his
brother had justly forfeited his life by his glaring act of
rebellion. John Hickes was quite as unbending in his
opinions in an opposite direction ; the two had probably
long been alienated, and time had done its work. All
this should be taken into account in reading the following
letter, written only two days after John Hickes 's most
sad death :
Worcester : Oct. 17, 1685.
Much Honoured Sir, At my return to the Deanery, I found
your very kind letter for which I return you my most hearty
thanks, and will ever acknowledge your great charity, and
respects towards my late wretched brother, which shall remain a
debt upon my account as long as I live. I must also entreat you
to return my most humble duty and thankes to my good Lord
Bishop l for his eminent condescension and charity towards him
in praying with him, and for him, and for suffering so unworthy
a body to be buried in Glassenbury Church. I take this last
great respect of my Lord's to be done to myself, and desire in a
particular manner to be thankful for it. I am glad he made .
such professions of his loyalty, and gave the people such good
exhortations to be true and faithful to their lawfull sovereign
and to detest all manner of rebellion, but am very sorry that
he persisted in justifying his nonconformity : this part of his
last behaviour fills my hoa,rt with grief, though I was prepared
to expect it, as knowing very well how ignorant he was of the
true nature of Church communion, and how much he was pre-
possessed with false notions and principles in matters relating
to church discipline and government. I humbly entreat you to
1 Dr. Ken, whose Christian 1 indness towards the poor Dissenter is very
characteristic.
GEOEGE HICKES 99
send on the paper he delivered to you, you may direct it to me
at the Deanery in Worcester, and I also pray you to let me
know, whether he left any charge, or message to his children
in word or writeing, that they should live in the communion of
our church and whether he desired, and received the holy sacra-
ment, and if not, whether he refused, or it was refused to him,
as might justly have been done to a man persisting in schisme.
I also desire to know, whether his body was delivered whole to
his friends, and if so, whether it was don by order from my
Lord Chief Justice ; I wrote to his Lordship to beg so much
mercy of him, and if he granted my petition, it is fit I should
know it, and give him thankes. I should also be glad to know
what my Lord said to him at his tryall, and condemnation, and
whether he said anything to the people in justification of his
nonconformity at the time of his execution, and if he acknow-
ledged his punishment to be the righteous judgment of God for
his sin of rebellion. There is a worthy gentleman of the Church
of Welles, to whome I beseech you give my humble service and
particular respects, I mean Dr. Creighton, 1 and to the good
Deane, 2 if he be there.
I doubt my curiosity hath made me too troublesome to you,
but I assure you, you may in requiteall command me any
service, for I am in all sincerity, dear Sir,
Your most obliged, affect, and humble servant,
GEOEGE HicKES. 3
The tone of this letter may seem, as Mr. Macray says,
somewhat hard, but with Hickes the cause of the Church,
in its minutest details, was the cause of Christ ; and ' he
that loveth father or mother 'much more brother ' more
than me is not worthy of me.'
1 Son of a former Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was precentor of
Wells for no less than sixty years, 1674-1734.
2 Dr. Kalph Bathurst, who was also President of Trinity College, Oxford.
He was a strong Boyalist, and in the time of ' the troubles ' had frequently
gone from Oxford to Launton to assist Bishop Skinner in his secret ordina-
tions there. He would be a man after Dean Hickes's heart.
3 The letter is addressed, * For the Eeverend Mr. Robert Eyre, Chaplain
to my Lord Bishop of Welles, at the pallace in Welles, Somersets.' The
original is in the Bodleian Library. A copy of it was sent by the Rev. W.
D. Macray to TJie English Historical Review, and was published in that
periodical, in October 1887, p. 752.
H2
100 THE NONJUEOES
Hickes was not really an unfeeling, but a very warm-
hearted man ; few men had more friends who loved and
reverenced him, and whom he loved with all the ardour of
an enthusiastic temperament; but he loved his Church
better, and in its interests would sacrifice the closest of
natural ties. He carried the same principles and temper
with him into the camp of the Non jurors, and his motto
always was ' No surrender/ An interesting correspon-
dence took place between him and Bishop Ken at the
commencement of the eighteenth century, which was
begun by Ken under the impression that Hickes would
' concur with him in hearty desires for closing the rupture
with the Established Church.' Ken's letter is written
in a truly Christian tone, of course : l but, holding the
principles he did, I do not see how Hickes could possibly
have accepted Ken's proposals. At any rate he did not ;
but wrote a reply which drew from Ken another letter,
evidently written in an irascible frame of mind like that
in which the good man wrote to Bishop Lloyd ; 2 but, as
usual, he struggled against his irascibility and overcame
it. He concludes :
You have been more than once severe upon me. I leave
you at your liberty to dissent from me, and if you will not
indulge me the like liberty to dissent from you, I must take it,
though without any breach of friendship on my part. God keep
us in his most holy fear. Your most affectionate friend and Br.
THO. B. & W. 3
That they should continue to ' dissent ' was inevitable.
Not only were they men of very different temperaments, but
they started from different premisses ; Ken regarded the
separation from the National Church as purely personal
1 See the letter in full in Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 108-9. A MS.
copy of Hickes's answer, which is of great length, is in the Library of
St. John's, Cambridge.
4 See supra, p. 44, 66. * See Plumptre, ii. 110-1.
GEORGE HICKES 101
and purely temporary; Hickes as one of principle and
final, until a distinct recantation should be made. Ken
belonged to the extreme right of one section of the
Nonjurors, Hickes to the extreme left of the other. How
could two such men agree unless they * agreed to differ ' ?
How you estimate Hickes just depends upon the
end of the telescope from which you contemplate him.
Look at him from one end and he will perhaps appear
rather unduly magnified; look at him from the other
and he will appear unduly belittled. To many Nonjurors
he was the brave and consistent champion of their cause,
who maintained definite and intelligible principles, from
which no earthly power could induce him to swerve one
inch to the right hand or to the left. ' Nothing,' com-
plains Mr. Noble, ' could teach him moderation.' l No !
and nothing would, if he had lived to this day ; for he
thought moderation was only another word for trimming.
All through he was probably the most influential man
among the Nonjurors, converting more to that little com-
munion than any other man ; and after the death of
Bishop Lloyd in 1709, he was not only their virtual, but
their actual and nominal head, so that they were some-
times called * Hickesites,' and their communion ' the com-
munion of Dr. Hickes.'
There was another reason for his supremacy which is
well pointed out by a modern writer : * He was the last
of the great divines of the seventeenth century, and the
.last of that generation of Nonjurors who had already
gained position and distinction before the Church was
rent asunder by the Revolution, and who were known and
valued in a larger world than that narrow space in which
the Nonjurors were compelled to move.' 2
1 Granger's Biographical History of England, continued by Noble, i. 120.
2 Undercurrents of Church Life in the Seventeenth Century, p. 36.
102 THE NONJUEOES
Hence he was sometimes called by his party ' the good
Father Hickes.' l In 1696, feeling how uncertain life is,
and desiring that there might be no mistake about the
principles which uniformly guided him, he wrote ' A
Declaration concerning the Faith and Keligion in which
he lived and intended to die,' which, considering the
supreme importance of the man from the point of view
of this work, deserves to be quoted at some length. No
one, I think, can read it without perceiving that it palpi-
tates with the deepest emotions of the writer, and that
he would have been quite ready to go to the stake rather
than act inconsistently with the principles he here
enunciates.
I profess [he writes] and declare the Church of England as
it was governed and administered by true and lawful and right-
ful Bishops before the Eevolution to have been a true and sound
part of the Catholick Church ; and I testify my unalterable
adherence to all the doctrines of it contained in the Thirty Nine
Articles, in opposition to the corrupt and dangerous practice of
the Eoman Church and other dangerous doctrines and practices ;
and this I do to vindicate myself and my suffering brethren
from the opinion which the common people and other ignorant
and inconsiderate persons have taken up of us because we have
withdrawn ourselves from the public assemblies and worship in
the parochial churches.
I profess my unalterable adherence to the deprived bishops,
and their canonical successors and colleagues.
I am fully persuaded and declare that the Church of England
now consists in the deprived Bishops, so called, and that faith-
ful remnant which adheres to them, and that the other Arch-
bishops and Bishops, and the great majority adhering to them,
are guilty of a great schism to be lamented by all good
Christians.
I believe the doctrine of non-resistance as taught in the
Homilies to be not only a doctrine of this church, but a principal
Point of Christianity.
I bless God who gave me courage and constancy to refuse
1 See Life of Bishop White Kennett, p. 48.
GEORGE HICKES 103
the oath, and making me stand in the time of Trial, when so
many others to my astonishment fell. However in that great
Apostasy of the Nation it pleased God to reserve to Himself a
Eemnant of faithful persons, and I magnify Him with all my
soul, and will ever praise Him as long as I have my being, for
making me one of them, and thinking me worthy to suffer in
so righteous a cause as that under which I have been engaged.
I praise God for giving me an active zeal to defend our
cause in several pieces. . . . And as I trust I wrote them with
a zeal not unsuitable to, or unworthy of our glorious Cause, so
I wrote them with an intention so pure and with so great a
regard to truth that to my knowledge I have not injured any
one person in them.
But if I have been misinformed about any .... I ask
God's pardon for it. If my zeal for Truth and Righteousness
and the Constitution, Rights and Unity of the Church hath,
notwithstanding my care to the contrary, transported me too
far, and made me write against any one of our adversaries with
more indignation and severity of expression than was consistent
with strictness of Christian meekness and charity, I beg his
Pardon for that, and the favourable construction of all good
men, who know what allowances are to be made to the best
men, that write controversies on such subjects and occasions,
and against such insulting and provoking Adversaries, and in
such degenerate and unhappy Times.
I beseech God of His infinite mercy to turn the hearts of
this great people, and those who mislead them, that they may
return to their obedience, and call back their exiled king, and
so put an end to those distractions and confusions, which can
have no end till the hereditary king by lineal descent comes to
wear the Crown.
I also declare my hearty sorrow for the schism which the
whole nation, except a small remnant, is guilty of in ejecting
and forsaking their rightful Bishops and Pastors, and I
beseech God so to touch the hearts and understandings of the
people and the clergy, who mislead them that they may
repent etc.
I beseech God to give the king 1 a sight of his errors and
true repentance for his apostasy from the true religion in which
he was baptised, and for which his Father was both a Confessor
1 That is, of course, King James.
104 THE NONJUKOES
and Martyr ; and to bless and convert the Queen ; and as for
the Prince of Wales, I pray God to look upon him, as the
grandson of the Royal Martyr, that he may live to sit upon the
Throne of his Ancestors, and become a Josiah to this Church
and Kingdom ; and give him grace timely to discern the errors
of his education, and if, by God's Providence, this paper happen
to come to his sight, I desire and conjure him, by all that I
have done for the Eoyal Cause, to read the excellent works of
his grandfather and great-grandfather, who were learned and
religious kings, and much more able and competent judges than
his Eoyal Father, in the great controversy between us and the
Church of Eome.
I beg God to comfort and support the whole suffering
Eemnant, . . . particularly the Bishops and clergy, and espe-
cially to direct our holy Fathers, the Bishops, that they may
provide for the Church in times to come, and not leave the Flock
which adheres to them, like Sheep without a Shepherd ; and
their Successors in all they do and suffer for His sake, and
when the time of healing and reunion shall come, they may re-
settle the Church in Truth, Peace and Unity.
As I have always maintained the just rights and preroga-
tives of the Crown, so to the best of my understanding I have
maintained the lawful rights of the people. What the Constitu-
tion and Law give the King, I will render to his Majesty.
What Immunities, Eights, and Liberties the people have by our
Constitution, I will claim and defend as a subject ; and this I
declare for the sake of some men who have misrepresented and
slandered many truly loyal and conscientious persons, as if
they were for arbitrary power and betraying of the Liberties of
their country, because they teach and maintain our kings to be
truly Sovereigns, and as such to be irresistible, indeposable, and
unaccountable to the People. But it is one thing for a King, as
supreme, to have those prerogatives of Supremacy, and another
to have unlimited and arbitrary Power : For the Law limits
both King's and People's rights, and I neither am, nor ever was,
nor ever will be for arbitrary Government, or boundless power
in the one, or boundless liberty in the other.
This Profession I have made in my health, that I may not
have to do it at the time of my death.
As a matter of fact, Hickes lived for nearly twenty
years after making this ' Declaration ' ; but he never
GEOEGE HICKES 105
swerved from it, and indeed referred to it as expressing
his convictions in his will, made within a year of his
death. It tells its own tale the tale of one who was a
Nonjuror, a Jacobite, and a Protestant. The only passage
in it which requires comment is that in which he refers
to any harsh language which he may have used against
his adversaries.
That he did use such language is one of the chief
charges brought against him, and it is certainly true. It
would be strange if it were not, for Hickes was a man of
strong and definite convictions, which he expressed in
the most downright and outspoken terms. He was a
voluminous writer, and much that he wrote was written
in the white heat of controversy. He felt very keenly
the personal injustice which he thought had been done
to himself and his fellow-sufferers, and still more keenly
the inconsistency with their own often-expressed senti-
ments of many who had taken their places, and he
frequently wrote under severe provocation. Here is one
of his strictures en masse :
The Dethroning and Depriving of Bightful Canonical Bishops
by the Secular Powers for adhering to their Christian Duty, is
yet a greater Sin, and also receives further Aggravation, when
those Secular Powers are not Lawful, but Usurping Powers :
And those Priests or Bishops, who dare Usurp the Thrones of
Rightful, Canonical Bishops, so invalidly, so unjustly, so illegally
deprived, and driven from their Thrones, are of all others the
most detestable Usurpers, Breakers of the Bond of Peace, Unity,
Subordination, and all Charity in the City of God ; very Corahs,
from whom the Lord's People ought to separate by the Laws
of the Gospel and the Doctrine of the Catholick Church : They
can perform no valid Acts of Priesthood ; their very Prayers are
Sin ; their Sacraments are no Sacraments ; their Absolutions
are null and void ; God ratines nothing in Heaven which they
do in His Name upon Earth ; they, and all that adhere to them ,
are out of the Church ; they can claim no Benefits of God's
Promises, no not of His Assisting Grace, nor of the Remission
106 THE NONJUEOES
of Sins through the Merits of Christ's Blood. Nay, though
they should dye Martyrs in the Schism, their Martyrdom
would not be accepted, they would lose the Crown of Glory
promised to it ; nay, tho' they had many Lives to lose in
Martyrdom, or could dye Martyrs more than once, they could
not make amends for their Sin with their Blood. 1
Of those who ' dared to usurp the Thrones of Rightful,
Canonical Bishops/ the two most obnoxious to Dr.
Hickes were Archbishop Tillotson and Bishop Burnet ;
the former as the Coryphaeus of the ' Revolution Church '
and supplanter of the Nonjuring leader, Archbishop
Bancroft ; the latter as the real fons et origo mali, who,
though he did not actually succeed a deprived bishop,
was the chief cause of all the Nonjuring bishops being
deprived. When, then, Bishop Burnet preached a funeral
sermon on Archbishop Tillotson in which it must be
confessed that passages occur sufficiently provoking to
all who held the principles of the Nonjurors it is not
surprising that Hickes took the opportunity of 'killing
two birds with one stone,' and published (anonymously,
indeed, but the authorship was obvious) < Some Dis-
courses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson occasioned by
the late Funeral Sermon of the Former upon the Later '
(1695). The Preface is not promising. 'I know very
well,' says its writer, ' that it [the book] will be called a
Libel, and a Defamatory Libel ; but I care not for that,
since so many excellent books were so miscalled in the
Times of former Usurpations.' Neither is the Intro-
duction, in which the obnoxious sermon is described as
< preacht at the Funeral of the late Dean of Canterbury, 2
whom the preacher stiles, By Divine Providence Lord
1 The Constitution of tlie Catholick Church, and the Nature and Con-
sequences of Schism, pp. 32-3.
2 It will be observed that Hickes does not even recognise Tillotson as
Dean of St. Paul's, because he had been appointed to that post under
William III.
GEOEGE HICKES 107
Archbishop of Canterbury and Metropolitan of All Eng-
land.' But I am bound to say that, on reading both
Burnet's sermon and Hickes's discourses upon it, I did
not find either so exasperating as the many comments
which I had read upon both led me to expect. First, as
to the sermon itself. Considering that it was preached
before Tillotson's old congregation at St. Lawrence
Jewry, who loved and were proud of him, it really does
not go beyond what would be fully expected from the
preacher in the way of panegyric. The greater part is
a touching tribute, evidently from the heart, of one friend
to another. Given Burnet's premisses, he could hardly
have said less. But, Burnet-like, he cannot resist the
temptation to improve the occasion by making a most
unwarranted and exasperating attack which, even if
warranted, would have been unnecessary and out of
place upon the deprived bishops. He perverts their
natural unwillingness to create a schism into a desire to
retain their sees ; denies their title to be called ' Con-
fessors, indeed, to which they afterwards pretended.'
* They concealed their Principles, and withdrew from the
public worship of the Church, and yet dared not to act
or speak against it. They hoped at this rate to have
held their Sees and enjoyed their Revenues.' If Hickes
had confined himself to an answer to this attack it would
have been well. But in eighty-eight closely printed pages
he picked in pieces the whole sermon, beginning with the
text : ' I have fought a good fight,' &c., implying that
Tillotson had not fought a good fight, and had not kept
the faith, and showing in detail that the preacher had
given him 'a character much above his merits.' Against
Burnet himself he rakes up many old stories which had
best have been left in oblivion. But it was the deprecia-
tion of Tillotson which gave the greatest offence. There
108 THE NONJUEOES
is something peculiarly ungracious in passing strictures
on a man just after his death, and the funeral sermon
might safely have been left to be taken cum grano, as it
would have been.
It is fair to add that Hickes draws a marked distinction
between Burnet and Tillotson on the one hand and * the
main body of the clergy ' on the other, w r ho,
God be thanked, are of quite different spirits ; they do not per-
secute their old brethren for their strict doctrines, but pity and
help to support them. They know by experience how hard it
was for Conscience to overcome the difficulties of the New
Oath ; and therefore they retain very tender compassions for
those who could not overcome them, and honour them in
their Hearts, as men of Principles, who are most faithful to
English Monarchy, zealous for the honour and prosperity of the
Eoyal Family, and the Catholick Doctrines and Eights of the
Church.
And then he appends a note.
Among the worthy men here described was Mr. Wharton,
who put out Archbishop Laud's works ; Dr. Dove, who, as all
the world knows, took the New Oath with so much reluctance ;
Dr. Scot, who first refused the bishopric of Chester because he
could not take the Oath of Homage, then another bishopric ,
then the deanery of Worcester, and a prebend of Windsor,
because they all were places of deprived men.
This last passage explains, or, at least, illustrates, a
curious feature in Dr. Hickes. Though he held the very
strictest views in the most uncompromising fashion, he
still retained in a remarkable degree his friendship with
men who thought quite differently from himself. Whether
he believed that the men (as is often the case) were better
than their opinions, or whether, as some would say, he
himself was more charitable than his own opinions, the
fact remains that his practice was far more liberal than
his theory. He lived, as we have seen, for some time
GEOEGE HICKES 109
amicably in the same house with White Kennett, who
was more obnoxious than most of the ' Revolution
Churchmen ' to the Nonjurors, because he was regarded
by them as a renegade from the cause to which he had
once adhered. He kept up his friendship with Dean
Comber, after the latter had committed that most heinous
of all offences accepting the preferment of which a
staunch Nonjuror (Dean Granville) had been deprived.
He continued, not only in correspondence, but on visiting
terms, with Ralph Thoresby, who was still half a dis-
senter. The fact that his old pupil at Lincoln College,
Sir George Wheler, accepted preferment in the ' Revolu-
tion Church ' did not in the least interfere with the mutual
respect and affection which the two entertained for one
another. 1 In his Preface to the ' Thesaurus ' he spoke of
William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, who was an un-
compromising foe of the Nonjurors, and as a border
bishop was nervously alarmed about the advances of the
Jacobites and advocated the adoption of stricter measures
for their repression, as a man
to be honourably named for his manifold erudition, specially
illustrious on account of his knowledge of the Northern litera-
ture, that highly reverend prelate, who when very many times
consulted by us, quite as an oracle, in difficult and obscure
matters, always gave us answers full of light, in which he
explained everything, with the utmost courtesy and without
delay.
In the same Preface he made honourable mention of
Edmund Gibson, afterwards Bishop of London, then the
domestic chaplain and protege of Archbishop Tenison,
the Nonjurors' abhorrence, and of White Kennett, once
his friend, now becoming more and more his enemy,
1 See the Memoirs of Sir George WJieler, Prebendary of Durham,
passim.
110 THE NONJUEOES
that reverend and most learned man, who seven years ago often
urged me to gird myself to this work about the ancient Northern
letters, which, as they seemed to him worthy of the knowledge
of all men, in his house I began without delay our books, in
which, now that they are at length brought to a close, if I have
in any way helped the republic of letters, to him, as the auspice,
all that I have done is to be attributed.
Friendship is never put to a more severe strain than
when two friends who have long walked together come at
the last to the parting of the ways ; but Hickes's friend-
ship with Eobert Nelson could bear even this strain.
* Not even the conformity of Nelson to the Established
Church in 1709 impaired the intimacy of his friendship
with the leader of the Nonjurors [Hickes] till the death
of Nelson one year before his friend.' 1 Hickes also
remained to the last a personal friend of Nathaniel Mar-
shall, who was actually a chaplain of King George I.
and a most persistent and formidable opponent of the
Nonjurors. In fact, so friendly were they that Marshall
could hardly believe his eyes when lie read the post-
humous publication of Hickes's * Collection of Papers/
&c., in 1716. This work more than anything else
led to trie publication of Marshall's ' Defence of our
Constitution in Church and State, or an Answer to the
late Charge of the Nonjurors, accusing us of Heresy
and Schism, Perjury and Treason ' (1717), as it also led
to Hoadly's * Preservative against the Nonjurors ' two
of the most powerful books ever written against the
Nonjurors.
From my personal acquaintance with Dr. Hickes [writes
Marshall] I could relate many circumstances which passed
between myself and him, from whence any reasonable man
might conclude that he thought me no schismatic. . . . For any
1 Secretan's Memoirs of the Life and Times of tlie Pious Eobert Nelson,
p. 67.
GEOEGE HICKES 111
man to converse, as he was pleased to do with me, with all
possible tokens of friendship, freedom, and affection, and at the
same time to believe me in a damnable state, without one word
of admonition to me concerning my danger, are circumstances
which I know not how for my life to bring together, nor to
make consistent ; and therefore I yet withhold my assent to the
truth of what the publisher hath said in the collection of Papers
assigned to him, that they are printed from any faithful copy of
Dr. Hickes' writings. 1
But Hickes's conduct seems to me very intelligible.
He was not responsible for Mr. Marshall's soul ; and,
whatever the differences between them might be, he felt
it his duty to live in peace and amity with those who
were brought into contact with him. Moreover, it
must never be forgotten that, with his intense belief
in the doctrine of an intermediate state (a primitive
doctrine which all but slipped out of eighteenth century
theology), Hickes would not have meant quite the
same by ' a damnable state ' as Marshall would probably
mean by it.
Hickes's complaisance, however, by no means pleased
all his Nonjuring friends. Thomas Hearne, in spite of
his reverence for Hickes, whom he calls ' a man, if any
one in England is, most learned, most upright, most
sagacious, and (so great is his virtue and modesty) far
removed from ambition and the desire of honours and
riches,' 2 was much displeased at it. He thinks it ' far
beneath him [Hickes], and looked upon as a Piece of
Indiscretion to cringe to low, fanatical Fellows,' 3 one of
those ' fellows ' being John Potter, afterwards Archbishop
of Canterbury, whom Hickes had praised in one of his
Prefaces. But Hearne forgave him this weakness, for
in the same year (1712) he writes to Hilkiah Bedford,
> Defence, &c., p. 179. * See Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 293.
3 Ibid. ii. 334 ; also iii. 384.
112 THE NONJUEORS
'I hope y e Dean is recovered; for I heartily pray that
God would continue the Life of this Great and Good Man,
upon whom so much depends.' l Bedford was the closest
friend Hickes ever had since the death of Kettlewell ; he
made him his literary executor, and Bedford was engaged
in writing the Life of Hickes a task which it is much
to be lamented that he never completed. Hickes died at
the close of 1715, and his death was an era in Non-
juring annals.
The other bishop, who was consecrated at the same
time and in the same place, was not so prominent a man
as Hickes ; but he was a man of considerable mark in his
day, and was fully equal, both in abilities and attainments,
and also in piety and general character, to the post for
which he was chosen.
Thomas Wag staff e (1645-1712) was a member of an
old Warwickshire family, more than one member of
which had been distinguished on the Eoyalist side in the
Civil War. He was educated at the Charterhouse, and
at New Inn Hall, Oxford, where he graduated in 1667.
He was ordained deacon in 1669 by Bishop Hacket, of
Lichfield, and priest in the same year by Bishop Henshaw,
of Peterborough, when he was instituted to the benefice of
Martinsthorpe. He was also chaplain to Sir Eichard
Temple and curate of Stow. In 1684 he became
Chancellor and Prebendary of Lichfield, and in the same
year was presented by the Crown to the rectory of St.
Margaret Pattens, with which the neighbouring parish of
St. Gabriel, Fenchurch Street, in the City of London,
had been united after the Great Fire. In 1689 he refused
to take the oath, and of course lost all his preferments.
He was not reduced to the straits to which some of the
Nonjurors were, for his family connections would hardly
1 Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 496.
THOMAS WAGSTAFFE 113
have allowed him to be penniless, and he is said to have
' studied physic before his admission to Holy Orders.' 1
When, therefore, he was deprived of all his clerical income
he contrived to maintain himself and his family, which
became numerous, by practising physic in London.
Among those who consulted him professionally were
Francis Turner, deprived Bishop of Ely, and Archbishop
Bancroft. He was with the latter at Fressingfield, partly
perhaps as an intimate friend, partly as a medical adviser,
for some time during the archbishop's last illness, of
which he has given us a most touching and vivid account. 2
He does not appear to have officiated regularly in any of
the Nonjuring oratories, nor to have exercised any episcopal
functions, for his name does not occur in connection with
any of the few ordinations that took place during his episco-
pate ; and, as there were no more episcopal consecrations
until after his death, he had no opportunity of doing that
part of a bishop's work. But he always identified him-
self thoroughly with the Nonjuring cause, writing ably in
its behalf, and taking a prominent part in the scheme for
raising a fund for the relief of the suffering clergy, for
which he was apprehended and had to appear with the
rest before the Privy Council ; but he was soon released
from custody. He still continued to take an active part
in the benevolent scheme of relief; for Hearne tells us
as late as 1705 that 'Mr. Wagstaffe [with Mr. Spinckes]
is imployed to distribute such moneys as are given by the
1 See Miss Strickland's Lives of tlie Seven Bishops, p. 144. An eminent
living physician (Dr. Norman Moore) says that 'Thomas Wagstaffe, the
Nonjuror, carried on a practice of physic, which as it was based on
academical training and extensive reading, and was undertaken from a
necessity due to a fidelity to conscience, was not interfered with by the
College of Physicians, which then had power to stop all unlicensed practice. 1
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Iviii., sub nomine ' Wagstaffe,
William.'
2 See A Letter out of Suffolk, Ac., described below.
I
1U THE NONJUEOES
chief Jacobites for charitable uses.' l But he passed the
later years of his life in his native county, in his own
house at Binley, where he died. 2 He was very active
with his pen, writing chiefly, but not exclusively, on Non-
juring subjects, and by universal consent he is regarded
as an able writer. Even Lord Macaulay, who of course
vehemently disagrees with him, and calls him 'a fierce
and uncompromising Nonjuror,' 3 owns that he was ' a
writer whom the Jacobite schismatics justly regarded as
one of their ablest chiefs.' 4 Hearne, who, equally of
course, agreed with him, says * he is a man of very good
Parts, and considerable Learning/ 5 and the ' Postboy,' in
announcing his death in October 1712, says :
He was a man of extraordinary judgment, exemplary piety,
and unusual learning ; and had he not had the misfortune to
dissent from the established government by not taking the
oaths, as he had all the qualities of a great divine, and a governor
of the Church, so he would have filled deservedly some of the
highest stations in it.
Wagstaffe's writings fully bear out these high estimates
of his intellectual power, and it is a curious instance of
the fact that the enforced withdrawal of the Nonjurors
from public life made them active with their pens, that all
his writings date from after the Eevolution; in other
words, he published nothing till he was nearer fifty than
forty years of age. His best known work is an able
defence of the Royal authorship of the Eltca>v Ba<7i\t,/ctf,
entitled a ' Vindication of King Charles the Martyr,' &c.
1 Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 30.
* He must, however, have been living in London in 1707, for in that
year his relative, William Wagstaffe, went to live with him and then
acquired a taste for medical studies, and became an eminent physician.
William married Thomas Wagstaffe's daughter.
History of England, ch. xvii. (vol. ii..p. 260).
* Id. ch. xx. (vol. ii. p. 500). 5 Collections, i. 38.
THOMAS WAGSTAFFB 115
(1693). Of those directly connected with the Nonjuring
controversy, the earliest was published anonymously in
1690, under the title of ' An Answer to a late Pamphlet
entituled Obedience and Submission to the Present Govern-
ment demonstrated from Bishop Overall's Convocation
Book. With a Postscript in answer to Dr. Sherlock's
Case of Allegiance.' It is written in a bright, lively style,
and the subject is ably argued out. An extract from it
will give the reader some idea of the man. The pamphlet
to which it was an answer was also anonymous, but was
known to be the work of Zachary Taylor, vicar of Orms-
kirk, 1 and was supposed to have helped to bring about the
conversion (or, as Wagstaffe would have said, the per-
version) of William Sherlock.
The author [says Wagstaffe] begins with charging the non-
swearers with Malice or Ignorance, for reproaching those of the
Church of England who have taken the oaths with deserting
their Principles. Perhaps he thinks it a very malicious thing
in them to be deprived of their livings and Preferments ; for
what other instances of Malice they have been guilty of I cannot
devise. Well, it was spightfully done of them to lose their
Livelihoods, and in such a reflecting manner, to reproach those
who swore, and kept or advanced theirs : Whereas they might
have taken the Oaths, and if they could not with a good con-
science, at least they ought to have done it to save the reputa-
tion of their brethren. If by Ignorance, he means they do not
know, but those have deserted their Principles, for my Part,
I confess the fact. . . . They [the swearers] have often been
called upon to shew the consistency of their present Practices
either with the general principles of the Church of England or
with their own Principles, but they will not do it ; and this
author still keeps us in Ignorance. They have plenty of Argu-
ments taken out of Parsons the Jesuit, and from the Rebels of
1642, and from the Advocates of Cromwell's Usurpation. These
we meet with in every Pamphlet, and a man may look his eyes
out before he can find any other ; and this author is the first
1 See Hearne's Colkctions, iii. 389.
i 2
116 THE NONJUEOES
that ever pretended to produce any public act of the Church of
England in favour of such Practices [p. I]. 1
1 It may interest some readers to see the Apographum of the consecra-
tion of Wagstaffe, which mutato nomiiie applies to Hickes.
Apographum consecrationis &c. R. A. Viri Thomce Wagstaffe, A.M.,
1693.
In Dei Nomine, Amen.
Acta habita gesta et expedita in negotio Consecrationis reverendi viri
Thomse Wagstaffe Artium Magistri, in Episcopum Suffraganeum sive pas-
torem ecclesiarum de Ipswich nominati et electi in vigiliis S cti Matthias
Apostoli, viz. vigesimo tertio die mensis Februarii an Dni milles sexcentes*
nonages tertio, an regni illustrissimi principis ac dni dfii Jacobi secundi,
Dei gra Angl. Scot. Franciae et Hibernias Kegis fidei defensoris decimo in
capella sive oratorio reverendi in Christo patris ac dni, dni Thomse, per-
missione divina Petriburgensis EpI et parochia de Enfield, coram reverendia
in Christo patribus ac dfiis domino Gulielmo permissione divina Norvicensi
Epo et Francisco eadem permissione Eliensi Epo necnon Thoma eadem
permissione Petriburgensi Epo, commissariis in hac parte (inter alios)
legitime fulcitis et constitutis. Prsesente etiam me Eob to Douglas in
actorem scribam in hac parte assumpto, prout sequitur, viz. :
Die et loco prsedictis inter horam nonam et undecimam ante meridiem
coram commissariis supra nominatis comparuit personaliter illustrissimus
dims Henricus Comes de Clarendon et tune et ibidem praesentavit prae.
rever. patr. comissariis literas commissionales regias eis (inter alios)
directas supplicando, quatenus onus executionis literarum commissiona-
lium hujusmodi in se assumere, et juxta vim, tenorem et effectum earun-
dem, in dicto eonsecrationis negotio decernere dignarentur. Quibus quidem
literis commissionalibus de mandate praedictorum commissariorum per me
publice visis, lectis, et diu ponderatis, commissarii prsedicti, ob reverentiam
et debitum honorem dicto illustr mo principi et domino nostro acceptarunt
in se onus literarum praedictarum hujusmodi decreverunt procedendum fore
juxta vim, formam et effectum earundem. Tune commissarii prsedicti
capellam sive oratorium praedictum ingredientes ubi omnia ordine suo
parata erant et instructa, reverendus in Christo pater, Gulielmus episcopus
Norvicensis preces continue clara voce recitabat. Quibus peractis, munus
consecrationis reverendi Thomae Wagstaffe Artium Mag ri in Episcopum
suffraganeum et pastorem Ecclesiarum de Ipswich, in comitatu Suffocias,
prsastito priua per eum (spontanie) juramento de agnoscendo regiam
supremam potestatem in causis ecclesiasticis et temporalibus ac de
renunciando omni et omnimodae jurisdictioni, potestati et authoritati
foraneis, juxta vim, formam et effectum statuti parliamenti hujus inclyti
regni Angliee in ea parte editi et provisi, quam de reverentia et debita
obedientia reverendissimo domino CantuariaB Archiepiscopo legitime et
canonice intranti adhibendo. Observandis insuper et adhibendis juxta
modum et formam descriptam in libro intitule The form and manner of
making and consecrating Priests and Deacons etc. realiter impendebant.
Ipsumque Thomam Wagstaffe ordinarunt in Episcopum suffraganeum de
THOMAS WAGSTAFFB 117
The ' public act ' is Overall's Convocation Book, and
Wagstaffe remarks appositely : ' I presume there is not
one single person but what had taken the oath, either
before the publication of the Convocation Book or without
any respect to it.' He concludes his postscript in answer
to Sherlock:
I believe, should any man at that time [when Sherlock
wrote ' The Case of Eesistance '] have but asked him the
Question, concerning his present Opinions and Practices, he
would have returned such an Answer as Hazael gave to Elisha
[' Is thy "servant a dog, that he should do this great thing ? ']
But Hazael afterwards changed his mind and so has the
Doctor [p. 48].
The ' Letter out of Suffolk to a Friend in London,
giving some Account of the last sickness and death of Dr.
William Sancroft, late Archbishop of Canterbury,' shows
that Wagstaffe had a heart as well as a head. It bears
every trace of his having felt what he wrote :
Here [he says] you have before you a glorious confessor, here
you have your Holy Archbishop, making a safe Passage through
Storms and Tempests, and carrying his integrity of Conscience
undefiled to the Grave (p. 6).
We had a most reverend Archbishop in Fresingfield, when
there was none at Lambeth, nor nothing like it [p. 26].
Wagstaffe' s works were mostly pamphlets, though some
of them very lengthy pamphlets. A full list of them
will be found in the article on him in the 'Dictionary
of National Biography,' written by his successor at
Ipswich praedict. in prsesentia mei Eoberti Duglas, not rl! Pub cl , prsesentibus
etiam tune et ibidem Honoratissimo Domino Henrico Comite de Clarendon,
Oeorgio Hickes sacra the. pro.
(Signatures)
Gulielmus Norvic. Fran. Eliensis. Thos. Petriburgensis.
L.S. L.S. L.S.
(Witnesses)
Clarendon.
Georgius Hickes
118 THE NONJURORS
St. Margaret Pattens, who is an expert in all Nonjuring
matters. Wagstaffe appears to have led a very quiet,
domesticated life. He left behind him a large family,
one of whom, his second son, Thomas, who was at least
the equal of his father in abilities and attainments, will
come before us in connection with the later Nonjurors.
On the death of Wagstaffe, October 17, 1712, all the
deprived Fathers being now dead, there was only one
bishop of the ' faithful remnant ' left. If, then, the Non-
juring succession was to be kept up, there was no time to
be lost. One of the objections to the consecrations of
Hickes and Wagstaffe was that they might well have been
postponed, as there was quite a sufficient number of
bishops still living, and likely to live, to ordain the few
who were likely to seek ordination. But now there was
only Dr. Hickes remaining, and he an invalid. If he were
to die suddenly the society would be virtually dissolved,
for, according to the principles of the Nonjurors, a Church
without a bishop would be no Church at all. And as
Hickes also held in the most uncompromising form the
view that a Church governed by usurping bishops (as he
still deemed those of the Established Church to be) was
no Church at all, he was conscientiously bound to have
recourse to extreme measures, if necessary, to avert the
catastrophe. He was left stranded, so far as England was
concerned ; but there was the sister Church of Scotland,
and there were two bishops of that Church ready at hand,
who lived in London and identified themselves in every
way with the English Nonjurors. Three bishops were
necessary for a canonical consecration, so Hickes called in
the aid of Bishops Archibald Campbell and James
Gadderar, and on the Ascension Day, June 3, 1713, with
their assistance, in his own oratory in Scroop's Court
(afterwards Union Court), in the parish of St. Andrew's,
FURTHER CONSECEATIONS IN 1713 119
Holborn, consecrated Nathanael Spinckes, Jeremy Collier,
and Samuel Hawes to be * bishops at large,' l without any
titular sees like those of Thetford and Ipswich, from which
he and Wagstaffe had taken their titles, and without any
reference to the Suffragan Bishops Act of Henry VIII.
The consecrations were witnessed by * Heneage, 4th
Earl of Winchilsea, and Henry Gandy.'
The question is of so great importance in a history of
the Nonjurors that it will be best to give in the text
what the consecrators themselves said about it. The
exordium of the ' Apographum ' of Collier's consecration
may be translated thus :
In the name of the Lord. Amen.
We, George Hickes, Catholic Bishop of the English Church
and Suffragan of Thetford, Archibald Campbell, and James
Gadderar, Catholic Bishops of the Scottish Church (depending
on the fear of God) knowing that all the Catholic Bishops of
the English Church except the aforesaid George Hickes have
fallen asleep in the Lord mindful both of the office committed
to us by the Lord and also of the uncertainty of human life,
and desiring to provide for the welfare of the English by per-
petuating in a direct line that sacred, Catholic untainted succes-
sion of faithful, &c.
The same form, mutatis mutandis, was used in the
' Apographa ' of Hawes and Spinckes, and in later con-
secrations.
Two questions naturally arise with regard to these
consecrations : (1) What jurisdiction had two bishops of
the Scotch Church in the Province of Canterbury? (2)
What authority had ' the Suffragan Bishop of Thetford '
(as Hickes is expressly called in the ' Apographum ') when
his diocesan was dead ? Curiously enough, the first
question does not appear to have been raised at the time,
though it has naturally been raised by later historians.
1 ' Ecclesise Anglican Episcopi Catholic!.'
120 THE NONJUEOES
But the latter was boldly grappled with by the Nonjurors.
Indeed, it could hardly fail to be, because it was one of
the very questions raised by Dodwell in his ' Case in View '
(1705) and his 'Case in View, now in fact' (1709).
Dodwell had been a great name among the Nonjurors,
and they were bound to justify themselves against the
objections he had raised by anticipation. It was argued,
then, * that a Suffragan Bishop did not act purely by the
authority of his Diocesan but by the authority of the
whole College of Bishops, that after the Diocesan's death,
when the district devolved to the College of Bishops, he
had an equal right to act in his suffragan see under them,
as he had before, it being committed to his care by them
as well as by the Diocesan, as a curate by the Bishop as
well as by the Vicar : That a Suffragan Bishop's power
was not limited by his Diocesan's, so as that he could not
act duly in his Suffragan See, but durante bene placito of
the Diocesan ; for that it would be less, and more pre-
carious than that of a Vicar, which cannot be supposed ;
but, if it was limited by his life as to the rest of his Dio-
cese, yet after his death, it could be no longer so limited ;
the Suffragan Bishop shared with his Colleagues in the
whole vacancy; and so long as the Diocesan see was
vacant, he had a right to exercise his episcopal powers in
the whole Diocese, he being before appointed a Coadjutor
in that Diocese by the College, and that right must con-
tinue in him till the Catholic College (of which he was
one) constituted a new Diocesan : That all Bishops are
equal with respect to their Consecration : That supposing
a Suffragan Bishop was no longer the Diocesan's Suffra-
gan than during the time limited by the Commission
given by the Diocesan, yet he was a Catholic Bishop still,
and a member of the Episcopal College as much as any :
That as the Suffragan Bishop was a Bishop at large,
JEKEMY COLLIER 121
equal to one of the Apostles being only such, in the Unity
of the Episcopal College he had a just share in the right
and government of all vacancies that happen by death,
schism, or heresy, by Popish superstitious worship, or
any other practical desertion of the Catholic Unity and
Communion.' 1
Whatever may be thought of such defences of the new
consecrations, it cannot be denied that the men selected
for consecration were worthy of their new office. Two
out of the three were really distinguished men, who would
have been an honour to the episcopate in any age; in
point both of abilities, attainments, and achievements, and
also of piety and earnestness, they were the equals of any
two bishops in the Established Church that could be
named. The third is not so well known, but all that we
hear of him is to his credit. It was no enviable post to
which they were appointed ; it brought them no emolu-
ment whatever, and not even barren honour, for they were
not addressed or spoken of, even by their friends, by their
titles, but simply as Mr. Collier, Mr. Spinckes, and Mr.
Hawes ; they had not even the satisfaction of feeling that
they were pleasing their (temporal) master ' over the
water,' for the Chevalier distinctly disapproved of the new
consecrations. But let us turn to their history.
Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) is a man whose merits have
been very generally recognised. Even Lord Macaulay,
who, as was natural in the panegyrist of William III.,
wholly disapproved of the Nonjurors' attitude, and who
differed from Collier as widely as possible on all points of
theology, yet generously owns that ' he was in the full
force of the words, a good man'/ ; and that ' he was also
1 See a pamphlet or volume (it -fills nearly 200 pages) entitled Mr.
DodwelVs Case in View thoroughly considered, or, The Case of Lay De-
privations and Independency of the Church (in Spirituals) set in a true
light, by a Presbyter of the Church of England.
122 THE NONJUEOES
a man of eminent abilities, a great master of sarcasm, a
great master of rhetoric.' l Dr. Johnson, who, though he
loved to talk Jacobitism, was strongly prejudiced against
the Nonjurors, praises Collier's ' religious zeal and honest
indignation ' ; 2 and, in our own time, Dr. Hunt, who has
quite as little sympathy with the Nonjurors generally as
either Lord Macaulay or Dr. Johnson, bears his testimony
to 'the genuine sincerity of Collier's mind.' 3
Collier is a very notable illustration of the remark
made in a previous page, that the Nonjurors devoted
their abilities and attainments not exclusively to the Non-
juring cause, but to the interests of religion, morality,
and learning generally. He is far better known as the
courageous and successful purifier of the stage, when it
sorely needed purifying, the champion of that too lightly
regarded type of English clergyman, the domestic chap-
lain, more numerous in his time than in ours, and as the
industrious ecclesiastical historian when ecclesiastical
historians were rare, 4 than as a Nonjuring bishop.
Of his early life we have an account from his own
pen ; for there is little, if any, doubt that the notice of
him in the ' Biographia Britannica ' was in its early part
written by himself. From it we learn that he was the
son of Jeremy Collier, who was master for some time of
the free school at Ipswich ; that he was born at Stow
Qui, or Quin, in Cambridgeshire, where his mother's
family ' possessed considerable interest ' ; that he was
educated under his father, and went in 1669 as ' a poor
1 History of England, ch. xiv. (vol. ii. p. 106). Lord Macaulay also
gives a vivid sketch of Collier in his brilliant essay on ' The Comic Drama-
tists of the Bestoration.'
2 Lives of the Poets, ii. 191 : ' Congreve.'
3 Religious Thought in England, ii. 81 (ch. vii.).
* ' We have only two historians of our National Church,' said Bishop
Warburton, ' Collier, the Nonjuror, and Fuller, the Jester,' as if a Nonjuror
and a Jester stood about on the same level of absurdity.
JEREMY COLLIER 123
scholar ' to Cams College, Cambridge ; that having taken
his degree he was ordained deacon in 1676 by the Bishop
of Ely (Dr. Gunning), and priest in 1677 by the Bishop of
London (Dr. Compton) ; that he then ' officiated for some
time at the Countess Dowager of Dorset's, at Knowle
in Kent' (an interesting episode, for it shows us that
the champion of domestic chaplains had been a domestic
chaplain himself) ' from whence he removed to a small
rectory at Ampton, near St. Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk ' ;
that ' after he had held this benefice six years he re-
signed it, and came to reside in London in 1685, and was
some little time after made lecturer at Gray's Inn ; but
the Revolution coming on the public exercise of his
function became impracticable.' This last clause, how-
ever, does not mean that Collier was laid on the shelf ; on
the contrary, he became after, and in consequence of the
Revolution, far more of a public man than ever. With
characteristic boldness he at once rushed into the fray ;
and it was he who made * the first attack upon the
principles of the Revolution,' l with that formidable
instrument, his pen. It came in the form of a short
tract, entitled * The Desertion Discussed in a Letter to a
Country Gentleman, 1689.' Short as the attack was, it
was very telling ; for Collier's clear and logical mind per-
ceived at once that the whole question hinged upon the
matter in discussion. If King James had really deserted
his subjects they must of course shift for themselves as
best they could, and small blame could attach to them for
submitting to a ruler who, at any rate, would remain at
the helm of government. But Collier utterly denied the
fact of the desertion in other words, the major premiss
of the argument ; and he followed up his pamphlet by
others of a like tendency ; the result of it all was that he
1 Lathbury, History of the Nonjurors, p. 113.
124 THE NONJUEOES
was imprisoned in Newgate for six months, and then
released without being brought to trial. His imprison-
ment did not in the least check his activity in opposing
the Kevolution settlement; and in 1692, when it was
reported that he and another Nonjuring clergyman named
Newton 1 had gone to Eomney Marsh with a view to hold-
ing communication with the King over the water, they
were both arrested and imprisoned in the Gate House.
As no evidence could be found against them they were
admitted to bail ; but Collier's sensitive conscience made
him fear that by giving bail he would be recognising an
authority which he considered unlawful, so he voluntarily
gave himself up, and was again imprisoned for a short
time. He employed that time in writing a defence of his
conduct in a tract dated 'From the King's Bench, 1692,'
and bearing the suggestive title, ' The Case of Giving Bail
to a Pretended Authority Examined.' He followed this
up with ' A Letter to Sir J. Holt,' the Chief Justice, to
whom he had surrendered himself. He was soon released
from prison at the intercession of his friends.
But in 1696 he involved himself in more serious
trouble ; in conjunction with two other Nonjuring clergy-
men, Mr. Cook and Mr. Snatt, 2 he attended to the scaffold
Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend, who had been
condemned to death for their supposed complicity in a
plot to assassinate William III., and publicly absolved
Sir William with the imposition of hands. This proceeding
not unnaturally aroused the greatest indignation. The
Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tenison) and eleven of his
suffragans who happened to be in London published a paper
condemning it in the strongest terms. Collier's part in the
matter cannot be better described than in his own words :
1 George Newton, rector of Cheadle and vicar of Prestbury ?
2 Shadrach Cook, Lecturer of Islington [?]. William Snatt, Pre-
bendary of Chichester and vicar of Cuckfield.
JEEEMY COLLIER 125
Sir William Parkins (whom I had not seen for four or five
years) after his Tryal, desired me to come to him in order to his
Preparation for another world. I accordingly visited him in
Newgate, as I thought myself obliged by my character to do.
I had [at?] first two days liberty of conversing with him in
private. Afterwards I was not permitted to speak or pray with
him alone, a keeper being always present. At last even this
Permission was recalled, so that I could never see him from
Wednesday, April 1, till Friday at the place of execution. Sir
William being under expectation of death from the time of his-
sentence had given me the State of his Conscience, and there-
fore desired the solemn Absolution of the Church might be pro-
nounced by me to him the last day. And understanding I was
refused admittance on Friday morning, he sent word that h&
would gladly see me at the place of execution. I went there,
and gave him the Absolution he requested, it being impractic-
able for me to do it elsewhere. This Office I performed word
for word, as it stands in the Visitation of the Sick. And now
where lies the great crime of all this? When a man has
declared his sorrow for all the faults and miscarriages of his
life, and qualified himself for the privilege of Absolution, with
what justice can it be denied him ? Ought not dying persons
to be supported in their last agonies, and pass into the other
world with all the advantage the Church can give them ? I am
surprised, so regular a proceeding as this should give so much
offence and make so much noise as I perceive it has done.
Some people I understand are displeased at the Office being per-
formed with the Imposition of Hands. Now this is not only an
innocent, but an ancient ceremony of Absolution. [He then
proves it.] Others think it a strange presumption to admit a
Person charged with so high a crime, to the benefit of Absolu-
tion. With submission this is concluding a great deal too fast.
Are all people damned that are cast in a capital Indictment ?
If so, to what purpose are they visited by Divines ? Why are
they exhorted to repentance, and have time allowed them to fit
them for death ? But if they may be acquitted hereafter, not-
withstanding their condemnation here ; if they be recovered by
recollection, by repentance and resignation, why should the
Church refuse them her Pardon on earth, when she believes 'tis
passed in Heaven ? The Power of the Keys was given for this
purpose, that the Ministers of God might bind or loose, as the
disposition of the Person required. The latter I sincerely
126 THE NONJUEOES
believed to be Sir William's case. I judged him to have a full
right to all the privileges of Communion. And therefore had
I denied him Absolution upon his request I had failed in my
duty, and gone against the authority both of the ancient, and
of the English Church. I could not do it in private, or I should
have done so. 1
April 9, 1696. JEB. COLLIER.
He published a Further Defence, dated April 21, 1696,
in which he dwelt more at length on the ceremony of
the Imposition of Hands, on which the bishops, rather
foolishly, had laid special stress. Having referred to a
similar incident which had occurred at the execution of
Mr. Ashton in 1690, and remonstrated touchingly with the
bishops on ' the unkind reflections and tragical language
of the Declaration,' he concludes : 'However, their extra-
ordinary usage has done me the honour of an opportunity
to forgive them, which, I thank God, I heartily do/
But this was not the last of it. He wrote a third
paper, entitled ' A Reply to the Absolution of a Penitent
according to the directions of the Church of England,' in
which he answers the objection raised that ' Sir William
own'd his being privy to the intended assassination.' This
objection, in my opinion, was by far the gravest of all,
and Collier does not appear to me to have answered it
quite as clearly as he might have done. The absolution
was given publicly, and there was no public confession
of repentance. Collier pleaded, rightly enough, that the
seal of confession was sacred ; he also drew a perfectly
right distinction between Church censures and civil
punishments. But he does not dwell upon this latter
point with that clearness and fulness with which Leslie,
for instance, does in his ' Eegale and Pontificate ' ; and I
cannot see why he should not have insisted, in his deal-
1 A Defence of the Absolution given to Sir William Parkins at the place
of execution, April 3.
JEEEMY COLLIEE 127
ings with Sir William, that, if the absolution was to be
public, the confession of repentance must be public too.
At any rate, there is no doubt that the whole incident did
very great damage to the Nonjuring cause. It gave a
disagreeable impression that the Nonjurors thought lightly
of the detestable and thoroughly un-English crime of
assassination. That Collier detested it from his heart,
and never did, and never would, countenance it, is
indubitable. But, unlike himself, he did not make this
as clear as he should have done. He suffered severely for
his indiscretion. While his colleagues, Cook and Snatt,
after a short imprisonment in Newgate, were released,
Collier, owing to his scruples about giving bail, absconded,
and was outlawed ; and an outlaw he remained to the end
of his life. His outlawry indeed was ignored, and he was
able to return to his ordinary avocations ; but it was an
unpleasant situation for any man to be in. He regularly
officiated at the Nonjurors' Oratory in Broad Street,
where, it is said, 'he was assisted by the Kev. Samuel
Carte, father of the historian.' 1 But this must be a
mistake. Samuel Carte, father of the historian, was a
beneficed clergyman to the end of his long life, but he had
two sons, Thomas and Samuel, both Nonjurors ; and it
was surely Samuel Carte the brother, not Samuel Carte
the father, of the historian who assisted Collier.
After the death of Hickes, in 1715, Collier was beyond
all question the most prominent man among the Non-
jurors, and Hickes's mantle would, as a matter of course,
have fallen upon him. But, alas ! it was soon to be a
divided family of which he was the natural head. Under
any circumstances the prospects of the Nonjurors would
probably have sunk with the sinking chances of the
Stuart cause ; but the decline was greatly accelerated by
1 See Notes and Qwries for October 26, 1850.
128 THE NONJURORS
their internal disputes about the ' Usages.' It is probable
that these disputes would never have arisen if Hickes's
life had been spared; but, even if they had, the later
Nonjurors regarded him with such absolute confidence
that his word would have been law with them, and he
might have settled the matter as he pleased. At the
same time, it is hardly fair to lay the whole blame of the
division upon Collier, and still less fair to hint, as was
not obscurely hinted by his opponents, that it was
Collier's ambition to hold the first place which originated
the unhappy controversy. He did hold the first place ;
he was in every way Hickes's proper successor as Metro-
politan, so to speak, of the Nonjurors; and when he
signed himself, as we shall find he afterwards did,
'Primus Anglo-Britanniae Episcopus,' he only claimed
what from the Nonjurors' point of view was his due.
To the outer world he was, perhaps, even better known
than Hickes had been, and was certainly more regarded
by that world. Outsiders, who have scarcely anything
but blame for Hickes, have scarcely anything but praise
for Collier. But, looking at the matter from the inside,
the whole aspect is changed. The Nonjurors never had,
and probably under no circumstances would have had,
the same reverence for Collier that they had for Hickes.
Of course the antecedents of the two might make a
difference. The man who had held a deanery and refused
a bishopric in the pre-Eevolution Church, and who had
been on the most intimate terms with the deprived
Fathers themselves, would naturally have more weight
than one who was not thus connected with the past.
But, apart from this, Hickes seems to have had, what
Collier had not, the art of governing men. The Non-
jurors had no objection to the phrase, which was often
used, ' The Communion of Dr. Hickes,' but they resented
NATHANAEL SPINCKES 129
the idea of being ' The Communion of Mr. Collier.' Much
more will have to be said about Collier both in connection
with the ' Usages ' and with the * Literature of the Non-
jurors.' At present it is enough to say that it was an
honour to the Nonjurors, whether they appreciated it or
not, to have such a man as Jeremy Collier among their
bishops. The only man who could in any way have
competed with him for ' the Primacy ' was another of the
bishops who was consecrated with him.
Nathanael Spinckes (1653-1727) has been described
by a high authority as ' in no way inferior to Collier in
learning or ability.' * Perhaps that is putting the case
rather strongly; at any rate he was not so brilliant a
writer. But the fact is, one cannot compare the two men,
for they belonged to different types of mind. There were
always two types among the Nonjurors, one of which
was represented by Ken, Kettle well, and Law, the other
by Hickes, Collier, and Leslie ; and Spinckes belonged
to the former type. That peculiar beauty of character
which we term ' saintliness ' was their leading feature,
and it was conspicuous in Spinckes. He was essentially
a learned man, and a man of varied accomplishments, and
he was by no means disinclined to enter the lists of con-
troversy. He wrote five separate treatises on the Eoman
Controversy of a strongly anti-Roman character ; 2 one
against the French Prophets, a set of fanatics who made
a great sensation in England in the early part of the
eighteenth century ; one against that very able latitu-
dinarian, Benjamin Hoadly, and several against * the
Usagers.' He was an accomplished linguist, being a
proficient in Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and French,
and having some knowledge of the Oriental languages.
1 Lathbury, History of the Nonjurors, p. 365.
2 See Hearne's Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 27, 30.
130 THE NONJUBOES
His brother Non jurors had so great confidence in him as
a Grecian, that they engaged him to translate into Greek
the proposals of union which they sent to the Greek
Church ; and he had so high a reputation for general
knowledge that he is said to have been called in to assist
in the writing or editing of such different kinds of
works as Grabe's 'Septuagint,' Newcourt's 'Bepertorium,'
Laurence Howell's ' Synopsis Canonum,' Archbishop
Potter's * Clemens Alexandrinus,' and Walker's ' Suffer-
ings of the Clergy.' But he was even better known by
his contemporaries for his goodness than for his erudition,
and he is chiefly remembered by posterity for his devo-
tional works, which will be noticed in their proper
place. Spinckes was always, and rightly, regarded as one
of the chief saints of the Nonjuring community. When
that rather worldly (to put it mildly) sympathiser with
the Nonjurors, Samuel Pepys, applied to Eobert Nelson
to recommend him a spiritual guide from among the
Nonjuring clergy, Nelson selected Spinckes, thinking
probably that a very spiritually minded man was best
fitted to deal with such a case. Dr. Hickes, with whom
he was brought into very close relationship when the two
were fellow chaplains to the Duke of Lauderdale, had
the highest opinion of him. After one of the accounts of
Spinckes's consecration it is added, ' and it was known to
be Dr. Hickes' declared and repeated judgment that no
man understood Church discipline better, or was better
qualified to be a Church Governor than Mr. Spinckes.' l
This is borne out by the warm testimony which Hickes
bears to Spinckes's merits in the Preface to his * Thesaurus.'
Mr. Lathbury also tells us that ' it has been remarked in
reference to his consecration as a bishop, " happy would
1 See 'Life of Nathanael Spinckes,' prefixed to The Sick Man Visited,
6th edit., 1775, p. xxiii.
NATHANAEL SPINCKES 131
it have been for any diocese had he been legally appointed
to it." ' l His career before the Revolution had been that
of the ordinary English clergyman. He was born at
Castor, in North Hants, where his father was rector, and
educated under a neighbouring rector, Samuel Morton, of
Haddon, until he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in
1670 ; in 1673 he migrated to Jesus, where he was elected
scholar on the Eustat foundation. Having received Holy
Orders, he acted as chaplain, first to Sir Eichard Edge-
combe at Mount Edgecombe, and then to the Duke of
Lauderdale at Petersham. On the duke's death in 1682,
he became curate and lecturer at St. Stephen's, Walbrook;
in 1685 he was presented by the Dean and Chapter of
Peterborough to the rectory of Peakirk-cum-Glinton,
where he married ; and in 1687 he became a prebendary
and rector of St. Martin's at Salisbury. Of course he lost
all his preferments when he refused the oaths, and he
was for a time in straitened circumstances. He is, like
Wagstaffe, an instance of a Nonjuror who had recourse
to literary activity, when practical activity was denied
him. He published nothing before the Eevolution, but
after that event his pen was very busy until his death.
He bore an active part in Kettlewell's scheme for the
relief of the distressed clergy, was brought with the rest
before the Privy Council, and was afterwards chiefly
entrusted with the management of the fund. John
Kettlewell and he were kindred spirits, and it is no wonder
that they were friends to the last, when they received
the Holy Communion together at Kettlewell's deathbed ;
and Spinckes was at least equally intimate with Hickes.
Eobert Nelson was also his friend, and bequeathed him
a hundred pounds. Beneath his portrait inserted in the
fourth edition of his * Sick Man Visited ' is this inscrip-
1 History of tJie Nonjurors, p. 365.
E 2
132 THE NONJUEOES
tion : ' The Rev. Mr. Spinckes. This very eminent divine
was venerable of aspect, orthodox in truth, his adversaries
being judges. He had uncommon learning and superior
judgment. His patience was great, his self-denial greater,
his charity still greater. His temper, sweet and un-
movable beyond comparison.' The latter part of this
description is amply borne out by facts. It is said that he
never made a personal enemy. Epitaphs are not always
to be trusted ; but the following elegant epitaph on
Spinckes ' in the burial-ground of St. Faith's on the north
side of St. Paul's,' where he was interred, really seems to
say no more than the truth :
Depositum
Viri plane reverendi
NATHANAELIS SPINCKES, A.M.
Ortu Northamptoniensis
Academia Cantabrigiensis
Ecclesiae Anglicanae Pr. dignissimi,
Amicis, patriae, erudito orbi,
XVIII. Jul. MDCCXXVII.
Abrepti.
Erat ille ingenio miti,
Vultu placidissimo :
Eem Christianam
Scriptis tuebatur luculentis,
Luculentiori ornabat exemplo.
Crederes antiquorum Patrum
Et mores et doctrinam
In nostrum Theologum,
Nupero quasi miraculo,
Transfuses.
Moritur
Anno aetatis Septuagesimo Quarto,
Iniqua fortuna non diuturnior
Sed major.
Proximam huic terrain occupat Dorothea conjux.
His wife survived him only seven days. He took, as we
shall find, a leading part in the ' Usages ' controversy,
SAMUEL HA WES 133
which elicited much hot feeling and many hot words ;
but there was not a word written by Spinckes which was
unworthy of a Christian gentleman; and though much
strong language was written about others, I cannot find
one word reflecting upon Spinckes.
Of the third bishop, who was consecrated in 1713, it is
not surprising that little is known. From the nature of
their position the Nonjurors were doomed to obscurity.
Even Hickes, Collier, and Spinckes are not nearly so well
known as from their talents and attainments they would
have been if they had taken the oaths. And the quiet suf-
erers for conscience' sake were sure not to attract, as they
probably would not desire, the notice of their fellow-men.
Samuel Hawes (d. 1722) belonged to this class. He
graduated at Trinity College, Oxford (B.A. 1672, M.A.
1676), and in 1686 became rector of Braybrooke, near
Market Harborough, and domestic chaplain to Lord
Griffin of Braybrooke, succeeding as rector a distinguished
man, Dr. John Mapletoft. Through the kindness of the
present rector of Braybrooke (the Rev. J. Bidgway Hake-
will) I have received a letter which, though mainly of
local interest, throws some light upon the life and mind
of Mr. Hawes, and also an extract from Mr. Hawes's will
so far as it relates to Braybrooke. The letter is from
a Mr. Whyles to ' Eev. Mr. Chapman, Eector of Bray-
brooke,' and runs thus :
Welsbourne : Nov. 20, 1721.
S r , You may too justly suspect y* I had forgot my promise
to you in enquiring of Mr. Hawes ab fc the Eights of y r Living
since you have heard nothing from me in so long a time. M r<
Hawes was removed from his House in Town & gone down
with L d Winchelsea to live w th him in Kent & I knew not
'till very lately how to write to him, w ch I did ab fc a Month agoe
& on Friday last I rec d the following Answer from him bearing
date the 9 th Inst. relating to your affair w ch I have here transcribed.
' As to my living of Braybrooke I am fully satisfy 'd y fc the
134 THE NONJUKOES
Eect 1 " does not enjoy w* of Eight belongeth to him, nor hath
since the Eeformation. For that Estate belonging to a Griffin
who was Attorney Genal at y e Eeformation & had a vast
Estate. He swallow'd up the Eectory, & made the Church a
Stipendiary Cure, upon very low Terms, & so it continued 'till
Sir Edward Griffin's time, who was my L ds Father. But in
the Eeign of Kg Charles 1 st when fav 1 ' was shew'd to Church
men AB? Laud being ready to assist, one Hill . . . took y e Title
of the Crown upon y e Lapse & sued Sir Ed. Griffin for the
Tythes and recovered them. . . . D r Mapletoft my imediate
predecessor who had a good Temporal Estate never resided, but
went on as I think his Predecessor one D r> Crawford a Scotch-
man did & I followed the example of D r - Mapletoft set me,
because I was earnestly pressed to continue in the family &
so never resided. However I began to search as soon as I
could get opportunity, but found y fc all the Pap rs relating to y*
Suite ab fc y e Tythes & Glebe were lost, in short, the Eevolution
coming on I was thrown out & soe an end put to all my
endeav rs . M r- Chapman having purchas'd y e Advowson or
Patronage of the church His interest will encourage him to
endeav r to recover his dues & I wish him good luck tho' I can
do him no service.'
The following is an extract from the Braybrooke
Eegister :
1722. A copy of the Eev. M r - Sam 1 Hawes last will sent
to me by His Executor M r - Henry Gandy of Scroop Court in
Holbourn London as far it concerns his Legacy to y e Parish
of Braybrooke in Northtonshire.
* Item I (Samuel Hawes of Eastwell in Kent) Give to y e
Parish of Braybrooke in y e County of Northton & diocess of
Peterborough of which in right I am Parson & E r the Sum of
Fifty Pounds to be added to y e fifty pounds given to y fc said
Parish by my Predecess r the Eevnd D r - Mapletoft to be put out
at Interest and y e Interest to be for & towards y e maintenance
of a Person appointed by y e Eector for y e time being to teach
y e Poor Children of y e said Parish to read & write & y e
Church Catechism.'
N.B. The Eev. M r - Sam 1 Hawes above mentioned died in y e
year of our Lord 1722.
Attested by EOLT CHAPMAN
Eector of Braybrooke.
SAMUEL HAWES 135
This all tallies with what we gather from slight notices
elsewhere, and is more illustrative of our subject than may
at first sight appear. The ' house in town ' agrees with
a notice of the Nonjuring oratories in London ; ' Mr.
Hawkes ' evidently a misprint for Mr. Hawes, for there
was no Nonjuring clergyman named Hawkes ' officiated
for some time at his own house opposite S. James's
Palace.' l His 'going down to live with Lord Winchelsea,
in Kent ' is just what one would expect. Heneage Finch,
fourth Earl of Winchilsea, the owner of Eastwell, was a
well-known patron of the Nonjurors ; he was present at
the two next consecrations on St. Paul's Day, 1715-6,
when Hawes was one of the consecrators, and would
naturally like to have a Nonjuring clergyman in residence
at Eastwell. ' Mr. Henry Gandy ' had been consecrated
bishop by Hawes himself in 1715-6, took the same line
as he did in the ' Usages ' controversy, and was, in short,
just the person one would expect to be his executor.
But far more important than these coincidences are the
illustrations afforded of the attitude of the Nonjurors
generally. It will be observed that though Hawes claims
to be ' in right the Parson and Hector ' of Braybrooke, he
is not only perfectly friendly with the incumbent de facto,
but ready to help him in every way, gives him all the
information he can in regard to the rights of the living,
wishes him * good luck ' in his endeavours to establish
those rights, and in his will puts the appointment of the
teacher who is to profit by the little sum he leaves entirely
in his hands, or that of the rector for the time being.
Another Nonjuror, William Law, acted on the same
principle in regard to his much larger benefactions to
King's Cliffe. And in both cases the object of the bene-
1 See a very interesting paper on the Oratories of the Nonjurors in
Notes and Qicerics for October 26, 1850.
136 THE NONJURORS
factors was to help the Church. The children at Bray-
brooke were to be taught, not some new formulary of the
Nonjurors, but the old Church Catechism. In fact, it is
another instance of the fact that the Nonjurors meant to
be thoroughly loyal to the Church of England, and that if
they were at variance with those who had the upper hand
in it, the reason was that they verily believed those men
were not loyal to it. Therefore I cannot think that such
terms as ' The Nonjuring Schism ' or ' The Nonjuring
Separation ' are accurate ; they give people a totally
wrong impression ; it was at most a temporary alienation
which was sure to right itself in time. But to return to
Mr. Hawes. I write ' Mr. ' advisedly, for it will be
observed that no mention of the word ' Bishop * occurs ; he
never claims the title himself, and it is never given him.
The only writing which I can identify for a certainty
as the work of Hawes is a paper among the Eawlinson
MSS. entitled, ' Considerations what a Christian is to do
who goes into a Country or Place where the Clergy is
Unwarrantable or the Worship Corrupt, or both.' He
founds his remarks on the truth that ' a Christian is bound
to believe in One Holy Catholic Church,' and expresses
views of a very pronounced Church type. Then he argues
against attendance at ' the immoral prayers,' and deals
with the difficulty of Christians who think that they ought
under any circumstances to attend some public worship.
Some good people grow uneasy out of fear that they should
live like Heathens, and as without God in the world, if they
should not repair to some place of public worship. . . . But it
is not living without God in the world, but clinging more
firmly to him, and giving proof of greater reverence and regard
to the Purity and Holiness of His Divine Nature. . . . Behold
to obey is better than Sacrifice. . . . Elijah at the brook Cherith
had no public worship. . . . Let good Christians, when they
have no recourse to Lawful Assemblys where our Holy Worship
FRESH CONSECRATIONS IN 1715-6 137
is offered up by a Warrantable Priesthood, repair to their
closetts and there offer up such Prayers as are agreeable to
Almighty God. And if they can, let them do it at the time of
the Solemn Assembly.
Hawes seems to have been one of the many Nonjurors
who placed themselves under the guidance of Dr. Hickes,
for in one of the manuscript books belonging to the library
of St. John's College, Cambridge, is ' A Letter from Mr.
Dodwell to Mr. Hawes,' dated February 14, 170f , in which
Dodwell argues elaborately against continuing the separa-
tion after the death or cession of the deprived Fathers.
It is an answer to a letter from Hawes, and is signed
' Yours most affectionately,' so Hawes and Dodwell were
evidently friends. Appended to the letter are ' Remarks
by Bp. Hickes ' answering, point by point, all Dodwell's
arguments, which evidently convinced Hawes, who be-
came a Nonjuror of the Hickes type.
Besides the inference to be drawn from his will there
are other indications that Hawes was not reduced to the
same straits to which many of the Nonjurors were. He
could afford to spend money on books ; for the few inci-
dental notices of him in Hearne's ' Collections ' are in
connection with book-buying ; in fact, he collected a
rather valuable library, which was sold in 1722 imme-
diately after his death. The printed catalogue is still
extant; it is entitled ' Bibliotheca Eeverendi Doctique Viri
Samuelis Hawes, nuper defuncti ' ; the books in it are in
Greek, Latin, English, French, Italian, and Spanish, so
Hawes was probably, like many of the Nonjurors, a good
linguist.
After the death of Dr. Hickes at the close of 1715 it
was thought necessary to consecrate two new bishops.
'On S. Paul's Day, 1715-6, Dr. T. Brett and Mr. H.
Gandy, M.A., were consecrated in Mr. Gandy's Chapell
138 THE NONJUKOBS
by Mr. Collier, Hawes, Spinckes, Campbell and Gadderar.'
Both were able men, and the former a very distinguished
one, to be ranked on the same level with Hickes, Collier,
and Spinckes.
Thomas Brett (1667-1743) differed in several respects,
both in his circumstances and his career, from most of the
Nonjurors. Like Wagstaffe he seems to have belonged
to what would now be called l a county family.' At any
rate, the Bretts had long been settled at Wye, in Kent,
but whether as ' lesser gentry ' or ' county magnates ' is
not clear. His father, also Thomas Brett, was probably
in affluent circumstances, for he pulled down the ancestral
house and built a new one which he called Spring Grove,
a name which was henceforth associated with several
generations of Bretts. His mother, born Laetitia Boys,
also belonged to a family of substance at Betteshanger,
near Sandwich. The future bishop was educated at
Wye Grammar School until his entrance as a pensioner,
in 1684, at Queens' College, Cambridge ; his father re-
moved him for a time on account of his extravagance,
but he soon returned, and migrated to Corpus Christi in
1689. He was ordained deacon in 1690 and became
curate of Folkestone. He had no difficulty about taking
the oaths, for he inherited the Whig traditions of his
family ; and it was not until he left Folkestone and went
as lecturer to Islington that any change in his views
began ; there, under the influence of the vicar of Islington,
Mr. Gery, he became a Tory and a High Churchman,
though of course not as yet with any tendency to become
a Nonjuror, because the man who influenced him himself
held a benefice in the 'Kevolution Church.' On the
death of his father, Brett was persuaded by his mother
to return to Spring Grove, whence he at first served the
church of Great Chart, and then became curate of Wye.
THOMAS BBETT 139
living no doubt in his own house at Spring Grove in the
parish. He had now married the daughter of Sir Nicholas
Toke, and this bound him still more closely to the county.
On the death of his mother's brother he succeeded his
uncle in the family living of Betteshanger ; and in 1705
Archbishop Tenison gave him the living of Euckinge,
a plain proof that his new principles were not yet pro-
nounced, or, at any rate, known, for Tenison would never
have promoted an advanced High Churchman. He was,
however, tending in that direction, probably to the alarm
of his family ; for his kinsman, Chief Baron Gilbert, strove
to bring him back to the family principles ; but the effect
was the exact opposite of what was intended ; and one
can readily understand that the sort of arguments which
a Whig lawyer would use would not be likely to convince
a man who was certainly influenced by High Church
doctrines. Some years before this Brett had found the
Abjuration Oath, which was a stumbling-block to many,
a hard dose to swallow, but he managed to swallow it ;
and as late as 1710, so far from intending to join the
Nonjurors, he actually traversed their position in his
work on Church Government. He was, however, on the
verge of a change ; and those who can read between the
lines may detect traces of it even in this his latest utter-
ance as a complier. The Sacheverell trial clinched the
matter, and he determined that he would never take the
oaths again. In 1711 he preached a sermon ' On the
Kemission of Sins,' in which the High Church doctrine
of priestly authority was advocated in the strongest terms ;
it created a great sensation, and was only just saved from
the censure of Convocation by the efforts of Dr. Atterbury,
who was then Prolocutor.
When George I. came to the throne, and an Act of
Parliament in 1715 obliged all persons to take the oaths
140 THE NONJUROES
afresh, Brett declined to do so, and lost his livings. He
did not, however, join the Nonjurors at once, but remained
in lay communion with the Established Church. Then
Dr. Hickes, who was always on the alert to make con-
verts, commissioned Archibald Campbell to write and
remonstrate with him on his inconsistency. He did not
yield at once ; he first ' read Dodwell ' that is, no doubt,
the ' Case in View ' and the ' Case in Fact ' ' on the
point, but thought his arguments weak, so he resolved to
surrender himself to Hickes, and, upon a penitential con-
fession, was received into his communion, July 1, 1715 ;
Hickes henceforward had great influence over him.' This
is the account of Nichols, 1 and Brett's own description
agrees with it, except in the last clause. He tells us that
* he quitted the Public Communion and joined himself to
the Communion of Bishop Hickes,' but adds that Hickes
' was ill when he received him to Communion,' and that
' it was the last time he saw him.' 2 Dates and facts, of
course, bear out Brett's account. In July 1715 Hickes
was sealed for death, and before the year closed he died.
But Nichols is perfectly right in saying that Hickes ' had
great influence over him ' ; that influence commenced
before he became a Nonjuror, and, as a Nonjuror, he
certainly strove to follow the course which he thought
Hickes would have taken. He refers to him often, and
always with the deepest reverence, both in the works
which he wrote before and also in those which he wrote
after he had joined ' the communion of Bishop Hickes.'
Brett had, happily, some little property of his own to
fall back upon, so he was not reduced to straits. He still
lived in his own house at Spring Grove, and ministered
every Sunday to a little congregation which assembled
1 Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, i. 407-9.
2 See Brett's Preface to his Collection of Liturgies.
THOMAS BRETT 141
there, until he was presented at the Assizes for keeping a
conventicle. The passing of an Act of Indemnity enabled
him to continue his ministrations, but he thought it safer
to vary the place of meeting, so he used to go sometimes
to Canterbury, sometimes to Faversham, where part of
his congregation lived. He was still, however, exposed to
annoyances ; when he visited a sick person, who was, no
doubt, one of his congregation, at Faversham, the parish
priest complained to Brett's old friend and patron
Archbishop Tenison, as diocesan; and Tenison told
Brett that ' if he heard any more complaints he should be
obliged to lay them before the King and Council.' l In
1729 he obtained leave of the vicar of Morton to perform
the Burial Service in his church, but Lord Townshend
complained to the archbishop, who 'ordered the Arch-
deacon to reprove the Vicar of Morton.' As the utmost
laxity then prevailed about the conduct of Church services,
one can hardly help thinking of the line :
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
Brett was twitted by both Jurors and Nonjurors with
his change of opinions. He had, as we have seen, actually
written against the Nonjurors as late as 1710 ; but, instead
of ignoring the past, he took the wiser and manlier course
of publicly owning that he had been mistaken. In a
postscript to the Introduction of his very able treatise on
1 The Independency of the Church upon the State as to
its Own Spiritual Powers/ published in 1717, he writes :
Whereas, in the Second Edition of a Book called 'An
Account of Church Government, &c.,' which I published in the
year 1710, I have, Page 38 &c. charged the Nonjurors with Con-
venticling and Schism ; I do here, in the Face of the World,
recall that charge, Retracting (as I then declared I should be
ready to do upon better Information) whatever I have there, or
1 Nichols, ut supra.
142 THE NONJUROES
anywhere else, laid down or asserted in Opposition to my
present Practice, or in Vindication of that Compliance to which
I then thought it my duty to submit : Referring all those who
have been misguided by the Erroneous Arguments made use
upon that Occasion to this small Treatise of the Independency
of the Church ; and another I have lately published entituled
' Dr. Bennet's Concessions to tlie Nonjurors' In which they
will find the Reasons and Grounds of that Accusation sufficiently
answered & confuted, and the Nonjurors vindicated from the
Imputation of Schism. And to this End, I earnestly entreat
them to give them both an impartial Reading.
In short, he appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober,
as Dr. Sherlock did when he recanted in his 'Case of
Allegiance ' what he had written in his ' Case of Kesist-
ance.' I do not doubt the sincerity of either ; but there
is this serious difference between them : that Sherlock
had everything to gain, Brett everything to lose by re-
canting.
The National Church could ill afford to lose such men
as Dr. Brett, whose reading and tastes supplied just what
was so grievously lacking in the eighteenth century.
There was no lack then of great divines ; in fact, it may
be doubted whether there ever was a time when the
general truths of Christianity were more powerfully de-
fended ; but liturgical knowledge was not one of its
strong points ; indeed it was hardly regarded as a matter
of study at all. Good Churchmen were content to praise
' our incomparable Liturgy ' as they praised ' our happy
Establishment in Church and State/ as if the last word
had been said ; lax Churchmen who were dissatisfied with
the Prayer Book as it stood could only suggest modern
innovations of their own. But Brett had really studied
antiquity, especially the ancient liturgies ; and his
writings are authorities on the subject, even to the
present day. He was, in my opinion, far and away the
best authority in his own day, though he was not always
THOMAS BEETT 143
appreciated as such, even in his own little communion.
It is rather amusing to read the opinion on the subject
of Matthias Earbery, a very pronounced Nonjuror and
Jacobite, who had known Brett ' when,' he says, 'you
was a formal Jurant, and held a living in Eomney Marsh,'
and also afterwards, ' when you invited me over (I cannot
say disputed me) into the Nonjurant Church, where your
learnedship assured me only salvation was to be had.'
Brett, it appears, had pleaded the high authority of
Dr. Hickes, as sanctioning the study of Antiquity and
especially the ancient liturgies. 'Peace,' replies Mr.
Earbery, ' be to the memory of that great man ! I could
almost blush for Indignation to see a man of his learning
harp upon a few ridiculous Liturgies and call them the
Universal Practice of the Primitive Church.' 1 The 'few
ridiculous Liturgies ' were those bearing the not un-
honoured names of St. Clement, St. James, St. Mark,
St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, &c., on which Brett had
put forth a most valuable work this very year, 1720.
For his pains on this and kindred subjects he was
labelled a papist, and it was currently reported that he
had actually gone over to the Roman fold. Whether it
was worth his while indignantly to deny the rumour in
print as he did, 2 perhaps we are hardly in a position to
judge. It was a common charge against Nonjurors, the
conclusion being arrived at by a kind of process of ex-
haustion. The eighteenth century mind could not be
made to understand their position. They were not proper
1 Church-of -England men ' (a favourite expression of the
day), for if they were they would be in favour of 'our
1 Eeflections upon Modern Fanaticism. In two Letters to Dr. Brett,
&c., by Matthias Earbery, Presbyter of the Church of England, 1720.
2 See Dr. Brett's Vindication of "himself from the Calumnies Thrown
upon him in some late Newspapers, wherein he is falsely charged with
turning Papist. In a Letter to the Hon. Archibald Campbell, Esq., 1715.
144 THE NONJUEOES
happy establishment ' ; they were manifestly the very
antipodes of Puritans ; they were not Freethinkers ; on
the contrary, they wrote some of the most valuable works
that appeared against Deists, Socinians, and other types
of the class. Say what they would, they must be papists ;
there was nothing else for them. Perhaps their position
is a little better understood now.
Brett was an accomplished controversialist, and had
the rare advantage of never losing his temper, and,
consequently, never being betrayed into the use of lan-
guage in any way unbecoming a Christian and a gentle-
man. Like his brother Nonjuror, William Law, he
generally pitted himself against strong antagonists.
Daniel Waterland, Joseph Bingham, and Benjamin
Hoadly were very formidable opponents. Brett mea-
sured swords with them all, and though it would be a
bold thing to say that he vanquished them all, it may be
said safely that they all found him a foeman worthy of
their steel. Nor, papist though he was supposed to be,
did he fail to express views which were strongly anta-
gonistic to the Eoman position. In Liturgiology, which
may be regarded as his specialty, he distinctly declares
his preference of the Greek and Eastern Liturgies to the
Roman, on the ground that the former were more in
accordance with the uses of the Primitive Church; and
as late as 1733 he wrote three letters to John Cotton in
favour of the Church of England as against the Church
of Eome, fortifying his position by long quotations from
Bramhall, one of the ablest champions our Church ever
had. Thomas Bowdler, the descendant of a Nonjuring
family, re-edited these in the middle of the nineteenth
century under the title of ' Letters relating to the State
of the Church of England with respect to the Roman
Church both in her Doctrine and Practice by Dr. Brett/
THOMAS BRETT 145
and a brief extract from his Preface is worth insert-
ing:
The following Letters were printed a few years since from
MSS. in the Editor's possession, on account of a revival of the
charge of Romanism against the Nonjurors of the last century,
whose whole history, together with the recorded sentiments of
some of the greatest note among them, should put to silence
such an accusation. . . . They sought, like our Reformers, to
trace the stream to the fountain head, and to be primitive in
doctrine, discipline and worship. . . . The Nonjurors, even in
the day of weakness and decay, when discussing anxiously the
nature of their position, and the course which they should
adopt, never turned their eyes towards Rome.
Dr. Brett lived on to this ' day of weakness and decay,'
and he never turned his eyes towards Kome.
Personally Brett seems to have been an extremely
amiable, sociable man. The historian of his college,
who knew him well, and wrote only ten years after his
death, represents him as
a learned, pious, and indefatigable author, a worthy, orthodox
member of the Church of England and no small honour to her ;
whose works are a clear indication of his writing in the search
of truth, which, if at any time he found himself deviating from,
he always took the first opportunity of retracting it in the most
public manner. In private life he was a dutiful son, an
affectionate husband, a kind parent and a true friend. His con-
versation was ever facetious, good-natured and easy, tempered
with a becoming gravity without moroseness, and so well
adapted to those whom he happened to be in company with,
that it rendered him agreeable to, as well as esteemed by
persons of all ranks who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. 1
Brett, like Hickes, preserved the most intimate friend-
ship with men outside the Nonjuring communion, and
being much more measured in his language he never
gave offence as Hickes did. Perhaps the man whom
he esteemed more than any other was John Johnson,
1 Masters' History of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
L
146 THE NONJUBOKS
author of ' The Unbloody Sacrifice/ generally known as
' Johnson of Cranbrook,' because he held for many years
the living of Cranbrook, and there wrote most of his very
valuable works. The fact that Johnson took the oaths
and continued to the end of his life a beneficed clergyman
in the Established Church did not in the least interfere
with the friendship between him and Brett. They were
brought together in many ways. Both were Kentish
men by birth and education,' and their homes in after
life, the one at Wye and the other at Cranbrook, were
not so very far apart. Brett was, as we have seen, curate
of Great Chart, and Johnson's mother came from Little
Chart. Brett and Johnson were both graduates of the
same college at Cambridge ; both held the same Church
views, when those views were quite out of fashion ; both
were attracted by the same studies, and investigated, far
more deeply than most men of their day, the constitution
of the Primitive Church in general and its Liturgies (in
the proper sense of the term) in particular, and both
produced works of permanent value on the subject.
When Johnson died Brett wrote an interesting little
sketch of his life, in which there is not the faintest trace
of the writer's being a Nonjuror, nor the faintest hint,
direct or indirect, that, in his opinion, Johnson did wrong
in conforming. It is simply the testimony of one good
clergyman to the work of another good clergyman, with
whom he agreed exactly in every particular, and is a
remarkable illustration of what has been already said,
that the Nonjuring alienation was only a temporary one,
which time was sure to heal. But Brett was very firm
and consistent in his own Nonjuring principles, and being
a strong man who commanded the respect of his family,
he handed those principles down to his children and
his grandchildren; and the Bretts of Spring Grove
HBNEY GANDY 147
were among the very last who still remained Nonjurors.
Thomas Brett died in his own house in 1743 ; he took a
leading part in the Usages controversy, in the overtures
which the Nonjurors made to the Eastern Church, and in
the general literature of the Nonjurors ; he will therefore
meet us again in no less than three separate connections.
Henry Gandy (1649-1734), who was consecrated with
Brett, is a man far less known, and has left us no works
of the magnitude and importance of Brett's ; but he was
recognised in his day as one of the ablest controversialists
among the Nonjurors, and his writings, which are extant,
though slight in bulk, suffice to show that he was a man
of considerable ability. He is described in an obituary
notice as * the Suffering Son of a Loyal Father who sacrificed
great Ecclesiastical Preferment for Conscience sake, as may
be seen on page 69 of Dr. Walker's " History of the Loyal
and Episcopal Clergy." He was a fellow of Oriel College,
Oxford, taking his B.A. degree in 1670 and his M.A. in
1674 ; and we may gather that he continued to reside at
Oxford, for he was Senior Proctor for the University in
1683, 1 and he was evidently well known to Oxford residents
such as Thomas Hearne, Anthony Wood, Dr. Bailey
(President of Magdalen), 2 and Dr. Charlett (Master of
University). He then became rector of St. Leonard's,
Exeter, which post he held until the ^Revolution, when he
refused the oaths, and lost both his living and his fellow-
ship. 3 Like so many Nonjurors, he appears subsequently
to have settled in London, and in 1707 was living in
Bartholomew Square, Old Street. But he may have
remained for a time at Oxford, for we hear of Anthony
1 See Wood's Life mid Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 44.
2 He appears to have been one of Dr. Bailey's executors. See Hearne's
Collections, ii. 16, 17.
3 St. Leonard's, Exeter, is a small living, which he could hold with his
fellowship and did. See Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii.
384-5.
L2
U8 THE NONJUEOES
Wood dining with him there in 1695 ; l and Hearne speaks
of him two or three times up to 1706, as if he were still
at Oxford. But this is conjecture ; it is certain that he
succeeded Hickes as officiating minister at the Oratory in
Scroop's Court, Holborn. In this chapel he was himself
consecrated bishop, and afterwards held several consecra-
tions and ordinations therein. He took an active part in
the controversy about ' the Usages,' and wrote some
able and vigorous pamphlets on the side of the non-usagers.
But his two most notable works were answers to Dr.
Higden and Mr. Dodwell. William Higden was at first a
Nonjuror, but afterwards took the oaths. In defence of
his change of opinions he published in 1709 a book entitled
' A View of the English Constitution, with respect to the
Sovereign Authority of the Prince and the Allegiance of
the Subject. In Vindication of the Lawfulness of taking
the Oaths to Her Majesty, by Law required.' The gist
of his argument was that the Prince in possession could
lawfully claim allegiance, and it is said that he was induced
to publish it by the advice of Archbishop Sharp, who read
it in manuscript and approved of it. It was a formidable
attack on the Nonjurors, and was answered by many, but
by none more ably than by Henry Gandy. His answer
was published anonymously, and the authorship was not
at first suspected, even at Gandy's own University; for
Hearne, who has no fewer than three separate entries in
praise of it, pays it at last what in his opinion would be
the highest possible compliment by saying that ' he believes
the true author of the most excellent book against Higden
to be the illustrious George Hickes.' But he soon learned
the truth, for he adds in a bracket, (' Mr. Gandy is y e
Author, as he tells me himself.') 2
1 'September 25. Dined with Dr. (Arthur) Charlet, (Henry) Gandy,
(Thomas) Creech, and one Harbin, &c.' Life and Times, in. 490.
2 See Hearne's Collections, ii. 284, 290 and 293.
HENEY GANDY 149
Hearne was not so well pleased two years later (1711)
when Gandy brought out another notable publication, also
anonymously, entitled ' A Conference between Gerontius
and Junius, in which Mr. Dodwell's " Case in View, now
in Fact," is Considered.' Mr. Dodwell wrote, of course,
to justify the return of himself and the Shottesbrooke
group to the Established Church. Gandy would rank
him with Dr. Higden as another deserter of the true
cause. One would, therefore, expect him to write severely ;
and so he does. But his work scarcely deserves all the
strictures which have been passed upon it. At any rate,
its faults are faults of taste rather than of argument. It
was unfortunate for Gandy's credit that Dodwell died
unexpectedly just before the attack upon him was pub-
lished, though not (as the Preface expressly asserts) before
it was written. Dodwell's * Case in Fact ' was published
in the early spring and Gandy's in the summer of the
same year (1711). Dates, therefore, sufficiently show that
Gandy did not wait till the lion was dead before he
dared to kick him. But it would have been more delicate
and in better taste to have postponed the attack, and
certainly to have expunged such a passage as this :
Mr. Dodwell was a very learned man, and has done very
eminent service to the Church of God by some of his former
writings, and particularly to the Church of England, but, all
things considered, I doubt much whether by some of his later
writings he has not done more hurt than good to the Church,
and made more mischief by his book of ' The Natural Mortality
of the Soul ' than all his learned works put together can atone
for. [Preface.]
There are also many personalities in the book, which
under the circumstances seemed peculiarly ungracious.
Of course Dodwell's friends and there were many who
loved him and were proud of him when living, and now
150 THE NONJUROES
regarded his memory as sacred were up in arms at
once. Hearne, who was as loyal to his friends as he was
bitter against his foes, can hardly find language strong
enough to express his abhorrence of the book. It is
* a very scurvy, scurrilous book ' ; * there is a leaven of
envy and malice throughout ' ; ' the book is despised and
not approved by the best judges in Oxford.' Of the
writer he speaks more in sorrow than in anger : ' Mr.
Gandy is the reputed author ; a Non- Juror and an honest
man, but mightily blamed by the best men for this odd,
scurrilous book * ; ' I am very sorry, Mr. Gandy being
otherwise a good, conscientious man.' 1 The curious part
is that Hearne himself afterwards took, and, indeed, at
this very time was virtually taking the line of Gandy, not
that of Dodwell.
Putting aside all personal questions of delicacy and
good taste, and reading in cold blood the works of Gandy
and Dodwell, it certainly seems to me that Gandy has
the best of the argument. The evils of separation which
every true Churchman feels, and the utter hopelessness of
this separation being ended by the Jurors coming round
to the Nonjurors that is, an ever increasing majority
coming round to an ever decreasing minority make one
inclined at all hazards, short of sacrificing truth to peace,
to sympathise with Dodwell. But was it possible to
reconcile Dodwell with Dodwell ? in other words, to
reconcile ' The Case in View ' and ' The Case in Fact '
with, say, ' The Case of Schism ' or ' The Vindication of
the deprived Bishops,' or with numberless passages in
Dodwell's earlier works ? This inconsistency Mr. Gandy
seems to me to expose with remorseless and unanswerable
logic. His contrast between what 'Mr. Dodwell's old
friends say,' and what 'his new friends and his new
1 See Hearne's Collectiwis (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 200, 215, 320.
HENRY GANDY 151
fathers say ' is racy and, it may be added, exasperating.
Given the original premisses, and the only logical con-
clusion to be drawn from them is surely that which
Mr. Gandy draws. Others saw this, and more than one
referred to his brochure. An able volume which appeared
shortly afterwards, entitled ' Mr. Dodwell's Case in View
thoroughly considered, or, The Case of Lay Deprivations
and Independency of the Church (in Spirituals) set in a
true light by a Presbyter of the Church of England,'
specially refers its readers to 'the excellent conference
between Gerontius and Junius ' (pp. 171-2), and the ' Pub-
lisher ' of the posthumous papers of Dr. Hickes that is,
no doubt, Dr. Brett in his address ' to the Header,' says
that ' Mr. Dodwell's principles, on which the separation
was to be closed, were directly contrary to his own
former Writings, as was plainly prov'd in "The Con-
ference between Gerontius and Junius." ' l
Among Gandy 's other writings was one called ' Jure
Divino ; or An Answer to all that hath or shall be written
by Republicans against the old English Constitution.'
It was published anonymously in 1707, and takes almost
exactly the same line of argument which Sir B. Filmer
took half a century before. He also wrote several tracts
on the Usages question, to be noticed presently ; and
among the Bawlinson MSS. are two thick volumes of
closely written matter by Mr. Gandy, all, so far as I have
read, on subjects relating to the Nonjurors ; but the
handwriting is very difficult to decipher, and I must
frankly own that I gave up the task in despair.
An absurd report that Gandy towards the end of his
life ' turned papist ' would not be worth mentioning were
1 See Hickes's Constitution of the Catholick Church, 'The Publisher
to the Header,' p. vii. In the eighteenth century, what we call * Editor '
was often called 'Publisher,' and what we call 'Publisher' was called
' Bookseller.'
152 THE NONJUEOES
it not that the story is repeated, and not contradicted, by
a writer who is a popular authority on the eighteenth
century. 1 Gandy died, as he lived, a consistent member
of what he believed to be the true Church of England.
Two very appreciative notices of him appeared in the
Daily Post and the London Evening Post, February 27
and February 28, 1734. In the former he is described
as ' a person of great piety, singular modesty, extremely
temperate, diligent and regular through the whole course
of his life ' ; and both notices dwell upon his learning
and abilities, and also upon his conversational and social
powers generally, which he retained unimpaired to
extreme old age.
Here this chapter may end. The bishops of the new
consecration have been sketched up to the time when an
unhappy dispute divided the Nonjurors into two sections,
a dispute which was never properly healed, but which on
the contrary led to further subdivisions. So those who
were consecrated later can hardly be said to stand on the
same footing as those who preceded them, and will there-
fore (with one single exception, which will appear in the
next chapter) be treated in connection with the later
Nonjurors.
1 See Noble's Continuation of Gratiger, iii. 173.
153
CHAPTEE IV
THE NONJUBING CLEEGY
ALTHOUGH the JSTonjuring bishops were all of them more
or less capable, and some really distinguished, men, there
were among ' the inferior clergy ' others who were quite
their equals in piety, learning, and general reputation, as
the present chapter will show.
Let us begin with one who was called to his rest
within five years of his deprivation, but the sanctity of
whose life and the value of whose writings caused his
name constantly to be appealed to, so that 'he being
dead yet speaketh.'
John Kettlewell (1653-95) is one of those few men
who are recognised by all parties as veritable saints. His
naturally sweet and amiable disposition was purified and
elevated by Divine grace. Truthful and open as the
daylight, a man whom you could trust with absolute
confidence, having very strong convictions of his own,
yet gentle and forbearing to those who disagreed with
him, utterly unselfish, yet quite ready to assert himself
when truth required it ; modest and retiring, yet always
to the front when any good was to be done, he attracted
all who came into contact with him by his sheer goodness.
His life may be very simply and briefly told. He
was associated from his earliest years, and all through
his life, with George Hickes, being born in the same
neighbourhood and educated at the same school under
the same master. Thence he proceeded to St. Edmund
154 THE NONJUKORS
Hall, Oxford, but having taken his degree he again fol-
lowed his friend, being elected to a Yorkshire fellowship
at Lincoln College. Hickes, who was then a distinguished
fellow of Lincoln, may have used his influence to procure
the election ; but Kettlewell had no need of any favour ;
he might well have stood on his own merits, intellectual
as well as moral and social. For some years (1677-84)
he was, as his friend Hickes had been before him,
college tutor at Lincoln. It was during this period that
he published his first work, ' Measures of Christian
Obedience/ which led to his being appointed, first, chap-
lain to the Dowager Countess of Bedford, and then vicar
of Coleshill. As chaplain to the countess he came to
know Lord William Kussell, and, in spite of their ex-
tremely different views on theology and politics, he won
the regard of that unhappy gentleman, who sent an
affectionate message to him from the scaffold. At Coles-
hill he was in his proper element as a parish priest, and
his relationship with the chief inhabitant and patron of
that living was the model of what such a relationship
should be. It was a sad pity that after a few years his
career at Coleshill was cut short by the Revolution. He
had not a moment's hesitation about refusing the new
oaths, and he was so much esteemed in the neighbourhood
that he carried several others with him into the Nonjuring
camp. The rest of his brief life was spent in and about
London. He lived in Gray's Inn Lane near his old
friend Hickes, and Hickes's neighbour, Robert Nelson.
Mr. Secretan tells us that Kettlewell took the place of
Tillotson as Nelson's bosom friend, and it was at Kettle-
well's instance that Nelson began to write his ' Com-
panion to the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of
England.' l Nelson, in the Preface to Kettlewell's
1 See Secretan's Life of Nelson, p. 81.
JOHN KETTLEWELL 155
1 Five Discourses on so many very important points of
Practical Keligion,' drew attention to two of his leading
characteristics :
He would never condescend to the least Artifice to disguise
his sentiments, and abhorred a lie to that degree that the day
before he died, dehorting a young relation from all vice, espe-
cially Lying, he said, Do not tell a Lye, no, not to save a
World, not to save your King, nor yourself. ... In his Con-
troversial Writings, he never treats his Adversaries with 111
Language, Scorn or Contempt ; nor with Personal Eeflections
or injurious Surmises ; nor because he thought they erred on
one point, did he ever endeavour to make them guilty of all ;
nor consecrated any unchristian Heat under a pretence of
defending Truth. This meek Servant of God hath happily
steered clear of that dangerous Rock, whereupon many Learned
(and otherwise good) men have fatally split. 1
' He was certainly,' writes Bishop Ken, ' as saintlike
a man as ever I knew ' ; 2 and Ken's latest and fullest
biographer says : ' there were few, if any, among his con-
temporaries for whom Ken had a more profound venera-
tion. He looked to him more than to any other as his
spiritual director in the confused questions of the time.' 3
Bishop Ken was brought much into contact with Kettle-
well in connection with the relief fund for the distressed
clergy, which was suggested by Kettlewell himself, first
privately to Bishop Ken, and then officially, as it were, to
Bishop Lloyd, as head of the Nonjurors. Kettlewell did
not live long enough to see the result of his benevolent
scheme. To the very great loss of the Nonjuring cause,
he was prematurely cut off when only forty-two years of
age, and, by his own desire, was buried in the Church of All-
hallows Barking (where his old friend Hickes had been
1 See Compleat Collection of tJie Works of John Kettlewell, with Life
prefixed, &c., i. 179.
2 See Ken's letter to Robert Nelson, on receipt of the Life of Kettlewell,
quoted above. Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 102.
8 Plumptre, ii. 101.
156 THE NONJUKOES
rector), under the altar rails, in the grave where Laud's
remains had lain until their removal to St. John's College,
Oxford. Bishop Ken officiated ' in his formalities/ and,
we are told, ' prayed for the King and the Queens,' that
is, of course, for King James, Queen Mary, his consort,
and Queen Catherine, widow of Charles II., who was
still living.
Kettlewell held very decided opinions, and expressed
them very decidedly. He took an independent line of his
own, and in some respects seems to sanction the views
and conduct of one section of the Nonjurors, sometimes
those of the other section. So both claimed him for their
own, and both could adduce passages from his writings
which favoured their own views, not because he was
inconsistent, but because he was independent and judged
each case on its own merits.
If Kettlewell was one of the saintliest, Charles Leslie
was one of the ablest, of the Nonjurors. Dr. Johnson's
dictum, ' Lesley was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was
not to be reasoned against,' : may be cordially accepted
without accepting the amazing assertion which called it
forth, that no other Nonjuror could reason.
Charles Leslie (1650-1722) was one of the very few
Irishmen who joined the Nonjurors, and even he, though
Irish by birth, was Scotch by extraction. He was the
son of John Leslie, successively Bishop of the Isles
in Scotland and of Raphoe and Clogher in Ireland, and
was educated at Enniskillen Grammar School and Trinity
College, Dublin. He then entered as a student at the
Temple and was a barrister for ten years, in which pro-
fession the great reasoning powers which he afterwards
showed were no doubt developed and trained. But he
was more absorbed in the study of divinity than of law,
1 Boswell, iv. 196.
CHAKLES LESLIE 157
and in 1680 he received Holy Orders and became curate
of Donagh, the parish in which Glaslough, the family
estate, lay (his elder brother, the owner of that estate,
being rector). As most of his parishioners were either
Roman Catholics or Presbyterians he had not much
parochial work, and he employed his ample leisure in
study. In 1686 he received, through the influence of
Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, always his good friend,
the chancellorship of Connor, an office of some dignity
but very little emolument. It also gave him very little
work, so he had still time for study. At the Revolution
he declined to take the prescribed oaths, lost his modest
preferment in Ireland, and settled in England. He became
private chaplain to Lord Clarendon, and officiated in several
parish churches before the Act of Deprivation came into
force, and afterwards in Nonjuring chapels, though he
never ministered regularly to any congregation. But he
was from the first a leading Nonjuror, and it was a matter
of surprise to many that he was not selected as one of the
new bishops who were consecrated in 1693-4, He was
certainly consulted on the general subject, and there is no-
doubt that he was perfectly satisfied with the selections
made. He wrote his very able * Regale and Pontificate '
expressly in vindication of the new consecrations then in
view. Leslie's settlement in London brought him into
closer contact with the little knot of distinguished Non-
jurors in and about the metropolis. With one of the most
distinguished of them, Henry Dodwell, his friendship
dates from a much earlier period. Both were Irishmen,
both had been educated at the same university, and had
been early thrown together. They were now united by
closer ties as members of the ' suffering remnant. ' Through
Dodwell, Leslie became intimate with Mr. Francis Cherry
and the rest of the group at Shottesbrook. He also
158 THE NONJUROES
became well known to Kobert Nelson and George Hickes.
Leslie was, as his biographer rightly remarks, a man of
' ardent nature and solemn convictions.' l His ' ardent
nature ' led him to express himself strongly, especially
when writing in the white heat of controversy ; his
' solemn convictions ' made him feel that such writers as
Tillotson, Burnet, and Hoadly were dangerous to the
Christian faith, 'as he understood it ; and if this led him
into intemperance of tone and words, most dearly did he
pay for it, for not only did he suffer, like the rest of the
Nonjurors, the loss of all his worldly prospects as a clergy-
man, but also banishment from his home as an outlaw.
Leslie was as strong a Jacobite as he was a Nonjuror, and
was often a medium between the King over the water and
the Jacobites on this side of it, but he never took part in
any of the Jacobite conspiracies. Like Hickes, he did
not allow differences of opinion to prevent friendly inter-
course with those who disagreed with him. Of all classes
of religionists, the Quakers were those against whom he
wrote most vehemently and at greatest length ; and yet
he lodged quite comfortably at the house of a Quaker
in London, and resumed his lodging there after he had
written his strongest works against the sect. He also
drew a marked distinction between those members of
4 the Eevolution Church' who conformed to it through
necessity and those who defended it as the best of all
possible Churches.
There is [he wrote] a distinction to be made (and all wise
men distinguish them) between the old Church of England
men, who have taken the oaths, and comply, and think they
can acquit themselves by the Constraint and Force that is upon
them, but still retain their old Principles relating to the
Monarchy and the Church, who are far the best, the wisest, the
1 Life and Writings of Charles Leslie, by R. J. Leslie, p. 395.
CHAELES LESLIE 159
honestest, and the most numerous of the complyers. These,
though they satisfy themselves in a compulsive submission, yet
are too generous and honest to Deify their Chains, and glory in
their Bondage. A man who hath got a heavy load on his back,
must bear it as well as he can, but that is no reason to celebrate
the burden, and extol it to the skyes, and give immortal honour
to that which cripples him. These, therefore, you must preter-
mit, and they are particularly and expressly excepted as no way
concerned in what follows. But then for your St. A phs,
your Til ns, Ten ns, B ts, your Sh ks, Pat cks, W ks,
Fl ds. 1 These are the fine sparks that do all the Feats we
are speaking of, who first swallow the morsels of Usurpation,
and then dress it up with all the Gaudy and Eidiculous
flourishes that an Apostate Eloquence can put upon it. 2
Leslie acted up to this distinction which he drew. His
own brother complied, and yet Charles remained on per-
fectly friendly terms with him. He wrote an able defence
of the complying Bishop Blackall when the latter was
attacked by Bishop Hoadly ; and, as his biographer
points out, it was ' not to the Nonjurors as such, but
to the Church of England that he reconciled his con-
verts.' 3
Leslie had happily a small a very small independ-
ence of his own ; he was not, therefore, reduced to the
extremities that some were, though he was sometimes in
straitened circumstances. He had married, soon after
his ordination, Jane, daughter of Bichard Griffith, Dean
of Boss, and by her had two sons, Robert and Henry,
the former of whom, though in a very inferior degree,
inherited some of his father's talent, and one daughter.
Leslie was a good husband and a good father ; and if he
1 I.e. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, Tillotson, Tenison, Burnet, Sherlock,
Patrick, Wake (?), Fleetwood.
2 Remarks on some late Sermons, and in particular on Dr. Slierlock's
Sermon at tlie Temple, December 30, 1694, in a Letter to a Friend. It will
be remembered that Hickes drew a very similar distinction. See supra,
p. 108.
3 Life and Writings of diaries Leslie, &c., by B. J. Leslie, p. 178.
160 THE NONJUKORS
felt at all the inconvenience of a straitened income it was
on Mrs. Leslie's account, who was delicate and required
change of air and scene. It was a distinct loss to the
Church to be deprived of his ministerial services, for he
had the reputation of being a good preacher. Lord
Clarendon tells us that ' he made a most excellent sermon '
at the chapel of Ely House ; l he is said to have been a
very acceptable preacher when he officiated, as he did
occasionally, at the Nonjurors' oratories in London ; and
the fire and vigour of his writings may well lead us to
believe that he would be a pulpit orator. His private
ministrations, too, which were very effective, would
indicate that he would have been a good parish priest.
His pen was the only implement he could use in be-
half of the Church which he loved, and that he used
most diligently, as will appear in a later chapter. His
friend, Dodwell, gives us a pleasant picture of him in a
social light. He writes to Hearne, November 23, 1708 :
* Mr. Cherry came home [to Shottesbrook], accompanyed
with the excellent Kehearser. 2 We enjoyed his delight-
full and improving conversation 'till he was called away
from us by another office of charity ' (he had been minis-
tering to a widow, who had just lost her husband). 3
But soon afterwards an event occurred which changed
the whole course of his after life. Bishop Burnet made
two vehement attacks upon him, one in the House of
Lords, and the other in a sermon preached at Salisbury
Cathedral, 1709, on the anniversary of the Restoration.
Leslie, under the nom de plume of ' Misodolus,' which,
1 Diary, p. 303.
2 In allusion, of course, to the Rehearsal, a periodical which Leslie
brought out first weekly, and then twice a week, almost exclusively written
by himself, for nearly five years (1704-9) in opposition to Tutchin's
Observator, and other periodicals of the kind.
3 See Hearne's Collections, ii. 152.
CHAELES LESLIE 161
however, did not, and probably was not intended to, dis-
guise the real author, replied in a tract bearing the rather
aggressive title, 'The Good Old Cause; or, Lying in
Truth.' Oddly enough the line he took was the same line
which was afterwards taken against himself in the Usages
controversy l that is, his pamphlet was an ironical defence
of the bishop against some impostor who pretended that
Burnet had uttered language in his speech and his sermon
which could not possibly have been used by a Christian
prelate. The pamphlet was supposed to reflect upon the
Government, and a warrant was issued against Leslie on
July 24, 1710. He put in no appearance, so on August 8
he was outlawed, and on September 9 a proclamation was
issued for his apprehension on account of some ' positions
tending to bring in the Pretender.' Mrs. Leslie was in
weak health, and could ill bear a long journey ; so instead
of going abroad, Leslie found refuge for six months in a
house belonging to Mr. Cherry, at White Waltham, close
to Cherry's and Dodwell's own abode at Shottesbrooke.
Leslie called this 'my Tusculum,' and was deeply grateful
to Mr. Cherry for his kindness. He was, of course,
obliged to live in disguise, and sometimes, it is said, ' wore
regimentals.'
In the spring of 1711 he and Mrs. Leslie went to pay
a visit at St. Germains on the express invitation of him
whom, whether rightly or wrongly, Leslie ever regarded
as his only lawful sovereign. His life henceforth was that
of a wanderer; we next find him with Mrs. Leslie in
Holland ; and then, when the Chevalier was forced to
leave St. Germains, and settled at Bar-le-Duc, Leslie
accepted the post of chaplain to the Anglican members
of his household, who were very numerous. His main
object was not, as was generally rumoured, ' to convert
1 See infra, p. 298.
M
162 THE NONJUROES
the Pretender,' though, of course, as a strong English
Churchman, he would have been thankful if his argu-
ments had produced that effect, but simply to have the
opportunity of exercising his ministerial functions, which
he had not had for many years, and which, like every
earnest clergyman, he was naturally anxious to have.
Then we find him in Italy, then at St. Gerinains again,
where Mary of Modena, widow of James II., treated him
with marked attention ; and finally, through the generous
intervention of his foe, George L, who declared that ' the
old man should come home and die in peace/ again in
England. He returned in the autumn of 1721, a broken-
down man. The sands of life were fast running out, and
the end came on April 13, 1722. He was buried at
Glaslough, his old home, which he had not seen for more
than thirty years. He left behind him a distinguished
name ; and the fact that he did so is another instance
how very little official position or adventitious eminence
of any kind counts in the permanent estimation in which
men are held. Just as plain John Keble, who could add
no title of dignity of any sort to his name, is known and
respected long after archbishops and bishops have been
forgotten, so Charles Leslie, who was never anything
more than plain Charles Leslie, is known by many who
would be hard put to it if they were asked anything
about the leading ecclesiastics who were his contem-
poraries.
From the saintly John Kettle well and the brilliant
Charles Leslie we turn to a different type of Nonjuror
the fine old Cavalier, who, if he had lived in the pre-
ceding generation, would have been ready to shed his last
drop of blood and spend his last penny for the sake of the
Royal Martyr, and was now ready to do the same for the
Royal Martyr's son.
DENIS GEANVILLE 163
Denis Granville, or Grenville (1637-1703), lost more
than most men through his refusal to take the oaths, for
the simple reason that he had more to lose. To use his
own words, he gave up ' the best deanery, the best arch-
deaconry, and one of the best livings in England ' for
conscience' sake. How he came to obtain and to hold
all these rich preferments his history will explain. He
came of an ancient Cornish stock, being a younger son of
Sir Bevil Granville, who, having rendered great service to
the Royal cause in Cornwall, was killed when fighting for
the King in the battle of Lansdowne in 1643. He was
educated at Eton and Exeter College, Oxford, and in 1660
he married a daughter of the great Bishop Cosin. In
1661 he was ordained by Bishop Sanderson, together
with William Beveridge, for whom he conceived a great
reverence ; and in the same year his eldest brother, John,
who had rendered even greater service than his father to
the Royal cause, was created a peer, as Earl of Bath. He
was thus marked out for preferment by birth, by mar-
riage, and by the services of his relations ; and preferment
quickly came to him in rich profusion. In the very year
of his ordination he received, on the presentation of his
brother, the family living of Kilkhampton in Cornwall.
In 1662 he was collated by his father-in-law to the first
stall in Durham Cathedral, and in the same year appointed
to the Archdeaconry of Durham, with the rich living of
Easington annexed ; and in 1664 the rectory of Elwick
Hall was added. In 1667 he was instituted to the still
richer living of Sedgefield, resigning Elwick Hall. All
this plethora of preferment coming to him when he had
scarcely reached his thirtieth year was too much for him.
His father-in-law, Bishop Cosin, complains of his pro-
longed absences from home ; he was constantly at Oxford
or in London, bsing one of the Royal chaplains ; he must
ii 2
164 THE NONJUROES
have been very extravagant, for, in spite of his large clerical
income, he became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and
in 1674 was actually arrested for debt. This seems to
have proved a wholesome check to him, though he never
was quite easy in money matters. 1 All the while, how-
ever, there were germs of better things in him. If he
neglected his clerical duties himself, he insisted upon his.
curates working their parishes most diligently on Church
lines ; he ruled his family very strictly, and the men he
most admired were all Christians of a very high type.
He made great efforts to establish a weekly celebration of
the Holy Communion not only in Durham but in other
cathedrals, and his efforts were crowned with considerable
success ; he waged war against * pulpit prayers,' which he
regarded as a remnant of Puritanism, and in every way
strove to fight the battle of the Church. In 1684, through
the influence of Lord Crewe, who in 1672 had succeeded
Granville's father-in-law as bishop, he was appointed to
the wealthy deanery of Durham, still retaining the arch-
deaconry and his rich livings. Archbishop Bancroft in
vain protested, declaring, not very complimentarily, that
' Grenville was not worthy of the least stall in Durham
Cathedral ; ' but the bishop replied that * he would rather
choose a gentleman than a silly fellow who knew nothing
but books.' This was very characteristic of the two men ;
Bancroft would certainly sympathise more with the new
dean's Churchmanship than Crewe would ; but he had,
as events proved, a more sensitive conscience than Crewe,
and he did not think that because a man was a good
Churchman and a gentleman he should therefore be over-
loaded with preferments, to the exclusion of others who
1 This appears in the new Life of Dean Granville, by the Rev. Eoger
Granville, which is an interesting and valuable supplement to the Remains
of Dean Granville, edited by Canon Ornsby for the Surtees Society, vol. i. in
1861, vol. ii. in 1865.
DENIS GKANVILLE 165
were of much greater mark. Granville, however, rose to
the occasion and made a good dean, using his elevated
position, among other ways, for the encouragement of
promising young divines. We must allow a little for the
partiality of a relative in the following picture of him
drawn by his nephew, Lord Lansdowne : ' Sanctity sat
so easy, so unaffected, and so graceful upon him, that in
him we beheld the very beauty of holiness,' with much
more to the same effect. 1 Denis Granville, at least as
he appears in the * Cosin Correspondence,' in his own
'Remains,' and in the new 'Life,' was not a saintlike
Thomas Ken and John Kettlewell; but others who can
be better trusted than his enthusiastic nephew speak very
highly of him. Sir George Wheler, for instance, who as
canon of Durham and rector of Hough ton-le- Spring knew
him intimately, bears witness to his 'pious and devout
temper,' and Barnabas Oley, whose trustworthiness none
will dispute, always spoke of him as ' that truly pious and
devout good man, Dr. Granville.' 2 His conduct at the
Revolution shows that he was not a selfish man ; he did
not hesitate one moment about sacrificing deanery, arch-
deaconry, rich livings, and social standing in the diocese,
because he could not keep them with a safe conscience.
His account of the matter is well worth studying as it
appears in his ' Remains.' ' These embody,' writes the
editor in his excellent Introduction, ' the sentiments of one
of those high-minded men who chose rather to sacrifice the
highest preferment than swear allegiance to one whom
they regarded both as an invader and an usurper' (p. iii).
The attitude he assumed and maintained was really an
heroic one. As soon as ever he heard of the intended
invasion of the Prince of Orange he at once took steps to
1 See Noble's Continuation of Granger, i. 118-9.
* See Life in the English Church, 1660-1714, p. 90.
166 THE NONJUEOES
confirm the loyalty of all those over whom in his various
positions he had influence. He impressed upon the
parishioners of his country cures the duty of ' subjection
and allegiance to their sovereign ' in the strongest terms. 1
He summoned l his brethren the Prebendaries together
into their Chapter-House, and persuaded them to assist
the King with their purses as well as their prayers.' He
called the clergy of his archdeaconry together and urged
them ' to secure their flocks to assist their sovereign in
the impending crisis.' He tried to persuade the chapter
and the magistracy of the county to join in a loyal address
to the King expressing a horror of the invasion ; and
when he failed, he sent in a personal address of his own.
This was intercepted, and fell into the hands of the Earl
of Danby, Lord Lumley, and other adherents of the
Prince at York. On Advent Sunday, 1688, Durham was
occupied by Lord Lumley at the very time when the
dean was preaching an Advent sermon in the cathedral.
This did not in the least daunt him, though he stood
almost alone as a supporter of James. On the next
Sunday he again preached in the cathedral ' a seasonable,
loyall sermon, to persuade the members of that church
and all the auditory, to stand firm to their allegiance in
that day of temptation, and never to joyne in the least
wayes with that horrid rebellion which was at that time
sett on foot in the nation.' To his bitter mortification
his own brother, the Earl of Bath, ' sullied the hitherto
stainless loyalty of the house of Granville by joining the
usurper.' After the defeat of James in Ireland and his
retreat into France, Granville joined the exiled Court at
St. Germains, where there were members of the Church of
England who naturally desired to worship God after their
own fashion ; and they wished to have Dean Granvill for
1 See Remains, i. 67, and passim.
DENIS GKANVILLE 167
their chaplain ; but the request was refused. Attempts were
made to bring him over to the Church of Borne, which he
steadily resisted ; but he was so worried by the priests who
surrounded King James that he retired to Paris, where he
died in lodgings in very reduced circumstances in 1703.
When he first left England, he issued towards the
close of 1689, ' From my study at Kouen,' an interesting
work with the following portentous title :
'The Eesigned and Kesolved Christian and Faithful and
Undaunted Eoyalist in Two Plain Sermons and a Loyal Fare-
well Visitation-Speech,' both delivered amidst the lamentable
confusions occasioned by the late Foreign Invasion and Home
Defection of his Majesty's subjects in England by D. G., Dean
and Archdeacon of Durham (now in exile) Chaplain in Ordinary
to his Majesty, whereunto are added certain Letters to his rela-
tions and friends in England, shewing the Eeason and Maner
of his withdrawing out of the Kingdom, viz. A Letter to his
brother, the Earle of Bath, A Letter to his Bishop, the Bishop
of Durham; a Letter to his Brethren, the Prebendaryes ; a
Letter to the Clergy of his Archdeaconry; a Letter to his
Curates at Easington and Sedgfield.
It is dedicated to ' The Queen of England/ that is, of
course, Mary Beatrice of Modena. In his 'Address to
the Reader ' he desires ' all persons in England who have
laboured, either by kind invitations or threats of depriva-
tion, to prevaile with me to return, and submit to the
new Government, to receive this my final answer to
wit : If I be deprived, I am deprived ; or, to approach a
little nearer to the phrase of good father Jacob, If I be
bereaved (of my preferment), I am bereaved.' l The
tenour of the sermons, the speech, and the letters may
be guessed from what has been written above. It need
only be added that in his letters to the different clergy,
he could use a telling argument, which, like many others
1 See Remains, i. 5-7
168 THE NONJUEOES
who complied, they would find it very difficult to answer.
He appealed to their former teaching, and asked how they
could reconcile it with their present conduct. He could
say to Bishop Crewe, ' Your Lordship, I am sure (which
is my comfort), will be none of those who shall load me
with reproaches for my duty full cornplyance with his
Majesty, since your example (which did outrun others)
as well as your advice, did powerfully incite me thereto ; '
to the vice-dean and prebendaries :
Such a notorious contradiction of your own past preaching
and practice must, I fear, render you very cheap among those
people which you have drawn into a snare by a very sinfull
example, and who have too much sense not to discern the ill-
ness thereof, though they want courage to resist it. You very
often in my presence preach'd false doctrine if your present
proceedings and complyance are justifyable ;
to the clergy of the archdeaconry : ' I have reason to believe
that all of you know your duty well enough, since the
prerogative of the king, passive obedience and non-
resistance were preach'd up by you in the Bishoprick of
Durham with more zeal than in any diocese of England.'
The dean also wrote to Archbishop Bancroft assuring him
of his loyalty, which was generous on his part, seeing
that Bancroft had opposed his appointment to the
deanery ; and to Beveridge, then Archdeacon of Col-
chester, whom he addresses more in sorrow than in anger,
urging him to act worthily of his high character and
return to his proper allegiance, and assuring him that
many will follow his example : ' Leap forth, then, in the
name of God, and lead on your brethren ! ' Denis Gran-
ville was a good specimen of what may be called, without
disrespect, the fine old crusted Eoyalists, of whom it is hard
to say whether their enthusiasm for the Church more
strengthened their attachment to the monarchy, or their
JOHN FITZWILLIAM 169
attachment to the monarchy strengthened their attach-
ment to the Church. They represented rather a different
type of mind from that of the majority of the Nonjurors.
They were survivals of the past, and were more numerous
in the earlier than in the later part of the seventeenth
century, and the type quite died out in the eighteenth.
Dean Granville was an Oxford man, but had no
further connection with the University than having
graduated there. We now come, however, to two pro-
minent Nonjurors who were fellows of Magdalen ; both
were residents, one for a few years, the other for the
whole of his adult life ; both took a deep interest in their
college, and showed their interest in it to the last.
John Fitzwilliam (1636?-1699) is one of the few
Nonjurors of whom Lord Macaulay writes in tones of
unqualified praise, coupling his name with that of John
Kettlewell, and saying that they both ' deserve special
mention, less on account of their abilities and learning,
than on account of their rare integrity, and of their not
less rare candour.' Fitzwilliam was a prominent Church-
man all through the period between the Restoration and
the Revolution. He entered as a servitor at Magdalen
College, Oxford, in 1651, was elected to a demyship shortly
afterwards, and to a fellowship in 1661, which he held
until 1670. Anthony Wood says, rather maliciously, that
at the Restoration ' he turned about and became a great
complier to the restored liturgy.' But Fitzwilliam was
a contemporary and friend of Ken in his undergraduate
days, and one can scarcely fancy Ken making a friend of
one who required to * turn about ' when the liturgy was
restored. Moreover, Fitzwilliam preached and printed
a sermon in 1683 on the public thanksgiving for the
delivery of the King from the Rye-House Plot, in which
he appeals to ' the zeal I had for the present Government
1YO THE NONJUEOES
even while it was merely to be enjoyed in hopes, and we
could only wish it might be restored.' He would hardly
have made this public assertion when it could easily
have been contradicted, if it had not been true. But, at
any rate, it is rather unfair to cast up against a man
what he may have done or thought when he was a mere
boy. Certainly during the whole of his clerical that is,
his adult life his course was perfectly consistent ; it was
that of a plain English Churchman by conviction. He
was brought into close contact with some of the leading
Churchmen of the day. He was a lifelong friend of Ken
and Kettlewell. Dean Plumptre associates his name
with those of Kettlewell and Robert Nelson, as three men
* of whom the world was not worthy, whose holiness of life
probably contributed in no small measure to influence
Ken's decision ' not to take the oaths. 1 Bishop Morley
and Bishop Turner were also among his friends and
patrons. After his election to his fellowship he resided
in college, and became college librarian and university
lecturer on music. But in 1664 he left Oxford, being
recommended by Dr. Morley (the very last man, by the
way, to have patronised * a compiler ' who had ' turned
about ' at the Eestoration) to the Lord Treasurer, Thomas
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who made him his
domestic chaplain and tutor to his two daughters, with
one of whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. On the
death of the earl, Bishop Morley ' took him into his own
household,' and in 1666 recommended him as chaplain
to James, Duke of York, to whose daughter, afterwards
Queen Anne, he became tutor. In 1669 the same kind
patron appointed him rector of Brighstone, in succession
to his friend, Thomas Ken. Then another friend from
the old undergraduate days, Francis Turner, now Bishop
1 Life of Ken, ii. 45.
JOHN FITZWILLIAM 171
of Ely, gave him the living of Cottenham, and finally
he was promoted by the Crown to a canonry at Windsor.
So, at the time of the Eevolution, he was canon of
Windsor and rector of Cottenham, two very comfortable
posts ; though, of course, nothing like the rich prefer-
ments surrendered by Dean Granville. He had, however,
a real sacrifice to make, and he made it cheerfully. He
is now chiefly known through his correspondence with
Kachel, Lady Kussell, daughter of Lord Southampton,
who had been his pupil when a child, and who took him
for her guide and spiritual adviser till the end of his life,
and especially in her great sorrow, when her husband
was executed for his supposed complicity in the Rye-
House Plot. Fitzwilliam always believed in Lord Wil-
liam's innocence, and was a witness for the defence at
his trial. The friend of Ken, Turner and Kettlewell, on
the one hand, and of Lord Southampton, Lord William
and Lady Each el Eussell on the other, may seem oddly
mixed up with what we should now call * high ' and
' low ' Church people. But until quite the close of the
seventeenth century these terms were hardly known.
Before then, Church people were simply Church people,
without any epithet, and if Lady Eachel wished for guid-
ance in leading a consistent Church life, she would require
one who was simply a Churchman for her director ; and
such an one she undoubtedly found in John Fitzwilliam.
It is, however, somewhat curious that he should have
been called as witness for the defence at the trials of two
men of such very opposite sentiments as Lord William
Eussell, the exclusionist, and John Ashton, the Jacobite.
At the trial of the latter he gives us a glimpse of his own
conduct and principles. He bears witness that he had
seen Ashton at the Holy Communion in Ely Chapel
that is, Bishop Turner's chapel at Ely House, Holborn
172 THE NONJUROES
and when asked whether King William and Queen Mary
were prayed for by name, admitted that the names, as
inserted, were not mentioned, and implied that he was
a regular worshipper there. When asked whether he
had taken the oaths to the new king and queen, 'No,
I have not, Sir,' he replied, * that's my unhappiness ; but
I know how to submit and live peaceably under them.'
And he added, * If anyone can say I have done or acted
anything against the Government, I will readily submit
to be punished for it.' 1 He never did act in any way
against the Government; but, in spite of the earnest
entreaties of Lady Rachel, he never could be persuaded
to take the oaths. He lived in an attic in London, where
there was no room for his books ; and the only favour
he asked of Lady Eachel was that she would try to
find room somewhere for them. He was not, however,
reduced to actual penury, for he left in his will a life
interest in 500Z. to his old friend Ken, whom he made his
executor ; on Ken's death, the money was to go to the
library of Magdalen College. 2
Fitzwilliam published nothing except the single ser-
raon already alluded to ; but among the Bawlinson MSS.
are a number of theological treatises written by him in
excellent Latin. One of them is entitled ' De Juramento
non suscipiendo (1695), ' which gives a lucid apology for
his not taking the oath to King William ; another is a
devotional treatise ' On Prayer,' written in English.
Thomas Smith (1638-1710) graduated from Queen's
College in 1661, and in 1663 was appointed Master
of the Magdalen School (Ludi Magister). He was
1 Lathbury, p. 80.
2 See Hearne's Collections, iii. 88. Also Reliquice Hearniana, ii. 30,
where Hearne vindicates Fitzwilliam from some depreciatory remarks of
Dr. Charlett, saying ' 'Tis well known he was a very wise and a very good,
as well as a learned man.'
THOMAS SMITH 173
elected probationer fellow of Magdalen in 1666, and
actual fellow in 1667, and held his fellowship till he
was ejected as a Non juror, filling various college offices.
In 1668 he went to the East as chaplain to Sir Daniel
Harvey, ambassador at Constantinople, and after three
years' sojourn returned, bringing with him a number
of Greek manuscripts and filled with a deep interest in
the Greek Church. Thus he was a precursor of those
later Nonjurors who made advances to that Church.
He was so full of his subject that he was nicknamed
at Oxford 'Rabbi Smith' and ' T5grai Smith,' Tograi
being the name of an Arabian author, whose poem he
had edited. 1 He took a prominent part in the memo-
rable election of the President of Magdalen in 1687,
and his diary furnishes us with a valuable help for un-
ravelling the complications in which the question was
involved. 2 Thomas Smith incurred great odium for his
action in the matter, but most unjustly ; his conduct was
honest and straightforward from first to last, and quite
consistent with the principles he professed and acted upon
all his life long. On the one hand, he tried to maintain
that attitude of passive obedience and non-resistance
which had nowhere been so strongly, authoritatively, and
frequently enforced as in his own University. On the
other hand, he strove to be perfectly loyal to the Church
of England. He was influenced by no selfish considera-
tions ; he had shown this from the very beginning. When
the old president died in March 1687, he had some reason-
able hope of succeeding to the post ; for he had been
elected vice-president in 1682 and was now senior bursar ;
he was a man distinguished for his learning ; and he had
1 See J. K. Bloxam's Magdalen College Register, iii. 196 et seq.
* See Magdalen College and King James IL, edited by Dr. Bloxam for
the Oxford Historical Society, passim, especially the admirable Introduction
by Canon Bramley.
174 THE NONJUROES
a powerful friend at Court in the Bishop of Oxford (Dr.
Parker), through whom he might obtain a Royal letter of
recommendation to the College. But 'the King,' said
Parker, ' will recommend no person who is not a friend
to His Majesty's religion. What can you do to please
him as to that matter ? ' Smith replied that if he became
president he would make it his business to advance
piety and learning, to keep men dutiful and obedient
to the King's person and government, and truly loyal,
and to promote true Catholic Christianity. ' That will
not do,' said the bishop. ' Then,' replied Smith, * let
who will take the Presidentship for me, I will look no
more after it.' Between his loyalty to the Church and
his loyalty to the King he was placed in an awkward
dilemma. He utterly opposed the appointment of the
first Royal nominee, Anthony Fanner, who was neither
statutably nor morally qualified ; but when the King
issued a mandate for the election of the Bishop of
Oxford, Smith with his feelings of loyalty could hold
out no longer, but submitted unreservedly to the Royal
mandate. In fact he took a middle course, and shared
the usual fate ; being abused by both sides, especially by
that side with which he was most in sympathy. I was
bespattered,' he says, 'with horrible, scandalous and
diabolical reflections, as though I were a Papist, or at
least would soon declare myself such : that I had per-
juriously violated my Founder's Statutes, and that by this
compliance I was making my court to get preferment.' l
This was in London. But it was the same at Oxford ;
his Oxford nickname, ' Dr. Tograi,' became by an easy
transition 'Dr. Roguery,' and he was regarded as the
most glaring instance of what was contemptuously called
Dr. Smith's Diary in Magdalen College and James II., p. 215, with
more to the same effect in p. 216.
THOMAS SMITH 175
* the Magdalen conscience.' But his motives were cruelly
misrepresented : he neither received nor desired any
preferment ; he had not the faintest intention of becoming
a Boman Catholic ; when, on the death of Parker within
a few months, James succeeded in intruding a Koman
Catholic into the presidentship, Smith 'refused to live
among the new Popish Fellows,' was ejected from his fel-
lowship (August 3, 1688), and only restored to it when all
the rest were on October 25, 1688. Posterity has done
more justice to him in the matter than his contemporaries
did. Lord Macaulay, in spite of his Whig prejudices
against the Nonjurors, speaks highly of Smith's conduct
throughout. 1 There are no better authorities on Magdalen
affairs than Dr. Koutb, Dr. Bloxam, and Canon Bramley,
and they all vindicate Smith's conduct. 2
To pass on to the next scene in Smith's life. Not-
withstanding the trouble in which James II. had involved
him, he remained a firm Jacobite, and again lost his
fellowship as a Nonjuror. The oaths were not so quickly
and rigorously enforced at the Universities, where the
clergy had no parochial charge, as they were elsewhere,
and Smith held his fellowship until 1692. He lived in
London, where he had a notice from the president, Dr.
Hough, * that he must come to Oxford and take the oaths,
or send a certificate of his having done, as he had received
a fresh command from the Queen [King William was
abroad in the field of war] requiring the judges of assize
to tender the oaths again to all such as had not taken
them, and to execute the laws immediately upon such as
refused.' Smith replied :
I cannot come down to Oxford upon the account for which
I am summoned ; much less can I, or shall I, send a certificate
1 See History of England, chap. viii.
2 Magdalen College and James IL, Introd. p. xxviii, note ; J. E. Bloxam's
Magdalen College Register, iii. 196, et scc[. ; and Eouth's note to Burnet, p. 182.
176 THE NONJUEORS
as I am required, preferring the peace of mind and satisfaction
of my conscience before the enjoying of my Fellowship ; yet
I wish all happiness and prosperity to the College, and shal 1
during the remainder of the time which by the good Providence
of God I have to live, endeavour to serve it as I may, and as I
ought, to the utmost of my power.
Upon this his fellowship was pronounced void by the
president and fellows July 25, 1692 and Oxford lost
* one of the best scholars that were ever bred in Magdalen
College, and indeed in this University,' l or, as Mr. Doble
expresses it, * one of the most learned men in a learned
generation.' 2
Thomas Smith, after some vicissitudes, found a kind
patron in a layman of kindred tastes and sympathies, Sir
John Cotton, grandson of the famous antiquary, of whose
household at Westminster he was an inmate for several
years. He more than repaid the obligation by taking
charge of the priceless Cottonian Manuscripts, finding a
congenial employment in drawing up a catalogue of them,
and guarding them jealously. The death of his patron
in the autumn of 1702 did not cause the immediate
removal of Smith from Westminster. He still remained
as the guest of Sir John's successor ; but the last period
of his life was spent in the house of his friend, Hilkiah
Bedford, in Dean Street, Soho, where he died, May 11,
1710. During the last few years of his life he held a
pretty frequent correspondence with Bishop Ken, who
evidently had the highest opinion of his learning. From
these letters we gather that Smith was in somewhat
straitened circumstances at the close of his life. He
sends Ken copies of his later works, and Ken sends him
money (which one would have thought the poor deprived
bishop could ill have spared), interests * the good lord '
1 Hearne's Collections, iii. 15.
1 Introduction to Hearne's Collections, vol. ii. p. viii.
THOMAS SMITH 177
(Weymouth) in his behalf, and begs Smith to let him
know when he is ' in any streight, or wants supplys, to
carry on his labours of love for the publick.' * Smith,
however, is quite the reverse of an importunate beggar.
He deprecates Ken's gifts ; assures him that since his
deprivation he has been supported by a brother with
whom he lives, and that his literary labours and gifts of
friends have secured him from penury ; considering Ken's
'narrow circumstances,' he receives his bounty 'with
great reluctance,' and recommends a ' Lady Dutton and
her daughters ' as more in need of it. But it was a
pleasure to Ken to give ' what,' he says, ' I can well
spare ' to his friend, whom he had probably known from
the old days when they Were undergraduates together,
and when ' our deare friend the Bishop of Ely [Turner],
now with God,' was the intimate of both. It was an
additional pleasure, because Smith, instead of plunging
into politics, as some Nonjurors did to Ken's great regret,
devoted himself to literary work ; indeed, he adds, ' con-
sidering your labours of love and learning, all your friends
can give to you is given to the publick.' 3
Smith, however, though he wisely let politics alone,
was in his heart a far more thoroughpaced Jacobite and
Nonjuror than Ken ever was. On these points he
sympathised much more closely with a younger friend
and correspondent, Thomas Hearne. His correspondence
with Hearne is most voluminous, and shows the vast
extent of his learning and the wide variety of subjects in
which he is interested. Hearne consults him on all sorts
of topics, and pays the greatest deference to his opinion
on them all. The relationship between the old and the
young scholar (there was forty years' difference between
their ages) is a very interesting one. They agreed on all
1 Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 184. 2 Ibid. ii. 189.
N
178 THE NONJUEOES
points ; and the elder can upon occasion, though not so
frequently, express himself quite as bitterly as the younger
on the iniquities of the Revolution settlement and all its
abettors. Smith did not, indeed, live long enough to see
the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty, the object
of Hearne's particular aversion ; but there is little doubt
that he would have shared the feeling of his young friend
and disciple. Hearne felt his loss deeply, and makes
more than one touching reference to it. On May 13, 1710,
he writes :
On Thursday morning last between 3 and 4 clock, died my
truly learned and excellent Friend Dr. Thomas Smith, in the
threescore and twelfth Year of his Age. He died an undaunted
Confessor of the poor, distress'd, and afflicted Church of England,
and always stood stiff and resolute to the Doctrines of it as
laid down in our Articles and Homilies. As he was a man of
very great Learning, so he was withall modest, humble, and
wonderfull communicative, of indefatigable Industry, and of
more than ordinary Curiosity in discovering and preserving the
Writings of learned Men, especially those of our own Countrey,
w ch is much indebted to him for the Lives of divers of them, as
well as for several other usefull & good Books. 1
Thomas Crosthwaite (1640 ?-1710) was another Oxford
resident who refused to take the oaths to William and
Mary. He was evidently a prominent man in his day,
though his very name is now forgotten. He graduated
at Queen's College in 1660, and became a fellow of that
society. On May 15, 1684, he was elected principal of
St. Edmund Hall; but there was a dispute about the
election, which is vividly described by Andrew Allam,
the antiquary, who was vice-principal of the Hall at the
time, as also by Wood and Hearne. 2 He lived, after
1 Collections, ii. 389. See also ii. 397, iii. 15, and passim.
2 See Tanner MS., quoted by Rev. A. Clark in a note to his Life and
Times of Anthony Wood (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 116 and 186 ; Hearne's
Collections, i. 306 ; ii. 339, 341, 345, 349.
OXFOED, A NONJUEING CENTEE 179
his expulsion from his fellowship as a Nonjuror, for a
time on a small hereditary estate in the north, but
returned to Oxford, where, like Baker at Cambridge, he
was allowed to retain his rooms at Queen's. His death
is thus described by Hearne :
Jan. 30, 1710. This day died Dr. Thomas Crosthwaite of
Queen's College, leaving the character behind him of a learned
orthodox Divine, and an undaunted sufferer for his allegiance to
his undoubted Sovereign, and his adherence to the Doctrine of
the Church of England. He was buried in Queen's Coll.
Chappell on Wednesday night following, between nine and ten
of the clock. 1
Oddly enough, a ' Speech was spoken at his Funeral by
Mr. Tickel,' the poet, who was then a junior fellow of
Queen's, but took quite the opposite views on politics
.and theology from those of Crosthwaite, ' commending
the Doctor for his Learning and Constancy, and for his
Tranquillity of mind to the last.'
Oxford was not only a nursery for Jacobites and Non-
jurors, but also a place in which for several reasons they
would be inclined to linger. It had always been a strong-
hold of the Stuarts, and especially of that Stuart who was
in a measure glorified as the Koyal Martyr. The Stuarts,
moreover, with all their faults, had always been encou-
ragers of learning and culture, which a great University
like Oxford was presumably intended to promote ; and
this can hardly be said of those who took their place.
Again, there was an old-world air about Oxford, with its
venerable cloisters, its spires, its towers, and its domes,
which harmonised with the frame of mind which led men
to adhere to the old line through evil report and good
report. Oxford, too, was then essentially a Church centre,
and devotion to the Church was a still stronger passion
1 Collections, ii. 341.
v 2
180 THE NONJUKOES
in the Nonjurors than devotion to the King. Nor was
it only a sentimental, but also a practical, motive which
attracted them to Oxford. Being cut off by their prin-
ciples from active service to the public, many of the
Nonjurors devoted themselves heart and soul to literary
work, and there was no place (except Cambridge) where
they could find the same help for such work. There
noble libraries, easily accessible, were found in rich
abundance ; there kindred spirits with whom they might
exchange thoughts met them at every turn ; there they
might sharpen their intellects by arguing with those who>
held different views, and could present those views in the
strongest form. A history of the Nonjurors, therefore,
must necessarily have much to do with Oxford ; and we
must not leave the old University, ( paved with the skulls
of Jacobites/ 'the home of lost causes and impossible
loyaltys,' yet awhile.
There was, to put it mildly, a strong Nonjuring and
Jacobite leaven even among the constituted authorities of
the place, who had, of course, taken the oaths themselves.
It will be remembered that one of the allegations brought
by Gibbon, the historian, against the fellows of Magdalen
was that ' their constitutional toasts were not expressive
of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.' l This
was in 1752, when Jacobitism was fast dying out all over
the kingdom; and, if the old feeling of loyalty to the
Stuarts was rife at an Oxford College then, we may be
sure that it was ten times more rife at an earlier period.
Nicholas Amhurst tells us in his ' Terrae Filius ' (1721, &c.)
that ' the pretender's health was drunk openly and un-
reservedly in all places ' ; and, among other symptoms of
Jacobitism, gives an extraordinary story of ' a gentleman of
' Memoirs of my Life and Writings, in Miscellaneous Works of Edivard
Gibbon, i. 38, edited by John, Lord Sheffield (1796).
OXFOED AUTHOEITIES AND THE NONJUKOES 181
Merton College,' a Mr. Meadowcourt, being ' put into the
[proctor's] black book for drinking King George's health,'
and ' kept out of his degree for two years.' Some of the
highest dignitaries in the University were, to say the
least, not unfavourable to the Nonjurors. Dr. Thomas
Turner, for instance, President of Corpus Christi College,
though he was not himself a Nonjuror, 1 could hardly be
hostile to the party. He was in frequent and friendly
correspondence with his brother, that arch- Jacobite and
Nonjuror, Bishop Francis Turner, was entirely in his
confidence, and sheltered him in his distress. He offered
a chaplaincy at Corpus to Hearne (who never made the
slightest disguise of his opinions), intimating that his
refusal of the oaths need be no obstacle ; and he was, as
Hearne says, ' very kind to the Nonjurors ' generally.
Dr. Thomas Bayley, who was elected President of
Magdalen in 1703, in succession to Dr. Hough, could not
in common decency be harsh to the Nonjurors. He had
been a Nonjuror himself, and had been deprived, as such,
of the Magdalen living of Slimbridge at the Revolution;
and he remained a Nonjuror for twelve years, only taking
the oaths just before his election as president. Again,
how could the Principal of St. Edmund Hall, Dr. John
Mill, be really hostile to the Nonjurors, seeing that he
himself notoriously for a long time ' pendulus haesit de
juramento fidelitatis ' ? His vacillation was a by-word
at Oxford ; he was nicknamed ' Johnny Wind-Mill,' and
the children used, we are told, to sing about the streets :
' Wilt thou take the oaths, little Johnny Mill ? '
' No, no, that I won't, yes, but I will.' 2
St. Edmund Hall, indeed, was a great stronghold of
Nonjurors, and, as will appear presently, some of the best
1 He was often erroneously called so. 2 Hearne's Colkctions, i. 189-90.
182 THE NONJUEOES
and ablest of them were educated there. Again, Dr..
"William King, who was elected Principal of St. Mary
Hall in 1719, and held that post for more than forty years,
was long the head of the Jacobite party at Oxford, and
did not conceal his sentiments. In 1749 he made a Latin
speech in the Sheldonian Theatre on the occasion of the
opening of the Kadcliffe Library, and in his peroration
introduced the word ' Eedeat ' six times, each time making
a long pause after it. The significance was at once per-
ceived, and greeted with loud applause. It is true that he
subsequently changed his views, and in his ' Anecdotes of
His Own Times ' speaks anything but favourably of the
King over the water, and is also very abusive of some of
the Nonjurors, but that is after there had been a quarrel ; :
previously, as they must well have known, all his sym-
pathies were in their favour. Pembroke, again, elected
as its master in 1714 Matthew Panting, whom Dr.
Johnson styled ' a fine Jacobite fellow,' and Hearne ' an
honest gentleman,' meaning the same thing. 2 At St.
John's College Dr. Delaune, who was president from
1698 to 1728, was notoriously a Jacobite at heart, and the
sympathies of the fellows were with him. 'It is said,'
writes Mr. Hutton, ' that Dr. Holmes, President from
1728 to 1748, was the only Fellow for a long time who
was a Hanoverian, and the first Hanoverian head.' Mr.
Hutton gives some amusing instances of the Jacobitism
which was covertly hinted at in the College Chapel, as
when Dr. Delaune, or possibly Mr. Wharton, ' thundered
forth the words, " Bestoreth all things,"' and another
preacher gave as his text ' James the Third and Eighth.' 3
1 See Political and Literary Anecdotes of His Own Times, by Dr. Wm.
King, Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxon., p, 191 et seq. (2nd edit., 1819).
2 See History of Pembroke College, Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), passim.
3 See College Histories : St. John Baptist's College, by W. H. Hutton,.
pp. 193-7.
THE BALLIOL NONJUEOES 183
Balliol College seems to have been absolutely honey-
combed with Jacobitism.
No less than five Fellows were expelled at the Eevolution
for refusing to recognize the change of dynasty, and those who
submitted were at heart of the same opinion as those who held
firm. The Nonjurors, though deprived of their Fellowships,
hung about the College, and infected it with their own enthu-
siasm for the House of Stuart. Hearne walked out of Oxford
in June, 1715, with three Balliol men to celebrate the birthday
of King James III. ; and tells two months later of an assault
made by Balliol scholars [that is, no doubt, undergraduates] on
a recruiting officer of King George. . . . The Fellows shared to
the full in the prejudices of their Juniors. In 1723 they
elected Canon Brydges of Eochester as their Visitor because he
was a friend of Atterbury ; the majority of the Fellows were,
until 1760, more than half inclined to be Jacobites. 1
One of the five Balliol fellows ejected at the Eevo-
lution, Theophilus Downes, obtained some notoriety as
writer of the Introduction to a book called * Hereditary
Bight Considered,' which was regarded as one of the most
extreme books ever written against the Bevolution settle-
ment and the Hanoverian succession. He also wrote
one of the many answers against Dr. Sherlock's ' Case of
Allegiance ' and ' Discourse concerning the Signification
of Allegiance,' and other works which were not on strictly
Nonjuring subjects. Hearne tells us that he 'travelled
several times abroad with young gentlemen,' 2 a not
infrequent resource for distressed Nonjurors. Theophilus
must not be confounded with Samuel Downes, who was
also an ejected Oxford fellow, but belongs to a later
period, and will be noticed in a later chapter.
Perhaps this will be the best place to notice another
very estimable Non juror who had been an Oxford fellow,
but had probably given up his fellowship, and had cer-
1 College Histories : Balliol College, pp. 168-9.
1 Collections, ii. 103 and 430.
184 THE NONJUROES
tainly become a parish priest and a small dignitary in the
Church when he was deprived of his preferments after
the Revolution.
Walter Harte (1651-1735) would probably, like so
many quiet sufferers for conscience' sake, have passed into
oblivion had not his son of the same name, who was a
poet of some note in his day, paid a pious tribute to his
father's memory. But Walter Harte the elder is well
deserving of special notice, and was evidently so regarded
by his contemporaries; for when Dr. Rawlinson was
making collections for his projected History of the Non-
jurors he made minute inquiries about him through a Mr.
Tomkins, of Axminster. Harte replied, June 26, 1733,
saying that he was born on SS. Simon and Jude's Day,
1651, in the parish of St. Aldate's, Oxford, his family being
* plebean ' on both sides ; was educated in a school at
Oxford, then called Silvester's School in the parish of All
Saints', Oxford, for three years, and for five at the Free
School at Abingdon ; was elected from thence Scholar of
Pembroke, Oxon., on Mr. Tisdale's foundation in 1667 and
fellow in 1674, having graduated in 1671 ; was ordained
by Dr. Fell in 1676. Then he answers the ' Querie ' about
his ' Preferments, Patrons, &c.' :
The Vicarige of S fc Mary Magdaline Chur: Taunton, Prebend
of Ashill in the Ch: of Wells, Prebend of Bristol [all in 1684],
Patron of the Ch. at Taunton, Sir W m Portman, Bart. ; of the
Prebend of Ashill, L d BP of Ba: and Wells, Pater Meus: of the
Prebend of Bris. L d Keeper North, and begged of him by Sir
W. Portman, to be given to the Vicar of S fc Mary Mag. Taunton,
as an encouragement. 1
This account is slightly at variance with that given in
the Life of Walter Harte, the younger, prefixed to his
1 The letter is given in one of the MS. books belonging to St. John's
College Library, Cambridge.
WALTEK HARTE 185
poems in ' Anderson's British Poets/ which, however, may
be quoted for what it is worth :
His father had been Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford,
Prebendary of Bristol, and Canon of Wells, but he was dis-
possessed of his preferments in 1691 for refusing to take the
oaths. He obtained his prebend of Bristol by recommendation
of Lord Chancellor Jeffries, in return for the manly freedom
with which he remonstrated against his severities at Taunton.
By the kindness of Bishops Kidder, Hooper and Wynne, he
received the little profits of his canonry of Wells till the time of
his death, which happened at Kentbury [sic] in Bucks, Feb. 10,
1735. Lord Chancellor Harcourt offered him a bishopric from
Queen Anne ; but this favour was declined with grateful acknow-
ledgments. 1
Harte lived for many years in studious retirement,
having many friends of the most varied type who all loved
and respected him. In 1724 he must have been living at
Chipping Norton, for his son, the poet, matriculated in
that year at St. Mary Hall, and is entered as ' son of
Walter Harte, of Chipping Norton, Clerk ' ; but he was at
Kintbury in 1733, for he dates the letter quoted above
from thence, and there he died in 1735. The younger
Walter Harte paid a poetical tribute to his father with
the suggestive title ' Macarius [the Blessed], or The Con-
fessor,' from which the following extract may be given :
When crowns were doubtful, and when numbers steered
As honour prompted or self-interest veered
Our hero paus'd and, weighing either side,
Took poverty and conscience for his guide ;
For he who thinks he suffers for his God,
Deserves a pardon though he feels the rod.
Yet blam'd he none (Himself in honour clear),
That were a crime had cost his virtue dear !
Thus all he lov'd, and party he had none,
Except with Charity, and Heaven alone.
1 Life of Walter Harte, the younger, prefixed to his Poems ' in Ander-
son's British Poets, ix. 515 et seq.
186 THE NONJUEOES
B l sometimes would to thy cottage tend,
An artful enemy, but seeming friend ;
Conscious of having planned thy worldly fate,
He could not love thee and he durst not hate.
But the seraphic Ken was all thy own,
And he who long declined Ken's vacant throne, 2
Begging with earnest zeal to be deny'd.
By worldlings laught at, and by fools decry'd ;
Dodwell was thine, the humble and resigned
Nelson, with Christian elegance of mind ;
And he whose tranquil mildness from afar,
Spoke him a distant, but a brilliant star. 3
These all forsook their homes nor sighed nor wept,
Mammon they freely gave, but God they kept.
Ah ! look on honour with Macarius' eyes,
Snares to the good and dangers to the wise.
Accept this verse, to make thy mem'ry live,
Lamented shade ! 'tis all thy son can give.
O Pope, too great to copy or to praise :
Forgive the grateful tribute of my lays.
By thee the good Macarius was approved,
Whom Fenton honoured and Philotheus 4 loved.
But the great Tory University never produced such a
secession en masse to the Nonjuring cause as occurred
in one college at her sister University, which was more
inclined to the Whig side. Indeed, the number of
resident members who became avowed Nonjurors was
much greater at Cambridge than it was at Oxford. But
this, though apparently, is not really, inconsistent with
the fact that Oxford was the chief stronghold of Jacobi-
tism ; for no place illustrates more strikingly than Oxford
a fact already intimated, that ' Jacobite ' and ' Nonjuror '
are by no means convertible terms. From the great
1 Bishop Burnet. 2 Bishop Hooper. s John Kettlewell.
4 Bishop Ken. For Fenton, see infra, p. 258-9. Pope was a steady
friend and patron of the younger Harte.
CAMBEIDGE NONJUKOKS 1ST
Dean of Christ Church (Atterbury) downwards there were
members of the University who were Jacobites to the
core, but never ' scrupled the oaths.' And from a political
point of view one can understand their position. If they
really wanted ' the King over the water ' to return, their
policy was not, Achilles-like, to sulk in their tents ; that
was not the way to bring their Briseis back. If they
meant to produce any effect they must enter into the
arena ; the House of Lords must not be left to Presby-
terian bishops ; the immense influence which the national
pulpits could still exercise politically must not be left
to Whig orators. In rather a different sense from that
which the poet intended, they might say
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade.
A breath can make them, as a breath hath made.
And a breath could also unmake a monarch with a mere
parliamentary title ; therefore, they must put themselves
in positions where they could use their breath to swell
the blast. But the political standpoint is not that of the
present work ; therefore, we must ignore all these gentle-
men, whether at Oxford or Cambridge or elsewhere, and
return to those at Cambridge who were, qua Churchmen,
conscientious Noiijurors.
The first who claim our notice are, of course, the cele-
brated socii ejecti of St. John's College, some of whom
were ejected after the Revolution, and some after the
accession of George I. The history of these memorable
deprivations is interesting, among other reasons because
it illustrates a fact already noticed namely, that residents
in a University were not so much forced to show their
hands as those who were settled in parochial cures. An
indisputable authority writes :
The true account of the ejection [the second, in 1716-7] is
this : The Statutes require the Fellows, as soon as they are of
188 THE NONJUBOBS
that standing, to take the B.D. degree ; so that after the Be volu-
tion, twenty-four of the Fellows not coming into the oath of
allegiance, and the statutes requiring them to commence B.D.,
they were constrained to part with their Fellowships. As to
those who had taken that degree before the Bevolution, there
was nothing to eject them upon till their refusal of the Abjura-
tion Oath exacted on the accession of George I. 1
In other words, there were some who retained their
fellowships at least a quarter of a century longer than
they would have been able to retain any benefice. In
several instances the very same individuals who continued
to live at Cambridge and to retain their fellowships had
been compelled to give up all preferments outside the
University. The natural but whimsical result was that
at St. John's College the seniors, qua Nonjurors, were
the juniors, and the juniors the seniors. There is no
doubt that the master of the college at the time of the
Revolution, Dr. Humphry Gower, though he took the
oaths himself, had, to say the least, ' a reserved kindness '
for the Nonjurors, and was most unwilling to proceed to
extremities against them. 'He was suspected,' we are
told, * of favouring the Nonjurors.' Narcissus Luttrell
records in his Diary : ' 25 July, 1693. A Mandamus is
sealed and sent to Dr. Gower, Master of St. John's
1 History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, by Tho.
Baker, B.D., ejected Fellow ; edited for the Syndics of the University Press,
by John E. B. Mayor, part ii. p. 1010. See" also, The History of St. John's
College, Cambridge (College Histories), by J. Bass Mullinger, Esq., pp. 215-6.
-Mr. Bass Mullinger makes the number of ejections fewer than the popular
historians do, and there is no doubt that he is right ; for he is a far better
authority than they are ; and moreover, he has kindly given to the present
writer the following explanation, which is conclusive : ' The evidence on
which the statement rests is given by Dr. Lunn in an Appendix to Stukeley's
Correspondence, printed by the Surtees Society in 1882 ; and more fully in
his Memoir of Caleb Parnham. He there gives the Fellowship List in
1693 complete, the names of those who were to be ejected being marked
with a cross; this, he implies, is taken from the List preserved in the
Record Office.' The names of all the ejected will be found at the end of
this work.
THOMAS BAKEE 189
Colledge in Cambridge, to turn out 20 Fellows of that
Colledge refusing to take the oaths.' J Dr. Gower resisted
both this and a second mandamus on different pleas ; he
was a friend and correspondent of several Nonjurors, but
our business is not with their sympathisers, but with the
Nonjurors themselves, and the first place among these
socii ejecti must certainly be given to
Thomas Baker (1656-1740). He belonged to an
ancient family in the county of Durham, which had long
been distinguished for its loyalty, and was educated at
Durham School until the age of sixteen, when he pro-
ceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge. This was his
home, with only three years' interval, for the rest of his
long life ; in other words, he was an inmate of St. John's
for no less than sixty-five years. He became successively
scholar and fellow, and, having received Holy Orders,
continued to reside at Cambridge until he was appointed,,
by Bishop Crewe, rector of Long Newton in his native
county. He was for a time in great favour with the
bishop, and was thought to be on the high road to further
preferments, the rich living of Sedgefield and a golden
prebend in Durham Cathedral being talked of for him.
But an alliance between two such very different men as-
Lord Crewe and Thomas Baker could not last long : the
one was all for interest, the other all for principle. When
the star of King James II. was in the ascendant, who
could bow down to him more subserviently than Bishop
Crewe ? When it was on the decline, who could desert
him more readily ? Baker took just the opposite line ;
he threw away all chance of preferment from Bishop
Crewe by distinctly refusing to read King James's Declara-
tion of Indulgence when the bishop required him as his
1 See Additions to Cole's Life of Humphrey Gower, 24th Master, ia
Baker's History of St. John's College, pp. 988-98.
190 THE NONJUEOES
chaplain to do so in the episcopal chapel at Auckland.
But he thought the deposition (as he would have called
it) of King Jarnes equally illegal, and therefore he clung
to him in his adversity, though he had resisted him in
his prosperity, resigned his living in 1690 l because he
would not take the new oaths, and returned to Cambridge,
which he never left more. As he had taken his B.D.
degree just before the ^Revolution (1688), there was nothing
to deprive him of his fellowship, and he retained it for
many years longer. Some say that he was not inter-
fered with through the intervention of * a great man '
(the Earl of Derby). But surely there was no need of
any intervention ; all who had taken the B.D. degree
were safe from interference. He employed his ample
leisure in amassing vast stores of varied learning, which
were always at the service of all who desired to profit by
them, whether they agreed with his religious opinions or
not. He helped, in one way or another, John Walker in
his ' Sufferings of the Clergy/ Bishop Burnet in his
'History of the Beformation,' John Strype, a personal
friend, in many parts of his works, especially in his Lives
of Parker and Whitgift ; John Smith, of Durham, in his
edition of Bede's ' Ecclesiastical History ' ; Samuel Knight
1 In Dyer's History of tlw, University of Cambridge, ii. 250-1, there is
* A Letter of Mr. Baker's, addressed to a Friend, on his resigning his Living,'
which is so characteristic of the man, that an extract must be inserted :
* I must desire you once more to return my humble thanks to my Lord
[Bishop Ore we], as for all his favours, so particularly, that my living has
been reserved to me so long ; and that my Lord may not suffer by it, I have
nothing further to desire, only this, that my Lord would now dispose of it.
I am very sensible of his Lordship's favour, and with how much goodness
I have been treated in the whole affair, and therefore I do now part with it
with as much thankfulness as I did receive it. I am not desirous to know
my successor ; whoever my Lord thinks fit to succeed me, shall be accept-
able to me, and I shall not only be in charity with him, but shall have a
iriendship for him ; and if anything further be required of me, to make the
living more easy to him, I shall be ready to do it upon the least intimation
of his Lordship's pleasure.'
THOMAS BAKER 191
in his ' Life of Erasmus,' Hilkiah Bedford in his edition
of the ' Life of John Barwick ' ; Brown Willis, Ralph
Thoresby, Thomas Hearne in their antiquarian, and John
Anstis in his heraldic works ; Francis Peck in his ' Desi-
derata Curiosa,' Conyers Middleton in his ' Dissertation
on the Origin of Printing,' John Tanner in his edition of
his brother Bishop Thomas Tanner's ' Notitia Monastica,'
Zachary Grey in his * Strictures on Neal's History of the
Puritans,' Father Courayer in his defence of our English
ordinations, Archbishop Wake in his ' State of the
Gallican Church/ Bishop White Kennett in several of
his publications, and probably Dr. Bawlinson in his pro-
jected ' History of Eton College.' Most of them express
in their prefaces their obligations to him, and Wake and
Kennett strove to repay these obligations in a substantial
way, the former by offering to present any one of his
friends whom he chose to name, as he could not accept
preferment himself, to a living of two hundred pounds a
year (a considerable sum in those days), the other by
reserving for him his best pieces of preferment in case he
should be induced to take the oaths. That event seemed
at one time by no means impossible. Baker was a Non-
juror of the type of Ken and Frampton, not that of
Turner and Hickes. He had not the faintest inclination
to disturb the government either in Church or State.
With Jacobites qua Jacobites he had no connection what-
ever, and on the * Church . point ' as well as the ' State
point ' he thoroughly agreed with those Nonjurors who,
like William Law, did not separate from what used to be
called ' the established worship.' ' My principle,' he writes
to Hearne quite frankly, 'is not so high as you may
imagine. I hold communion with the Established Church ;
the new communion I do not understand.' 1 With him
1 See Reliquia Hearniana, iii. 61.
192 THE NONJUEOES
it was simply a personal matter of conscience. Having
taken the oath of allegiance to one king, he could not
conscientiously take it to another. When King James
died he was half inclined to comply ; but then the
wretched Abjuration Oath was enjoined, and that blocked
the way. When this oath was re-enacted and more
strictly enforced after the Eebellion of 1715, he forfeited
his fellowship rather than take it. He was just the sort
of man for whom such endowments as fellowships were
specially designed. ' Learned leisure ' was what he knew
how to employ so well, not merely for his own enlighten-
ment, but for that of innumerable others ; and to him
emphatically applies the righteously indjgnant protest of
Professor Mayor against 'this outrage so abhorrent to
the professed principles of its authors ' of ejecting men
who * had sinned, not by denying, but merely by declining
to affirm the omnipotence of parliament to dispense with
oaths.' 1 Baker himself felt some soreness at the loss of
his fellowship, which he never quite overcame. It was
not so much the loss of income; he had still a small
patrimony, which, with occasional supplements, sufficed
for his simple wants ; in fact, he was ' passing rich on
forty pounds a year ' that was literally the exact sum.
But the ignominy of the ejection galled him, and he
showed a dignified resentment by ever afterwards de-
scribing himself as socius ejectus ' a silent appeal ' (once
again to quote Professor Mayor) ' from Philip drunk to
Philip sober.' 2 He laid, indeed, the blame at the wrong
door when he thought his old friend, Dr. Jenkin, then
Master of St. John's, might have saved him the ignominy
There is something very touching in the superscription
over a letter from Dr. Jenkin addressed to ' Mr. Baker,
1 ' To the Header,' p. ix. Preface to the Edition of the Life of Ambrose
Bonwicke, by his Father. 2 Ibid.
THOMAS BAKEE 193
fellow of St. John's ' : ' I was so then ; I little thought
it should be by him that I am now no fellow ; but God
is just, and I am a sinner.' 1 It really, however, was Dr.
Jenkin's misfortune, not his fault, that he had to execute
the sentence against an old friend whom he esteemed and
loved. It was a peculiarly ungracious task, because for
twenty years Jenkin had held the same opinions as Baker,
and had suffered, like him, the loss of all his preferments
outside Cambridge. But he had submitted, and in 1711
had accepted the mastership of the college ; and he was
now bound to do his duty in that capacity; for peremptory
' notice came from above ' that the non-taking of the oath
by the fellows, of whom Baker was one, could be over-
looked no longer. The college did its best for one of
whom it had every reason to be proud. Baker was per-
mitted to retain his rooms in college as a 'commoner-
master/ and did retain them until his death nearly a
quarter of a century later. It is sad to have to relate
that he suffered the penalty of old age in outliving his
generation, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say,
of living into a generation in which his old Church
principles were temporarily out of fashion ; for there are
few with any pretensions to be Church people who would
not now sympathise with Baker rather than with those
who in his old age regarded him as an anachronism.
The following passage occurs in Cole's Life of Dr. W. S.
Powell, in the ' History of St. John's College ' :
Dr. W. S. Powell, elected Master of S*- Johns in 1765, 2 is
said to have held Mr. Baker in the most sovereign contempt,
insomuch as not to bear with common patience that any one
should call him, as most people -were disposed to do, the worthy
1 See History of St. John's College, p. 1010.
2 That would be twenty-five years after Baker's death ; but it will be
seen that the master reflected the opinion of others who knew, and may very
likely himself have remembered, Baker.
O
194 THE NONJUEOES
Mr. Baker, which would immediately raise his choler, make him
fly out into a passion, and abuse him, and call his MS. History
of S*- John's a collection of lyes. Mr. Baker might have had
his failings, and at an extreme old age, and after an expulsion
from his fellowship in a society in which he chose to spend his
days, perhaps might be peevish towards the decline of life ;
especially as new manners and new opinions, totally different
from his own, might disgust him upon occasion. But his
integrity and veracity I will never call in question. Also Dr.
Heberden said he used to be peevish and out of humour with
people's jostling against, and crowding upon him as he came
out of chapel ; natural enough in an old man, who had been
used to decenter manners. Dr. Heberden was a most decent-
behaved, but vehement party man, strong against subscription
to Articles and Liturgy ; so that, no doubt, Mr. Baker's strict
adherence to old Church of England principles might early
prejudice Dr. Heberden against him, who had a more enlarged
way of thinking upon these matters. ... I make no sort
of doubt but that the same kind of prejudice, though not
exactly similar, acted in the breast of Dr. Powell, who had a
strange mixture and complication of opinions, as averse to
those of Mr. Baker as light to darkness (pp. 1051-2).
But Baker's character and learning were appreciated
by some whom one would have hardly expected to do so.
One is not surprised to find Hearne writing that * his
goodness and humanity are as charming to those who
have the happiness of his conversation as his learning is
profitable to his correspondents,' l and accounting for the
greater help which Dr. Bawlinson found at Cambridge
than at Oxford in his investigations about the Nonjurors
by the fact that ' a Mr. Baker is to be met with but in
few places ' ; 2 nor to find Zachary Grey describing his
' most worthy friend Mr. Tho. Baker ' as ' a person uni-
versally esteemed for his great knowledge in almost all
the branches of literature, and who, as he is the most
knowing in our English history and antiquitys, so he is
1 Reliquia Hearniana, ii. 313. 2 Ibid. iii. 160.
THOMAS BAKEE JOHN BILLEES 195
the most communicative man living ' ; ] no, nor yet to find
William Whiston speaking in the highest terms of him
in his Memoir ; for though Whiston held most heterodox
and eccentric views he was a very honest man, and tried
to recognise good wherever he found it. But one really
would not have thought Warburton and Baker to be
kindred spirits, and yet Bishop Warburton writes : ' Good
old Mr. Baker has been very obliging. The people of
St. John's almost adore the man ; for as there is much in
him to esteem, much to pity, and nothing (but his Virtue
and Learning) to envy, he has all the justice at present
done to him, that few people of merit have till they are
dead.' 2 Still less, perhaps, would one expect to find Bishop
Burnet, who was not, as a rule, partial to Nonjurors,
paying him elaborate compliments. Baker, on his part,
is one of the very few Nonjurors who have a good word to
say about Bishop Burnet. 3 And least of all would one
have imagined that Horace Walpole (Earl of Orford)
would have been so attracted by him as to write his
biography. It is but a slight, inadequate performance,
for there were sides of Baker's character with which the
writer had no sympathy ; but the mere fact that it was
written at all speaks volumes for Baker's attractive-
ness. The standard biography of Baker is, of course, the
' Memoirs ' compiled by Kobert Masters from the papers
of Zachary Grey.
The name that is most frequently coupled with
Thomas Baker in connection with his college is that of
John Bitters, who, like Baker, was ejected, late in life,
1 An Impartial Examination of the second volume of Mr. Daniel NeaVs
History of the Puritans, p. 62, note.
2 Warburtoniana, in Maty's New Review, p. 144.
3 See Memoirs of tlie Life and Writings of Thomas Baker, of St. John's
College, Cambridge, from the Papers of Dr. Zachary Grey, by Robert
Masters, pp. 32-3.
o 2
196 THE NONJUKOES
from his fellowship at St. John's on January 21, 1716-7.
On that fatal occasion Sir Paul Whichcote writes to
Baker : * I should have been glad to have done Mr.
Billers and yourself service on any account.' l William.
Whist on says :
Two of the Nonjurors of St. John's College, Mr. Billers and
Mr. Baker, loved their religion and their country as well as
any juror whatever ; but having once taken an oath to King
James, they could not satisfy their consciences in breaking it,
whilst he lived, for any consideration whatever. These two
were long my particular acquaintances ; and I well remem-
ber that when King James died they began to deliberate
about taking the oaths and coming into the Government,
till the Abjuration Oath, unfortunate in that respect, had to
be taken. 2
And Professor Mayor quotes a passage from Beed's Diary :
October 12, 1711. Mr. Burrell contested with Mr. Enin, of
Sydney, for the rectory of Ovington in Norfolk, and lost it by
one vote (85 to 86), but Enin had two Nonjurors who voted for
him, viz., Mr. Baker and Mr. Billers, and though Mr. Burrell
objected against their votes and desired that the oaths might
be tendered to them, yet he was overruled by Dr. Laney and
Dr. Ashton. 3
One gathers from such passages as these that Mr. Billers
and Mr. Baker were kindred spirits, and were accus-
tomed to act together. Billers was eight years the
senior, and held college and university offices, which
Baker never did ; but he left nothing behind him to
perpetuate his memory, and therefore, while his friend
Baker is known to all scholars, Billers has passed into
oblivion. All we know of him is that he was a native of
Leicestershire, matriculated at Sidney-Sussex College in
1667, was elected fellow of St. John's in 1671, and
1 See Masters' Life of Baker, p. 35. * Memoirs, p. 32.
* Professor Mayor's Notes to Life of Ambrose Bonwicke, p. 209.
FEANCIS EOPEE 197
Public Orator in 1681, but was deprived of the latter post
in 1689 because he refused to take the oaths to William
and Mary. 1 He is described by his friend's biographer
as ' a truly learned and good man,' 2 and with that satis-
factory character we must here leave him.
Another fellow who was ejected at the same time is
more definitely brought before us owing to his connection
with that wonderful young man, Ambrose Bonwicke.
Francis Roper (1642-1719) was a native of the county
of Durham. He was, it will be seen, considerably older
than the two last mentioned, and was nearing the end of
his life when he was ejected. He was elected fellow in
1666, so he held his fellowship for nearly forty years, but,
like Baker, he lost all other preferments at the time of
the Kevolution. He was collated by Bishop Gunning to
the vicarage of Waterbeach, near Cambridge, in January
1677-8, became Prebendary of Ely in 1686, and in 1687,
having resigned Waterbeach, was appointed rector of
Northwold, in Norfolk. Refusing to take the new oaths
he was deprived of his prebend and rectory in 1690, and,
like Baker, remained at Cambridge for the rest of his life.
He was not, as has been sometimes stated, Ambrose
Bonwicke's college tutor, but he acted more than a father's
part towards him, being, in a way, his spiritual director,
medical adviser, and classical and mathematical instructor.
He is the 'Mr. R.' so frequently referred to in Bonwicke's
Life, 3 and the affectionate relationship between the fellow
and the undergraduate forms a strange contrast to similar
relationships as described by men of both Universities in
the eighteenth century.
Another of the elders who were ejected in 1716-7
1 Annals of Cambridge, by C. H. Cooper, and MS. book belonging to
St. John's College Library.
2 Masters' Life of Baker, p. 35.
3 See Life of Ambrose Bonwicke, pp. 24, 55, 60, 101, and passim.
198 THE NONJUKOKS
attained considerable reputation in his day as a writer.
Thomas Browne (1654-1741), a Middlesex man, was entered
at St. John's in January 1671-2, and admitted fellow in
March 1677-8 ; he wrote several works, the most impor-
tant of which were a ' Defence of our English Ordination
against the Nag's Head Fable,' and an answer to Bishop
Stillingfleet's famous discourse, ' The Unreasonableness
of a New Separation.' Like many Nonjurors, he seems
to have found, when he was turned out of his fellowship
in his old age, a friend and patron without whose aid he
would have passed his last days in penury. This friend
was Sir Francis Leicester, of Nether Tabley, grandson of
the famous antiquary, Peter Leicester, and ancestor of the
present Lord De Tabley.
The four that have been mentioned were quiet, in-
offensive men, who had not the slightest wish to disturb
the Government ; and the same may be presumed of the
rest of the socii ejecti who are now little more than shadows
to us. But among those who were ejected from their
fellowships at St. John's twenty-six years earlier there
was at least one who held a very prominent position both
as a Nonjuror and a Jacobite, and this will be the best
place in which to trace his career.
Hilkiah Bedford (1663-1724) was of Lincolnshire
extraction, his grandfather being a Quaker who migrated
from Sibsey, near Boston, to London, where he settled as
a stationer. His father was a mathematical instrument
maker in Hozier Lane, near West Smithfield, where
Hilkiah was born, July 23, 1663. He was educated at
Bradley, in Suffolk, and in 1679 proceeded to St. John's
College, Cambridge, where he was elected the first scholar
on the foundation of his maternal grandfather, William
Plat. He took his B.A. degree in 1683, and was elected
fellow of St. John's, 1685. He was instituted, possibly
HILKIAH BEDFOKD 199
through the influence of his kind friend, Heneage Finch,
second Earl of Winchilsea, to the small living of Whit-
tering, in Northants, in 1687. At the Kevolution, refusing
to take the oaths, he lost both his fellowship and his
living, and had recourse to tuition, acting as travelling
tutor to young gentlemen and keeping a boarding-house
for Westminster scholars, which was so successful that he
made a considerable fortune. He identified himself with
the more advanced section of the Nonjurors, being perhaps
the closest and most confidential friend of Hickes, who
bequeathed to him all his manuscripts and letters, and
copies of all his printed works. 1 It is said that Hickes
intimated his wish that Bedford should write his Life
if anyone did, and that Bedford commenced the task but
never completed it. He was also a friend of Thomas
Smith, who gave the following particulars about him to
Hearne in 1710 :
To satisfy your curiosity about what M r - Bedford has
published, I know but of two things, w cb hee hath done lately,
& they are both Translations, of the ' History of Oracles, and
the Continuation of it,' out of French : for the exactness and
elegance of w ch I refer you to D r - Hickes's account of it, printed
before y e History ; but the Prefaces shew him to be a man of
good judgm* & learning. Other little things, w ch hee has
published, his great modesty will not suffer him to owne. Hee
has spent several yeares, since the Eevolution, in France and
Italy in the company of young Gentlemen committed to his
conduct : w ch trust hee discharged with great care & fidelity
to the great satisfaction of their Parents and Eelations. Hee is
a gentleman of an excellent understanding, & steddy in his
principles, & to say no more of him, is very well qualified for
the work, w ch hee has undertaken. 2
1 In the MS. book belonging to St. John's Library there is 'A Catalogue
of the MSS. papers committed to the trust of Mr. Hilkiah Bedford by Dr.
George Hickes ; ' they are eighty-seven in number, and many of them bear
directly upon Nonjuring subjects.
2 Hearne's Collections, ii. 346.
200 THE NONJUBOKS
Smith also told Hearne that Bedford was ' one of the
most zealous Nonjurors in England,' that 'he instilled
good Principles into the young men he travelled with
in Foreign Countries, and brought them home compleat
Gentlemen and Scholars/ and that he was ' an admirable
Scholar himself,' ' which character of his,' he adds, ' I
have heard also from two other very learned men.' 1
Bedford became one of Hearne's constant correspondents.
The only work bearing on the Nonjuring question that
I have seen attributed to him is an able defence of his
friend Hickes, entitled ' A Seasonable and Modest Apology
in behalf of Dr. G. Hickes and other Nonjurors in a
Letter to Rev. T. Wise on the occasion of his Visitation
at Canterbury, June 1, 1710,' in which he pleads touch-
ingly and most justly ' the zeal which the Nonjurors have
shown for our common mother the Church of England,
and how they have been her constant Champions against
her adversaries of all sorts since the Be volution.' He
might have appealed to his own conduct as an instance,
for his own pen was chiefly devoted to the defence of
Christianity as held by the Church of England generally,
and not to the Nonjuring cause in particular.
But, strangely enough, the book which made Hilkiah
Bedford best known was not one of his own writing. In
1713 there appeared a little work entitled 'The Hereditary
Bight of the Crown of England asserted : The History
of the Succession since the Conquest cleared : And the
True English Constitution Vindicated from the Mis-
representation of Dr. Higden's View and Defence. By a
Gentleman.' It was only one out of many answers to
Dr. Higden, but it created a greater sensation than any
of them. Many efforts were made to find out who the
' Gentleman ' was ; and they seized the wrong ' gentle -
1 Collections, iii. 39.
BEDFOED AND ' HEEEDITAEY EIGHT, ETC.' 201
man ' after all. It must have been the critical time at
which the book was published that caused it to create so
much alarm, for it is not so violent as some of the answers
to Higden which had appeared previously. It is simply
a resume of English history from the Norman Conquest
downwards, traversing Higden's historical views at every
point, touching slightly upon Jewish and Eoman history,
and examining Grotius's exposition of the text ' Kender
unto Caesar, &c.' But the moral of the book is plain, and
it is not surprising that it should have created alarm at
that very critical juncture. It was well known that
Queen Anne's health was failing and apres? Was the
Hanover succession to be carried out, or was the rightful
heir to be sent for ? The book gave no doubtful answer
to this question. Hereditary right was the only right
recognised by the Constitution of England, which acknow-
ledged no such thing as a king de facto and not de jure.
The very first words of the Introduction showed the gist
of the book :
The first time that the duty of paying allegiance to Powers
in possession began to be taught publicly in this kingdom was
during the Usurpations which succeeded the death of King
Charles I. In all former Eevolutions the Princes who got
possession of the Crown claimed it by some right, and never
insisted on Possession as a right. But the Eump Parliament
and Cromwell, and the following Usurpers, having no tolerable
Pretence to any claim of right, their Friends were reduced to
a necessity of pleading Possession as a right to Obedience.
This suggested an analogy between the Revolution set-
tlement, which secured the Hanoverian succession, and
the Rebellion, the violent feeling against which had by
no means yet subsided. If hereditary right was the
only right to the Crown there could be no question, since
the warming-pan story was exploded, where that right
lay. The book, in short, obviously meant Jacobitism
202 THE NONJUEOES
pure and simple, and it is no wonder that it was eagerly
taken up by the friends of the Chevalier and distributed
gratuitously far and wide ; l nor, on the other hand, that
its author was eagerly sought for by the constituted
authorities to give an account of himself. The search
resulted in tracing the delivery of the manuscript to
the printer to Hilkiah Bedford, who was seized, tried at
the Guildhall, and found guilty of ' writing, printing, and
publishing a seditious libel.' His punishment was a
severe one : he was condemned to pay a fine of one
thousand marks, to suffer three years' imprisonment, and
at the expiration of the period to find sureties for his
good behaviour during life. A gratuitous insult was
added viz., that he should appear in court with a paper
on his hat, expressing the crime and the judgment. But
here the good feeling of the Queen, her respect for the
Church, and possibly also a little latent sympathy with
the cause, stepped in, and by her Majesty's express
warrant Bedford was spared the senseless outrage. His
fine also is said to have been remitted ; but he had to
suffer the full length of the imprisonment, and never
recovered from its effects. Great sympathy was shown
towards him. Among others Lord Weymouth sent him
100Z. by the hands of his chaplain, who, oddly enough,
was the real author of the book. But if Bedford had not
been chivalrous he might have compromised at least
three other people besides himself : (1) George Harbin,
the author ; (2) Theophilus Downes, the writer of the
Introduction, as already noticed ; and (3) Eobert Nelson,
who in conjunction with Bedford revised all the matter
for the press. It was, indeed, indignantly denied both in
the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries that Nelson
1 See on this point Mr. Lecky's History of England in tJie Eighteenth
Century, vol. i. ch. i. p. 147.
HILKIAH BEDFOED 203
had anything to do with the matter ; but Mr. Secretan,
his biographer, has shown conclusively that he had, and
there is nothing in the least degree inconsistent with his
general conduct and character in so doing. Nelson ceased
to be a Nonjuror, 1 but he never ceased to be a Jacobite,
nor even modified his views on that subject. Bedford
came out of prison a broken man ; but in 1720-1,
January 25, he was consecrated, together with Ralph
Taylor, a Nonjuring bishop in the Oratory in Gray's Inn,
by Bishops Spinckes, Hawes, and Gandy. He was thus
one of the two first bishops who were consecrated after
the division in the Nonjuring camp, at which I have
ventured to draw the line of demarcation between the
earlier and the later Nonjurors. On that principle he
would naturally come in among the later, but he really
belongs to the earlier. His life-work was over before he
became a bishop ; he took no part in any consecration,
and no part in the unhappy controversy about the Usages.
There is little doubt that he would have been consecrated
before had it not been for his imprisonment ; for he was
the man in whom Hickes, the universally recognised
head of the Nonjurors after the death of the deprived
Fathers, had the greatest confidence. Like most men
of strong views he succeeded in impressing them upon
others; and members of his family will be found
among the latest with whom this volume deals when
the Nonjuring party had almost reached the vanishing
point.
The reader will probably now wish to know some-
thing about the real author of the book which brought
poor Mr. Bedford into trouble. George Harbin (1665 ?-
1744) is said to have been a nephew of Bishop Turner, of
1 Or rather a non-complier, for there was no need for him to take any
oaths.
204 THE NONJUEORS
Ely, and also, oddly enough, to have been, in early youth,
a private pupil of a very different person, Bishop Kidder.
It is certain that he graduated at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, in 1686, and then, having received Holy
Orders, became chaplain to Bishop Turner, whose example
he followed at the Revolution in refusing to take the new
oaths. His connection with Turner probably introduced
him to Turner's lifelong friend, Ken, who wrote to Lord
Weymouth on Harbin's behalf :
The Bp. of E. mentions to me one M r - Harbin, who was his
owne Chaplaine heretofore, an excellent Scholar, and as far as
I could observe, of a brisk and cheerfull temper. However,
I was unwilling to engage your Lordshippe to take him with-
out a previous trial, and I have told y e Bp. y* your Lordshippe
should make Experiment of him, for a quarter of a yeare,
before he fix'd in your family. 1
The ' experiment ' was eminently successful ; and Harbin
was established as chaplain and librarian at Longleat,
and remained there certainly until the death of the first
Lord Weymouth in 1714, if not longer.
There are several letters of Ken to, and about, Harbin,
and all give us the impression of his being the quiet,
learned student, not the firebrand to raise a conflagration
by spreading treasonable matter. This impression is
confirmed from other sources. His name frequently
occurs in the correspondence between Thomas Smith and
Hearne, and generally in connection with some literary
subject, in which both evidently regard him as an
authority. Baker's biographer says that Harbin was
' thought to have been as well acquainted with the
History and Antiquities of England as any man whatso-
ever ; ' 2 Anthony Wood records with great complacency
1 Plumptre, ii. 107.
2 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Baker, of St. John's
College, Cambridge, p. 23, note.
GEORGE HARBIN 205
(September 25, 1695) that he had met at dinner * at Dr.
Charlet's one Harbin, a clergyman and a Cambridge man
by education, sometime chaplain to Dr. Turner, but a
Non juror and in a lay habit/ who ' was desirous to see
him,' * complimented him much, told him of severall
matters in his book* evidently thinking that such a
man's approbation in literary matters was something
worth having ; l and in the account of his death nearly
fifty years later he was described in an obituary notice
as having been ' a Person of uncommon Learning, ad-
mirably versed in all Parts of our English History and
true ancient Constitution.' 2 Add to this the negative
evidence that his name never appears in connection with
Nonjuring services, Nonjuring consecrations, or Nonjuring
internal disputes, and it will be admitted that Harbin's
role was that of the student, not of the agitator ; and that
it was at least as much on historical as on political grounds
that he wrote the work which made so great a sensation.
Indeed, it was not the first work he wrote on the subject.
Three years before (1710) he published 'The English
Constitution fully stated, with some Animadversions on
Mr. Higden's Mistakes about it. In a Letter to a Friend.'
Like many other Nonjurors he ended his days in London,
for we learn from the notice quoted above that * he died
in a very advanced age at his house in King Street, Soho,'
on September 20, 1744. Had he come more to the front
he would have been a link between the earlier and the
later Nonjurors ; but, as it is, he belongs exclusively to
the earlier, for his prominence was exclusively in the
first, not in the last part of his life. The name of George
Harbin suggests that of another and much older Cam-
1 Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 490.
2 London Evening Post, for September 20, 1744, quoted in Notes and
Queries (8th Series), vol. i., March 12, 1892, p. 214.
206 THE NONJUBORS
bridge man, Francis Brokesby, who was at Shottesbrooke
what Harbin was at Longleat.
Francis Brokesby (1637-1714) was a native of Lei-
cestershire. He was a graduate and a fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and in 1670 became rector of
Kowley, near Hull. There he married and held the
living until 1690, when he was deprived for refusing the
oaths. He had a high reputation for learning and piety,
but would probably have passed into oblivion had he not
become associated with the Shottesbrooke group. In 1706
he succeeded Mr. Gilbert as chaplain to Mr. Cherry and
Mr. Dodwell, and for five or six years was an honoured
inmate of Shottesbrooke Park. He became the con-
fidential friend of Dodwell, Cherry, Hearne, and the
guests at Shottesbrooke, such as Robert Nelson, whom
he helped in his work on the * Festivals and Fasts ' ; his
name frequently occurs in Mr. Secretan's ' Life of
Nelson,' and in ' Hearne's ' Collections,' and it is quite
clear from these and other sources that he was no servile
dependent, but on terms of perfect equality with his
benefactors. From his correspondence with Hearne we
gather that he was a man of wide and varied tastes and
accomplishments; Hearne consults him on all sorts of
subjects, literary and antiquarian, and always receives his
advice and information with the greatest respect until he
published his ' Life of Dodwell,' which Hearne regards,
with justice, as a very inadequate performance. Brokesby
belonged to the most moderate section of the Nonjurors,
yearned for their return to the National Church, and
heartily joined the movement of Cherry, Dodwell, and
Nelson in 1710, which was the first step in the direction
of putting a stop to the Nonjuring separation. There
is an interesting MS. letter in St. John's College Library
from Brokesby to Wagstaffe, from which it appears that
F. BEOKESBY S. GEASCOME 207
Wagstaffe had asked Brokesby to administer the Holy
Communion to him, not knowing that he had returned
to the National Church ; Brokesby informs him that he
had done so, but is quite ready, 'if you are pleased to
accept of me as here represented ' ; but it is added in the
MS. : ' N.B. Upon this letter Mr. Wagstaffe withdrew
his request, and died without the Sacrament.' The letter
is dated ' Hinckley, August 29, 1712,' and Wagstaffe's
reply, 'October 17, 1712.' Brokesby died at Hinckley
two years later.
We come next to two or three Cambridge Nonjurors
of a different type.
Samuel Grascome, or Grascomb (1641-1709 circa), was
born and educated at Coventry until his admission as
a sizar, in 1661, at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where
he graduated in 1666. In 1680 he was instituted to the
rectory of Stourmouth, in Kent, which he held until
1690, when he was deprived for refusing to take the
oaths. He cast in his lot, heart and soul, with the Non-
jurors, and acted as officiating minister at one of the
most noted of their oratories, that in Scroop Court,
Holborn, just opposite to St. Andrew's Church, where
Hickes and Gandy afterwards officiated. Whatever else
Grascome lacked he certainly did not lack courage nor,
it may be added, brains. The ablest and most formidable
opponent of the Nonjurors was perhaps Edward Stil-
lingfleet. William Sherlock may have equalled him in
point of ability, but then Stillingfleet had the advan-
tage over Sherlock in not being weighted with the un-
pleasant consciousness of having once been on the other
side, and of having turned right about face. At any
rate, one of the most telling, as it was one of the earliest,
works in favour of taking the oaths and complying with
the new order, was Stillingfleet 's pamphlet (it fills only
208 THE NONJUEOKS
forty-two pages), 'A Discourse concerning the Unreason-
ableness of a New Separation, on account of the Oaths,
with an Answer to the History of Passive Obedience as
it relates to them. 5 The ' History of Passive Obedience '
was written by Collier, who was well able to take care of
himself ; but, as Stillingfleet did not confine himself to
Collier's subject, there was room for another writer, and
indeed the critical circumstances of the time required it.
Stillingfleet's pamphlet is dated 'October 15, 1689 '
that is, some time before the actual separation had taken
place, and the writer evidently anticipates that it might
still be avoided. But that would be fatal to Grascome's
position, so he wrote at once a * Brief Answer,' &c. Then
Dr. Williams, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, rushed
into the fray, publishing in 1691 *A Vindication of
[Stillingfleet's] Discourse,' and Grascome rejoined the
same year in * A Reply to a Vindication,' &c. Williams
was an experienced and adroit controversialist ; so Gras-
come had two strong opponents on his hands. He writes
fiercely, but considering that he had sacrificed everything
for conscience' sake, while his opponent was skipping on
from one preferment to another, there was some little
excuse for his indignation at Williams 's suggestion that
though the Nonjurors could not take the oath, they
should not make a separation, but continue in communion
with the National Church.
When [replies Grascome] you joyn with those who make
this unjust Deprivation, when you take our Churches, our
Flocks, our Livelihoods, and suffer us not to exercise our
Ministry, where you have the Profit of it, unless we will do it
to the dissatisfaction of our Consciences. Do you complain
that we do not maintain communion with you ? If we were
in fault in the case, yet Modesty (if any be left you), and the
ill usage we have from your party, might make you hold your
peace [p. 16].
SAMUEL GEASCOME 209
Grascome is a typical representative of the extreme sec-
tion of the Nonjurors, and even in that early stage of the
dispute had not only drawn the sword, but thrown away
the scabbard. He declares distinctly
that whosoever shall be put into the place of the deprived
Bishops are not to be esteemed Bishops, nor ought either
Clergy or people to regard them, but to adhere firmly to their
former true Bishops ; that whosoever shall ordain such, or
endeavour to place them there, make themselves criminals, and
liable to ecclesiastical censure, and that they and all their
adherents are schismatics [p. 24].
He did not tone down his sentiments as years went on,
for in 1693 he published a work on 'The Constitutions and
Canons Ecclesiastical,' in which he contends that 'all who
either revolt from or deny the Supremacy or Independency
of their Lawful Sovereign, and transfer their Allegiance
to any Foreign or Usurped Power are ipso facto excom-
municated by the Second Canon.' John Kettlewell wrote
almost simultaneously on a similar subject ; and Kettle-
well's biographer, Francis Lee, contrasts the two books,
and says : ' By the conclusions of Grascome on the 2 nd
Canon, I do not find yet that any one was brought over
to the Nonjurors by the terrors of ipso facto excommuni-
cation. The milder and softer method of Kettlewell
succeeded far better.' ! In a work entitled ' Solomon and
Abiathar,' which appeared a little earlier (1692), the
anonymous writer (probably Samuel Hill, Archdeacon of
Wells, a High Churchman) suggests that the Nonjurors
might join in the ' immoral prayers ' because James and
William were not enemies. Grascome replied in ' Two
Letters written to the Author of ... Solomon and Abia-
thar, &c.,' intimating that King James may yet claim
his rights ; ' and,' he adds, ' I am apt to think that your
1 Ccmpleat Works of John Kettlewell, with Life prefixed, i. 133.
P
210 THE NONJUEOES
little ambitious Dutch saviour would think no man in the
world so much his enemy as he that demands three king-
doms from him ' (p. 133). Grascome published his pam-
phlets either anonymously or simply under the initials
' S. G.' ; otherwise he would probably have come into
trouble before, but in 1696 he escaped no longer. In that
year the people were violently excited on the currency
question, almost to the point of rebellion ; and Grascome
fomented the popular excitement by writing a pamphlet
entitled ' An Account of the Proceedings in the House of
Commons in relation to the [Recovering of the Clipt
Money and Falling the Price of Guineas.' The House
voted that the pamphlet was * false, scandalous, and
seditious, and destructive of the freedom and liberties of
Parliament,' ordered it to be burned by the common
hangman, and petitioned the King to offer a reward for
the discovery of the author. 1 Grascome by a sort of acci-
dent escaped prosecution ; but he was evidently regarded
as a ' suspect person,' and was obliged to lie low. We
hear nothing more of him except through his publica-
tions, which were numerous. The last of them was ' An
Answer to some Queries sent by a Roman Catholic to a
Divine of the Church,' which Hickes published in his
1 Second Collection of Controversial Tracts,' 1710, having
found it, he says, in Grascome's own handwriting among
his other papers after his death. This fixes approxi-
mately the date of Grascome's death. It must have
heen before 1710, but presumably only a little before;
for he was certainly living in 1707, in which year he
wrote his last work, with the suggestive title of ' Schism
Triumphant, or a Rejoinder to a Reply,' &c. His oppo-
1 See article on ' Grascome, Samuel,' in the Dictionary of National
Biography ; and Narcissus Luttrell's Brief Relation of State Affairs, &c.,
pp. 154 and 534.
MATTHIAS EARBERY 211
nent was the aged Francis Tallents, one of the Noncon-
formist ministers who had been ejected at the Restoration,
and who had written in 1705 'A Short History of
Schism/ which Grascome answered.
Matthias Earbery (1690-1740) was another Non-
juror of the combative type. He was the son of a clergy-
man at Hoveton, in Norfolk, under whom he was educated
until his admission as a sizar at St. John's College,
Cambridge. He was in his early manhood a friend of
Thomas Brett, the elder, and probably his neighbour in
Kent ; for he writes to Brett, in 1720, reminding him of
the time ' when ' (he says) * you was a formal Jurant and
held a living in Romney Marsh,' and ' when you invited me
over (I cannot say disputed me) into the Nonjurant Church,
where your Learnedship assured me onty salvation was
to be had ; ' l and in the same year he writes to another
opponent on the same subject (the Usages) : ' If I had
not been engaged in a correspondence with Dr. Brett,
who claimed the respect of an old friend, I had sent you
a few lines much sooner.' 2 He was curate of Aylesford
in the same county, but in a different part of it from
Brett's home, and then became incumbent of Neatishead
in his native county. It would probably be at the time
of the enforcement of the Abjuration Oath after the
Rebellion of 1715 that he, like Brett, became a formal
Nonjuror. He certainly was one in 1717, for we find in
the Rawlinson MSS. among the Nonjuring ordinations :
* 1717, June 4, Robert Islip, ordained Deacon in Mr.
Earbury's Chapel in Bedford Court, Holbourn by Mr.
Gandy,' and ' 1717, June 13, Robert Nixon and Robert
Islip were ordained Preists by Mr. Gandy, and Mr. John
1 Reflections upon Modern Fanaticism. In two Letters to Dr. Brett, by
Matthias Earbery, Presbyter of the Church of England.
2 Letter to the Author of a late Pamphlet, ironically entitled Mr. Leslie's
Defence, by M. E., &c.
p 2
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
212 THE NONJUEOES
Lindsay Deacon in Mr. Earbury's Chapell in Bedford
Court, Holbourne.' It is not at all inconsistent with this
that a year later (1718) Earbery still describes himself
in print as ' Vicar of Neatsheard in Norfolk ; ' for though
deprived he would still regard himself as the canonical
vicar, and would claim the title on the same principle
on which Thomas Ken continued to sign himself ' Tho..
B. and W.' long after his deprivation. His death is thus
announced in ' The Gentleman's Magazine ' : ' 1740, Oc-
tober. Eev. Mr. Earbery, a Nonjuror and author of several
political writings.' It is correct enough to describe him
as a political writer ; but he himself would certainly have
claimed to be a theological one, and to have treated
politics only as they affected theology ; the two subjects
were unhappily so mixed up in the eighteenth century
that it is impossible to disentangle the one from the other.
Like Grascome, he wrote on a great variety of subjects,
and sometimes, it must be owned, with great bitterness.
He deals his blows upon enemies from all quarters ;
William Whiston, White Kennett, Nathanael Marshall,
Benjamin Hoadly, Thomas Eleetwood, and Burnet all
fall under his lash ; but against none of his enemies does
he use stronger language than against his own Nonjuring
friends, who differed from him only in little points of
ritual, as will appear in a later chapter. A long list of
his writings is given in a note to Hearne's 'Beliquise
Anglicanse ' (vol. ii. pp. 143-4), and the curious may
find most of them in the library of the British Museum.
His answer to Bishop Hoadly suffers sadly by comparison
with Law's famous 'Three Letters to the Bishop of
Bangor.' The latter are not only far more powerful and
polished, but the writer does not give himself away, as
Earbery does, by his violence. His most famous work is
one entitled 'The History of the Clemency of our English
LAUEENCE HOWELL 213
Monarchs, as compared with several Matters which have
lately occurred in this Kingdom, by M. E.' (1717). The
1 several Matters ' practically resolve themselves into one,
viz. the hanging of the rebels after the battle of Preston ;
and severe reflections are passed on the cruelty of the
Government in contrast with the clemency of English
monarchs on previous occasions. This was accounted a
seditious libel, and Earbery was prosecuted for it by the
Attorney-General, fled the kingdom, and was outlawed. 1
The sentence of outlawry was reversed in the Court of
King's Bench, December 2, 1725, and Earbery appears to
have returned to England and died here.
There are yet two other Cambridge Nonjurors who
brought themselves within the arm of the law.
Laurence Howell (1664 ?-1720) graduated from Jesus
College, Cambridge, in 1684, and became master of Epping
School and curate of East wick, in Herts. 2 He refused the
Abjuration Oath when it was tendered to him in 1708, cast
in his lot with the Nonjurors, and was ' ordained Priest by
Dr. Hickes, October 2, 1712.' He is said to have com-
posed the dying speech delivered by William Paul on the
scaffold at his execution in 1716. But Thomas Deacon
distinctly told John Byrom that he composed the speech, 3
1 A full account of the matter from a hostile point of view in the
Weekly Journal, in 1720, is quoted by Dr. Doran in his London in tlie
Jacobite Times, i. 409. In the same year (1720) Earbery published from
France, A Vindication of the Clemency of our English Monarchs, with
Reflections on the late Proceedings against the Author, which gives us the
other side of the question.
2 In the Kettlewell List he is described as ' Curate of Estwich, Suffolk,'
and, as there is no such place, it has been doubted whether he was curate
anywhere. It was suggested that Eastwick in Herts ' may be meant.'
But there is no ' may be ' in the matter. It is settled by Howell himself,
who in his ' Collections for Cambridge ' (Rawlinson MSS. B 281) places
among the Nonjurors in the Diocese of London, ' Laur. Howell, Cur. of
Eastwick.'
3 Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrovi (Chetham
Society), i. 178.
214 THE NONJUKOES
and internal evidence bears him out, for both the style-
and matter remind one much more of Deacon than of
Howell. There is no doubt, however, that Howell was a
thoroughgoing Jacobite, who spoke, or rather wrote, his
mind quite freely, and suffered severely for so doing. His
general, and far more important, writings will be described
in a future chapter. All we are now concerned with is a
pamphlet entitled ' The Case of Schism in the Church of
England fairly stated,' which was printed in 1718 for
private circulation only ; but as a thousand copies were
found at Kedmayne the printer's, it was presumed that
they were intended for gratuitous distribution. He was
consequently tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty, and
sentenced to be whipped, to stand in the pillory, to have
his gown stripped off, to be fined 500Z., and to be imprisoned
for three years. He did not survive his imprisonment, but
died in Newgate on July 19, 1720. The main thesis of
the pamphlet for which he suffered so severely was only a
re-echo of what even the gentle Kettlewell, to say nothing
of Leslie and others, had contended for quite as strongly,
viz. that the compliers, not the Nonjurors, were entirely
responsible for the schism, and that the ' case of schism '
was wifairly stated in any other way. But his incidental
reflections on the established order both in Church and
State were such as would be sure to bring him into
trouble.
The odious name of separatist [he writes] belongs to those
who separated from the Church's true Communion in 1688 and
since ; and not to the chast few who for the preservation of a
good conscience quitted their present support, and prospect of
further promotion. These are still as much friends of the
Church and enemies of schism as ever. But by the Church
they understand the true old Church of England [praises it]..
. . . This pure Virgin-Church, which may be said once more to
be driven into the wilderness, and chiefly (0 horrid !) by her
MAETIN PINCHBECK 215
unnatural Eenegade sons, the Nonjurors say is the Church to
which they adhere, and from which the Complyers have separated
by departing from her ancient doctrine and practice, notwith-
standing they keep possession of the loyal churches from which
the Nonjurors were illegally rejected. Thus began a spiritual
war which on the Nonjurors' side was purely defensive, because
they were driven from the Publick churches and therefore were
forc'd to set up separate Oratories or Chapels. . . . They not
only displaced the canonical Metropolitan, Archbishop San-
croft, but hoisted up a Subject Presbyter into his room, who had
sworn canonical obedience to him, and, when God has removed
him they set up another in his place as Head of their Schism.
... In depriving their rightful King they disowned his
authority. . . . Now the violation of this 2 nd Canon by the
Revolutionists transferring their allegiance from their lawful
King to an Usurper . . . renders them ipso facto excommuni-
cates ; and the Nonjurors are the only true Church of England.
. . . Who is ignorant of the unnatural treatment of King
James 2 from his children and subjects ; how his authority
was trampled on, despised and denied ? . . . The case is not
altered now
with much more to the same effect.
Another Cambridge Nonjuror who fell into trouble was
Martin Pinchbeck, who graduated from Emmanuel College
in 1664, and became master of the school at Butterwick,
near Boston. * Pinchbeck's Endowed School,' as it is still
called, had only just been founded (1665) by a namesake,
whether a relation or not I do not know, Anthony Pinch-
beck. Martin Pinchbeck also acted as curate of the
neighbouring village of Freiston (the living of Butter-
wick was annexed to Freiston in 1751, and the two have
since then always gone together). At the Revolution he
took the oaths to William and Mary, 'and was bene-
ficed near Barton, in Lincolnshire,' possibly at Barrow-
on-Humber. But
by reading Kettlewell's and other books, and comparing them
with the performances of Sherlock. Burnet, and others on that
216 THE NONJUEOES
side, he was so wrought on as to retract. And in a publick
manner one Sunday before all his parish he testified it, and his
unfeigned repentance in a Eecantation sermon on II. Sam.
xxiv. 10, wherein he solemnly adjured the whole congregation
to join with him, for the iniquity by them committed, and to
return to their allegiance to their rightful and lawful king, and
he prayed in express terms for King James, Queen Mary and
the Prince of Wales, and read in church the Declaration of
King James of 1693. 1
By this is meant the Declaration promising some
concessions to the ' Compounders,' that is, to those
who stipulated that conditions should be made before
James was restored, in contradistinction to the ' Non-
Compounders,' who were willing that he should be restored
unconditionally. Pinchbeck's action did not commend
itself to some Non jurors, who thought that he ought first
to have consulted his ' rightful superiors,' while, of course,
it brought him at once into collision with the ruling
powers. He was seized, sent to Lincoln, tried at the
Assizes, and condemned to stand in the pillory, pay a fine
of 200Z., and remain in prison until it was paid. He, of
course, also lost his living. Much sympathy was shown
for him. Half the fine was remitted ; efforts were made to
persuade him to own that he was in fault, and the Roman
Catholics offered to pay the fine if he would join them ;
but all was in vain, and he was reduced, one must own,
through his rashness rather than his courage, to penury.
William Snatt (1645-1721) comes within the category
of those Nonjuring clergymen who were caught in the
meshes of the law, though he did not suffer so severely as
those above-mentioned. He was the son of Edward Snatt,
a master of the Free School at Southover, Lewes, the
school at which the famous John Evelyn was educated
1 Life of Kettlewell, prefixed to his Compleat Works [by F. Lee],
i. 150-1.
WILLIAM SNATT 217
under the elder Snatt. 1 William Snatt was born at Lewes,
and educated at his father's school until his matriculation
at Magdalen College, Oxford, at the close of 1660. He
graduated B.A. in 1664, and having in due time received
Holy Orders was appointed rector of Denton, Sussex, in
1672, Prebendary of Sutton, in Chichester Cathedral, in
1674, rector of St. Thomas's, Lewes, and vicar of Seaford
in the same year, and vicar of Cuckfield in 1681. 2 At
Lewes he prosecuted the Quakers for non-payment of
tithes, and he is mentioned in their archives with a black
mark to his name. 3 He was apparently resident vicar of
Cuckfield for eight years, and then there is the following
entry in one of the parish books : * W m> Snatt was
inducted Vicar here in the latter end of 81, and con-
tinued till y e beginning of February or thereabout in the
year 1689 when he was deprived by Act of Parliament
for not taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy
to King W m> & Queen Mary.' Snatt, of course, as a
Nonjuror lost all his preferments, went to London, and
became a friend of at least two of the most eminent of the
Nonjurors there, Hilkiah Bedford and Jeremy Collier.
But his name does not occur in connection with any
Nonjuring ministrations until 1696, when he joined with
Collier and Cook in publicly absolving, with the imposition
of hands, Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns on
the scaffold when they were executed for their share in
the Assassination Plot. 4 He was tried for a misdemeanour
before the King's Bench and was committed to Newgate,
but after a short imprisonment was released on bail. He
1 See Evelyn's Diary, for April 10, 1696.
2 I give these dates from private information kindly supplied to me by
the Rev. J. H. Cooper, the present vicar of Cuckfield, to whom I am also
indebted for other details about his predecessor.
3 See Sussex Archaeological Collections, xvi. 82.
4 See supra, p. 124.
218 THE NONJUEOES
survived for a quarter of a century, and is said to have
lived in London, and died there in reduced circumstances
on November 30, 1721, ' a true confessor of his distressed
and afflicted Church.'
It is difficult to decide where to draw the line in sketch-
ing the careers of the more prominent Nonjurors, but there
are a few more who require at least a passing notice.
Let us begin with one who attained considerable
eminence as an antiquary and historian, but, oddly enough,
appears in no list of Nonjurors, and is rarely, if ever,
mentioned in connection with them. And yet a Nonjuror
he was, and that of a rather unusual type.
Nathanael Salmon (1675-1742), son of Thomas Salmon,
rector of Meppershall, Beds., graduated at Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, in 1695, and, having received Holy
Orders, became curate of Westmill, in Herts. It has been
seen that many Nonjurors, who could by no means accept
William and Mary as their sovereigns, did in a sort of way
recognise Queen Anne, at any rate as a kind of stop-gap
until her brother was old enough to take the reins. But
Salmon reversed the ordinary process; he felt no diffi-
culty about taking the oath to King William (Queen Mary
was dead), but he could not accept Queen Anne. So
he resigned his charge and practised medicine, first at
St. Ives, in Hunts, and then at Bishop Stortford, in Herts.
In vain a friend offered him a living of some value in
Suffolk ; though he was reduced to great poverty he could
not conscientiously qualify, so he remained a Nonjuror to
the last, employing his leisure in literary work, some of
which is of very great value to the student of history.
The account of this belongs to a later chapter. Salmon
like so many Nonjurors, settled in London, where he died. 1
1 See Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, ii. 132-3 ;
Cole's AtJience Cantabrigienses ; and Gough's Brit. Topog. ii. 580.
ABEDNEGO SELLEE 219
Abednego Seller (1646 ?-1705) was in his day a man of
considerable mark, especially among the Nonjurors. He
was a native of Plymouth, and became in 1662 a servitor
at Lincoln College, Oxford. For some reason he never
took his degree, but was ordained as a literate. 1 In 1682
he became rector of Combe-in-Teignhead, Devon, re-
signing it in 1686 when he was instituted vicar of St.
Charles, Plymouth. At the Revolution he became a
Nonjuror and spent the rest of his life in London. He
was a well-known writer on Nonjuring, on devotional, and
on other subjects. Ambrose Bonwicke tells his father
that he ' should have liked Mr. Seller's book much
better ' than any other in preparing for his Easter Com-
munion in 17 II. 2 He was not reduced to poverty like
many Nonjurors, for he left to the Bodleian a valuable
collection of books. He is frequently referred to by
Hearne, who calls him * Doctissimus ' and ' a very
learned man/ though not so learned as Thomas Smith,
and declares that Dr. W. Cave was much indebted to
him for additions to his ' Historia Literaria.' 3 Dodwell,
in his letter to Hawes about the closing of the sepa-
ration on the cession or death of the invalidly deprived
Fathers, dwelling upon the intestine divisions of the
Nonjurors, says that ' Mr. Seller takes a way by himself/
on which Hickes remarks : * No way that makes a breach
of communion with his brethren, or affects conscience as
to the controversy of Schism.' 4 Seller did not live long
1 There seems to be some mystery in this part of his life. Wood (Ath.
Ox. iv. 564) says that when he left college he * past through some mean
employment ' ; Bishop Smalridge, according to Nichols (Illustr. of Lit. iii.
253) that ' he had the reputation of a scholar, though not of a good man
before he was a Nonjuror.' A Life of him by the Eev. J. Ingle Dredge has
been printed for private circulation, but this I have not seen.
* See Life of Ambrose Bonwicke, p. 30.
8 Hearne's Collections, i. 53-4, ii. 192, 235, 388-9, iii. 15, and passim.
4 MS. in Library of St. John's, Cambridge.
220 THE NONJUEOES
enough to come to the parting of the ways, so it is impos-
sible to say whether he would have followed the example
of Dodwell or of Hickes, but to judge from the views
expressed in his books he would probably have been
on Hickes's side.
We pass on to one who was a friend and near neigh-
bour of the stout old Nonjuring Dean Granville. John
Cock, a graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge, was
rector of Doddington, near Lincoln, from 1662 to 1665, 1
when he was presented to the vicarage of St. Oswald's,
Durham; in 1675 he also became lecturer at St.
Nicholas, Durham, and held both posts until his ejection
as a Nonjuror in 1689. He was ' unwearied in his labours
as a parish priest,' and did not forget the spiritual needs
of his parishioners after he was perforce removed from
them ; for he published a volume of twelve sermons, with
instructions that five hundred copies were to be distributed
among the parishioners of St. Oswald and St. Nicholas,
that ' the press might supply the defect of the pulpit
from which he has been removed above twenty years, and
as his dying legacy to his parishioners, that when dead
he may yet preach to them.' The volume was edited,
with a brief but very interesting memoir of the writer,
by his friend George Hickes in 1710.
William Cole, or Coles, was a fellow of St. John's
'College, Oxford, and became vicar of Charlbury, in
Oxfordshire, a valuable living in the gift of that college,
which he held until the Revolution, when he lost it
because he refused to take the oaths. Charlbury was a
country seat of Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, who
has an entry in his diary : ' August 11 [1689], Sunday.
I went to church at Charlebury, where a stranger
1 For this fact I am indebted to the present rector of Doddington, the
Rev. E. E. Cole.
EOBEET OEME 221
officiated, Mr. Cole not having taken the oaths ' ; and the
biographer of Charles Leslie informs us that 'on two
successive Sundays, 8th and 15th of September, 1689, he
[Charles Leslie] was the preacher at the services in
Charlbury Church, when the rector 'that is, of course,
Mr. Cole, for the deprivation did not take place until five
months later ' was not only present, but afterwards
dined at the same table.' * Mr. Cole lived on, without
ever coming prominently into public life, until 1735, that
is, for forty-five years, but it is recorded many years later :
' His memory is greatly esteemed in the vicinity.' 2
Robert Orme (d. 1733) is described by Nichols as
1 a very antient Nonjuring clergyman who possessed the
confidence of those of his own persuasion to a great
degree ' ; and for this cause apparently Nichols singles
out Orme's among many letters of sympathy addressed
to William Bowyer when his printing office was burnt in
1712 ; 3 but it is extremely difficult to learn anything very
definite about him. He was curate of Lewisham, and
was then instituted to the rectory of Wouldham, in Kent,
on February 25, 1689-90 that is, just at the time when
the controversy between Jurors and Nonjurors was at
its acutest stage. He held this living in 1697, 4 when,
repenting of his compliance, he threw it up, and was
admitted into the Nonjuring communion as 'a Penitent.'
There he evidently became a man of some prominence,
for he officiated at one of the most important Nonjuring
oratories in London, ' in the Parish of S. Botolph without
Aldersgate, commonly called Trinity Chapel,' being suc-
1 Life and Writings of Charles Leslie, by Rev* E. J. Leslie, ch. iv.
p. 81.
- See Notes and Queries, 1868, January-June, p. 459.
3 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, i. 52, note. 1
4 I am indebted for these particulars to the Rev. R. W. Taylor, the
present rector of Wouldham.
222 THE NONJUEOES
ceeded in it by John Lindsay, one of the most eminent
of the later Nonjurors. It is called ' Mr. Orme's Chapel '
in the Kawlinson MSS. There is a gossiping story about
Orme which seems to rest upon rather slender founda-
tions, but may be inserted for what it is worth. He is
said to have visited a fanatical young Jacobite named
James Sheppard, who had been convicted of treason in
1718, in Newgate, and to have had more than one un-
seemly scuffle with the ordinary, Paul Lorraine, for the
spiritual possession of the prisoner, to have composed
Sheppard' s 'last dying speech/ and to have given him
absolution on the scaffold, for which offences he was
imprisoned in Newgate himself; and the Whig papers
said, ' Mr. Orme's friends are very apprehensive that he
will shortly have to prepare a speech for himself.' l The
apprehensions were unnecessary. Mr. Orme survived for
fifteen years, and died in his bed, not on the scaffold.
He was buried in the churchyard of his old parish,
Lewisham. The following notice of his death appeared
in The Daily Post-Boy for January 15, 1732[3] :
Yesterday morning died, in a very advanced age, at his
house in Jewin Street near Aldersgate, the Eev. Mr. Kobert
Orme, who had been a Nonjuring Clergyman ever since the
Eevolution. The integrity of his life, and the simplicity of his
manners gained him the esteem and respect of many people of
different sentiments.
Another Nonjuring clergyman was more honourably
connected with the story of young Sheppard, the Jacobite
conspirator.
John LeaJce (d. 1724) had been lecturer of St. Giles,
Cripplegate, and St. Michael, Queenhithe, until the
1 See Dr. Doran's London in the Jacobite Times, i. 305-6, and J. H.
Jesse's Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution to ike, Death
of George II. ii. 304.
J. LEAKE C. TEUMBULL 223
Revolution, when he was deprived. Whether he was
the ' honest Mr. John Leake, formerly of Hart Hall,'
with whom, among others, Hearne walked out from
Oxford to Foxcomb on June 10, 1715, to celebrate ' King
James III rd ' 8 Birthday,' : I cannot say. But he was
evidently in London officiating at some small Nonjuring
oratory, or perhaps in his own house, in 1718 ; for
Sheppard, a coachmaker's apprentice, who had conceived
an enthusiastic attachment to the Stuarts, wrote to him
offering ' to go to Italy, if his expenses were paid, bring
back our King, and smite the usurper in his palace,' and
expressing a desire ' to receive the sacrament daily till
he had accomplished his purpose ' that is, in plain
words, until he had assassinated George I. Leake very
properly gave information to the Government, who seized
Sheppard, and, it is said, settled an annuity of two hundred
pounds on Leake. 2 His name appears in the ' Catalogue
of Nonjurors Writers, from the year 1689,' in the MSS.
in St. John's Library ; but what he wrote is not men-
tioned. He died on November 18, 1724.
There were two more Nonjuring clergymen of whom
one might have expected to hear much, but of whom, as
a matter of fact, one hears little or nothing. One was
Charles Trumbull (1646-1724), who had formerly been
chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, and administered the
last Viaticum to him at Fressingfield, where he was
accidentally visiting Sancroft at the time of his death. 3
Trumbull was a man of high family, the younger brother
of Sir William Trumbull, a Secretary of State in the
time of William III. He was a graduate of Christ
1 BeliquicB Hearniance, ii. 5.
2 See Dr. Doran's London in the Jacobite Times, i. 306, and John
Heneage Jesse's Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution in
1688 to the Death of George II. ii. 304.
8 See D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, ii. 64.
224 THE NONJUEOES
Church, Oxford (1667), but took the degree of D.C.L.
from All Souls' in 1677 ; so he was probably a fellow
there. In 1679 he became rector of Hadleigh, in Suffolk,
and of Stisted, in Essex, both being in the gift of the
Archbishop of Canterbury. In the ' Calendar of State
Papers ' we find, in November 1690, a ' Warrant for the
presentation of Zach. Fisk to the rectory of Hadley in
Suffolk, void by the deprivation of Charles Trumbull,
D.D.,' and on ' Jan. 1 Warrant for the presentation of
W m * Shelton to the rectory of Stisted in Essex, void by
the deprivation of C. Trumbull, for not having taken the
oaths according to the Act of Parliament ' ; l and then
the name of Charles Trumbull entirely disappears from
history until his death is recorded in the ' Historical
Kegister ' on January 3, 1724. When he became a Non-
juror he sacrificed two good pieces of preferment, and
probably, from his family connections, the prospect of
rising much higher. But he was apparently content to
suffer quite patiently, without making any agitation, for
five-and-thirty years.
The other clergyman is Natlianael Bisbie (1635-95),
who certainly held a leading position in the diocese of
Norwich at the time of the Revolution ; 2 and his ante-
cedents justified such a position. He was educated at
Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was
a Student, and as far back as 1660 was presented to the
rectory of Long Melford, in Suffolk. This he held until
the [Revolution, ' at which time,' as he himself expressed
it, ' the foresaid Nath. Bisbie, being then in the 55 th
year of his age, and 30 th year of his incumbency by
vertue of an unrighteous act of a factious and rebellious
1 Caletidar of State Papers, 'Domestic Series' (Hardy) William and
Mary, May, 1690-October, 1691, p. 218.
2 See supra, p. 40.
NATHANAEL BISBIE 225
convention, was deprived of the rectory of Long Melford
for not withgoing his faith and sworn allegiance to King
James the Second and transferring it to William, Prince
of Orange.' l It may be gathered from this passage that
Bisbie could write sharply ; and so he could, and act
sharply too. He is said to have had a quarrel with Sir
Kobert Cordell, his patron, about tithes and the right of
sitting in the chancel ; and he wrote several sermons and
other treatises, which are severe enough, against dis-
senters. But all this was before his deprivation. During
the five or six years that he lived after that catastrophe
he wrote nothing except, perhaps, one very acute and
learned little work, entitled * Unity of Priesthood neces-
sary to Unity of Communion in a Church ' (1692). It
was called forth by the appointment of a new primate
and new bishops in place of the ' deprived Fathers.'
This, it will be remembered, was, in Hickes's opinion,
the real beginning of the schism ; but the work was
published anonymously, and it cannot be said for an
absolute certainty that Bisbie was the writer ; and apart
from this he appears to have been absolutely quiet. He
is highly spoken of by both Wood and Hearne. The
former says that in his early days ' he was esteemed an
excellent preacher and a zealous person for the Church
of England.' The latter :
Nov. 5, 1707 : Nath. Bisbie, D r - of Div. and Student of X fc
Church. This Loyal, Keligious Divine had a Parsonage of
about 300 Ibs. per an., which he relinquished after y e Eevolution
in the time of King William, commonly call'd old Glorious, and
could never be brought to side w th y e times or take y e oaths,
tho' he had as good motive to it as any man, having a large
family. He died very poor. 2
His death took place May 14, 1695, at Long Melford,
1 Atlience Oxonienses, iv. 640. 2 Colkctians, ii. 68.
Q
226 THE NONJUEORS
under the shadow of the church where he had ministered
for nearly forty years, of which he wrote a long and
interesting account, thereby rendering good service to
topographers. The fact that * he died very poor ' is
borne out by an interesting MS. document in St. John's
College Library : * The Names of the suspended and
deprived Clergie Nonswearers in the Diocese of Norwich,'
to which is added in Thomas Baker's own handwriting
' This was drawn up in order to their Belief.' An
evidently honest investigation had been made as to their
circumstances, for some are described as ' not poor,' ' not
very poor,' ' well to passe,' ' a single man,' but ' Doct.
Bishby [sic], Rector of Melford, has a wife and children,
and is poor.'
One more clergyman must be noticed, not for any
distinction which he achieved, but for the extraordinary
length of his incumbency. John Watson was rector of
Saltfleetby St. Clement's, in Lincolnshire, for more than
seventy years ! It seems incredible, but Bishop Jackson,
of Lincoln, a cautious man, said he believed the tradition
was true, and could be proved by documentary evidence.
He is said to have been ejected from his benefice in the
time of the Commonwealth, when one of Cromwell's
drummers was put in his place. At the Restoration he
was reinstated, and was again ejected at the Revolution
as a Nonjuror, when he must have been considerably over
ninety years of age. He lived on until 1693 in the parish
of which he had so long been rector. 1
It may be objected that, after all, very little appears
to be known about these last eight Nonjuring clergymen.
Exactly so; that is just the point. Enough is known
about most of them to show that, though they had
1 I am indebted for this information to my old friend the Bev. W.
Watson, rector of the neighbouring parish of Saltfleetby St. Peter's.
QUIET SUFFERERS 227
abilities, or social position, or other qualities enough to
enable them to make a noise in the world, they preferred
to submit quietly to their fate without murmuring ; their
very silence is eloquent. The list might be swelled,
but as other clergy will come before us in connection with
the later Nonjurors, enough space has perhaps been given
to the clerical element in the party.
228 THE NONJUKOES
CHAPTEE V
THE NONJUEING LAITY
IT is obvious that the laity were in a somewhat different
position from the clergy in respect to the oaths. If they
held no post which necessitated swearing allegiance to the
Government, their hands were not forced ; they could
play the game as they chose. Unless they were active
Jacobites they were not bound even by a moral obligation
to involve themselves in any trouble about the subject ;
they were at liberty to hold what opinions they pleased
without being molested. And I believe that, as a matter
of fact, a great number of laymen were in full sympathy
with the Nonjurors without becoming Nonjurors them-
selves. It was sufficient if they showed personal kindness,
as many of them did most nobly, to those clerical sufferers
for conscience' sake who sorely needed such kindness.
Again, not being preachers, they had not committed
themselves publicly, as so many of the clergy had done,
to opinions about passive obedience, non-resistance, and
Divine right, the only logical conclusion of which was the
rejection of the Revolution Settlement and the Hanoverian
Succession.
Under these circumstances the wonder is, not that there
was only ' a small sprinkling of laity ' (as the phrase went)
who openly sided with the Nonjuring clergy, but that
there were so many who did ; l that this chapter, in fact,
1 A writer in The Cheshire Slieaf (No. 61, p. 57) says boldly that ' about
our hundred clergy and a much larger number of laymen refused on con-
THE SHOTTESBEOOKE GEOUP 229
is not all but a blank, instead of being a most important
and fruitful branch of the subject.
London, Oxford, and Cambridge were the places with
which the majority of the Nonjurors noticed in the last
chapter were chiefly connected. The scene must now be
shifted to the small country village of Shottesbrooke, in
Berkshire, for with this village the names of three of
the most notable of the Nonjuring laity Henry Dodwell,
Francis Cherry, and Thomas Hearne are associated;
and Shottesbrooke was also a pleasant retreat, and
sometimes a safe refuge for other Nonjurors, both lay and
clerical. 1
Among the early Nonjuring laity the first place must
undoubtedly be assigned to Henry Dodwell, not because
he was the highest in rank, for there were many above
him, nor because he was the best-known writer of the
class, for there were many better known ; least of all
because he had the wisest judgment, for he often embar-
rassed his friends quite as much as his foes by his various
eccentricities. But as a scholar and a divine there was no
layman who could be for a moment compared with him ;
and as a leader he took so prominent a position that he
was called ' the great lay dictator ' of the whole party. 2
It was probably Dodwell as much as any man who directed
the policy of the first Nonjurors ; it was certainly Dodwell
more than any man who caused the first return of a set of
Nonjurors to the National Church, which was virtually
the beginning of the end of the Nonjuring separation.
scientious grounds to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary.'
I do not know on what evidence his assertion rests, but I am not prepared
to dispute its correctness.
1 Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to an article I wrote in Longman
Magazine for March 1886, on * A Country Village in the beginning of the
Eighteenth Century ' (Shottesbrooke).
2 See, inter alia, Life of Bishop Frampton, p. 203.
230 THE NONJUEOES
Henry Dodwell (1641-1711) was born at Dublin, but
both his parents were of English extraction, and returned
to England when their son was only seven years old. In
England he received his early education, first at the Free
School at York, and then under his uncle, Henry Dod-
well, incumbent of Hemley and Newbourne in Suffolk ;
so we cannot, as otherwise we might be tempted to do,
set down his eccentricities to his Irish blood or training.
He returned, however, to Ireland to complete his educa-
tion ; in 1656 he was admitted at Trinity College, Dublin,
and was elected in due course, first scholar and then
fellow ; but he soon resigned his fellowship through
that sensitiveness of conscience which was a marked
feature in his character. And here it may be noted that
when Dodwell's eccentricities are spoken of, it always
means eccentricities of speculation, not of conduct ; his
conduct was only so far eccentric as it was abnormally
unselfish, pure, and high-minded. He lost his fellow-
ship, e.g., because he had conscientious objections to take
Holy Orders, the College Statutes requiring that every
fellow who was an M.A. of three years' standing should
be ordained ; but the ' conscientious objections ' were the
very reverse of those which now unhappily prevent too
many men of high attainments and abilities from enter-
ing the sacred ministry. It was not because he had
doubts, but because he had so intense a belief in all the
doctrines of Christianity that he shrank from ordination.
He did not think himself good enough for it ; and, more-
over, as the great object of his life was to recommend the
religion in which he believed heart and soul, he thought
he could do this more effectually if he remained a layman,
for then he could not be suspected of interested motives,
or of holding a brief for the Faith. Bishop Jeremy
Taylor offered to use his influence to obtain a dispensa-
HENEY DODWELL 231
tion for him to hold his fellowship as a layman ; but he
declined the offer as a bad precedent for the college.
We then lose sight of him for awhile, but find him in
1674 in London, * as being a place where was a variety of
learned persons, and which afforded him opportunity of
meeting with books both of ancient and modern authors.' l
There he made acquaintance with men of literary mark,
such as Bishop Pearson, of Chester, and Bishop Lloyd, of
St. Asaph, and in 1688 he was elected without solicitation
Camdenian Praelector (often, but incorrectly, called Pro-
fessor) of Ancient History at Oxford. At the Revolution
he at once resigned the post because he could not take
the new oaths. It was in vain represented to him by
learned counsel that ' the Act seemed not to reach his
case, in that he was Praelector, not Professor.' He must
have been strongly tempted to take advantage of the
chance, for he was eminently qualified for the post
he held, and had already delivered some valuable and
highly appreciated ' praelections ' ; and he had certainly
no reason to be grateful to James II., for through that
Bang's bigoted policy he had lost all his little property
in Ireland, and had actually been included in the Act of
Attainder as a Protestant. At Oxford, above all places,
he was thoroughly in his element, and he remained there
without office for some little time, and then retired to the
beautiful little village of Cookham, on the Thames. He
used to walk daily into the neighbouring town of Maiden-
head to hear the news and learn what books were newly
published, and there he used to meet Francis Cherry, who
came in for the same purpose from Shottesbrooke, a
village on the other side of Maidenhead. The two men
naturally struck up a friendship, agreeing, as they did,
both in their theological and political views ; and Cherry
1 Article on ' Dodwell, Henry,' in the Dictionary of National Biography.
232 THE NONJUROKS
persuaded Dodwell to remove from Cookham to Shottes-
brooke, where he fitted up a house for him near his own.
They maintained jointly a Nonjuring chaplain to minister
to their families ; first a Mr. Gilbert, of St. John's Col-
lege, Oxford, who had been vicar of Medmenham, in the
immediate neighbourhood, before the Revolution ; l and,
on his death, Mr. Francis Brokesby, already noticed. 2
They had also a sort of joint protege in Thomas Hearne ;
their kindness to whom will appear presently. Shottes-
brooke became a little centre of Nonjurors who recognised
Dodwell as their head, though they were now and then
dismayed by his startling theories. But his immense
learning, his single-hearted piety, and his fascinating
personality quite outweighed his eccentricities, and the
dictatorial tendency which he certainly showed at times
in public does not appear to have displayed itself to his
friends in private. On the contrary, both Hearne and
Brokesby, who knew him very intimately, dwell upon his
humility, Hearne describing him as ' humble and modest
to a fault ' ; while Cherry indignantly defended him from
the charge when Dr. Mill called him ' the proudest man
living.' 3 Dodwell had a busy pen, and he employed it
most sedulously, both in public and in private, on the
great questions which were agitating the Church and
nation at the Revolution. In the interval between the
suspension and the deprivation of the Nonjuring bishops
he published ' A Cautionary Discourse of Schism, with a
particular Regard to the Case of the Bishops who are
Suspended for refusing to take the New Oath,' and to
this public caution he added private remonstrances. His
book was written with a design to prevent, if possible, the
1 See Hearne's Collections, i. 211.
2 See supra, p. 206-7.
1 See Hearne's Collections, i. 272.
HENEY DODWELL 233
filling up of the sees of the deprived bishops ; l and with
the same design he wrote to Tillotson when he was on
the eve of accepting the primacy a severe letter of
remonstrance, urging him not to be ' the aggressor in the
new designed schism, in erecting another altar against
the hitherto acknowledged altar of your deprived fathers
and brethren/ 2 and concluding very characteristically :
' No more, but that I am, till you have formed your schism,
Your affectionate, but suffering,' &c. He also wrote, in very
spirited and rather dictatorial language, to Dr. Sherlock
on his tergiversation, saying, among other things : ' Your
practical Discourse of Death made us expect you would
have been faithful to the Death, though even the fear of
death had been urg'd to drive you from your constancy.' 3
He, moreover, felt it his mission to keep the deprived
Fathers themselves up to the mark, and therefore wrote
two rather strong exhortations to Bishop Ken and Bishop
Frampton when he thought they were wavering. Against
the tone of these exhortations the two good prelates
rebelled a little, and their biographers still more. 4 He
rushed with characteristic courage into the fray against
one of the most powerful and effective of all the
defenders of the Kevolution, Humphrey Hody, who had
been a resident at Oxford with him, and a personal friend;
but personal friendship weighed as nothing against public
duty with Henry Dodwell. Hody had found among the
Baroccian MSS. in the Bodleian a Greek treatise, ascribed
to Nicephorus, which he translated and published under
the title of ' The Unreasonableness of a Separation from
1 Life of Kettlewell (Compleat Works), i. 126.
2 See Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 246.
3 ' Two Letters from Mr. Dodw 1 : (1) to Dr. Sherl ck, (2) to Dr.
illot n,' among the Kawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
4 See Life of Frampton, edited by T. Simpson Evans, p. 203, an
mptre's Life of Ken, ii. 41.
234 THE NONJURORS
the New Bishops : or, a Treatise out of Ecclesiastical
History, showing that, although a Bishop was unjustly
deprived, neither he nor the Church ever made a Separa-
tion, if the successor was not a heretick' (1691). The
work was ably answered in the ' Unity of the Christian
Priesthood/ probably by Dr. Bisbie, as already noticed ; x
but it was clearly a case also to call forth the Coryphaeus
of the party. Hody was a foeman worthy of his steel ;
Dodwell was on his own ground, on which he was quite
unrivalled by any Nonjuror ; and if the Nonjurors really
had ecclesiastical history against them they might throw
up the sponge at once, for that was their strong point.
So, in answer to Hody, Dodwell produced his exceedingly
valuable ' Vindication of the Deprived Bishops, &c.' (1692),
the book which, in my opinion, was the strongest of all
the works written in defence of the position of the early
Nonjurors. Of course it was no use fighting against the
master of thirty legions, so it had no effect ; but there it
remains, a worthy monument of the keenest and most
learned among a singularly keen and learned little body
of men.
It was not much noticed at the time that Dodwell's
* Vindication, &c.' and his subsequent ' Defence ' of it
brought him slightly into collision, on the other side, with
Kettlewell. Dodwell admitted that 'if there had been
a Synodical Deprivation of the Orthodox and Faithful
Fathers of the Church, however in itself unjust, yet the
Clergy and Laity ought to have complied with the
greater obligation of owning the Episcopal College than
with the less obligation of owning any particular bishop/
Kettlewell dissented from this view on the ground that
1 Truth and Kighteousness and Holy Unspotted Worship
in the Church ' were more important than even Church
1 See supra, p. 226.
HENEY DODWELL 235
unity. The Church was made for religion, not religion
for the Church. 1 Kettlewell was called to his rest long
before the division ; but his attitude on this occasion,
combined with other passages in his works, makes it to
my mind extremely doubtful whether, if he had been
spared to see it, he would have joined the Dodwell, and
not the Hickes party. This almost unnoticed disagree-
ment was in reality the first little rift in the lute which
afterwards widened into an open breach. Dodwell was
the first to call attention to the. possibility of such a
breach by publishing, in 1705, his * Case in View.' He
thought, most wisely, that it would be better to be pre-
pared for a case which must inevitably occur, and not
be obliged to decide it hastily when the time for action
came. They were now all agreed that their allegiance was
due to their deprived Fathers ; but when those fathers
were all removed by death, or if any survivors agreed
to waive their claim what then ? The ' Case in View *
became the ' Case in Fact ' five years later, and Dodwell
published his last work under that title, urging that now
was the time to close the schism. The practical result
was that in 1710 the Shottesbrooke group, Robert Nelson,
' and others/ returned to the National Church. The loss
of Dodwell and his friends was by far the greatest blow
which the Nonjuring cause had yet received. In the
first place, names must be weighed as well as counted,
and those of the seceders were very weighty names
indeed. Then, again, it was quite different from the
secession of such men as Dr. Sherlock and Mr. Higden,
who, able as they were, were sorely put to it to justify
their apparent inconsistency, and were forced, in fact,
to cry peccavimus. But Dodwell and his friends had no
need to utter any such humiliating cry. It may have
1 See Lee's Life of Kettlewell, i. 126-7.
236 THE NONJUEOBS
been I think it was an open question whether every-
thing that they, and Dodwell especially, had written
before was logically consistent with their re-absorption
in the National Church. But their position was a per-
fectly intelligible one. They owed allegiance to certain
men ; when those men died, or waived their claims to
allegiance, why should they any longer hold aloof from
common worship with their brethren? The general
verdict of posterity has been that Dodwell and his friends
were right Hickes and his friends wrong ; in other words,
the general sympathy of Churchmen has been with the
Nonjurors up to the crisis of 1710 against them after that
crisis ; and as Dodwell was undoubtedly the leader of
what may be called the winning party, that circumstance
alone makes his position in one sense unique. 1710 was
the beginning of the end, that end being the extinction of
the Nonjurors. When the bells of Shottesbrooke rang a
joyous peal to welcome back Dodwell and his friends to
their beautiful parish church, they at the same time
virtually sounded a funeral knell in anticipation of the
death of the party with which those good men had acted
for more than twenty years.
The matter, however, does not seem so clear to me as
it does to the majority of Churchmen. Was the major
premiss of the argument quite as Dodwell put it ? ' We
owe allegiance to certain men.' Yes ! but surely it was,
and always had been, far more than a mere question as to
whether certain individuals had or had not a claim upon
their allegiance. It was not a personal matter at all, but
a matter of general principle. If it had been argued,
' The Church has nothing to do with politics, and her
unity ought not to be broken for the sake of this or that
secular ruler/ it would have been intelligible. But this
was not so. When they ceased to be Nonjurors they did
HENEY DODWELL 237
not cease to be Jacobites, and therefore they could not
throw themselves thoroughly into the services of the
Church to which they returned. There were still what
were called ' the State Prayer Days ' that is, National
Fast and Thanksgiving Days which they could not
observe because they were appointed by an authority
which they did not recognise ; and such days were far
more numerous then than they are now. There were
still the ' immoral prayers ' at all the regular services, in
which they could not conscientiously join ; and the
various devices which they adopted to show they were
not joining in them such as standing and facing the
congregation, sliding off their knees and sitting on a
hassock, turning over the leaves of their Prayer Books, so
as to avoid hearing the obnoxious words, and even pretend-
ing to take snuff were rather embarrassing proceedings,
and not very edifying to the general congregation.
Dodwell died at Shottesbrooke on June 7, 1711. It
may seem strange that both the life and writings of the
man who may be called the captain of the winning side
should have fallen into oblivion. Dodwell was quite as
pious and far more learned a man than either Ken or
Bancroft, Nelson or Kettlewell ; and yet for ten persons
who know something about these good men there is
probably not one who knows anything about ' the great
Mr. Dodwell.' But when one looks more closely into
the matter it is not surprising. Dodwell's writings are
defective both in style and method, and the strange
theories he sometimes propounds and the strange argu-
ments he sometimes uses are enough to shipwreck any
writer ; and he had not the fortune to find a biographer
who could make his memory live. Mr. Brokesby did no
service to his friend and patron by writing a very slight
and inadequate biography of him. Hearne tells us
238 THE NONJUROKS
(August 17, 1705) that he had seen in Mr. Cherry's study
in an octavo book a great many particulars relating to
Mr. Dodwell's life, * which,' he says, ' he will take care to
publish if he survives him.' 1 He did survive him for
a short time, but not long enough to carry out his pur-
pose, if he had formed it; and he can hardly have
communicated these particulars to Mr. Brokesby, for
his ' Life of Dodwell ' is singularly jejune in details, and
Hearne was really justified in writing somewhat con-
temptuously of it. 2 It would have been better if Hearne
had himself undertaken the life ; we gain a more vivid
idea of what Dodwell was from Hearne's brief obituary
notices of him than from Brokesby 's whole volume. 3
It would have been better still if Hearne had given
us the biographies of both his patrons, anticipating a
modern title and calling his work 'The Lives of Two
Good Men,' for he is as enthusiastic in his admiration
of Francis Cherry as of Henry Dodwell; and the two
would have made excellent companion pictures, which
no one could have drawn better than their protege.
Francis Cherry (1665 4 -1713) was a fine specimen of a
class which thrives nowhere so well as in England. He
was a thorough country gentleman, addicted to manly
sports and graced with polite accomplishments, ' a bold
rider,' and ' an elegant dancer,' and so popular among
his country neighbours that he was called ' the idol of
Berkshire.' But he had higher gifts than these ; he was
a man of intellectual tastes and varied culture, a collector
of manuscripts, coins, and other antiquities, a man who
was quite competent to assist Dodwell and Hearne in
1 Collections, i. 30. 2 See Reliquics Heamiana, i. 314.
3 See Hearne's Collections, iii. 376-7.
4 I adopt Hearne's date. Cherry's granddaughter, Mrs. Eliza Berkeley,
gives the date two years later. See her Preface to the Poems of her son,
George Monck Berkeley.
FEANCIS CHEERY 239
their learned researches; and, best of all, a man of
genuine piety, modesty, and sweetness of temper. He
was educated as a gentleman- commoner at St. Edmund
Hall, Oxford, and having taken his degrees, married very
suitably and settled down for life at Shottesbrooke. He
threw in his lot, heart and soul, with the Non jurors, and
was so far a Jacobite that all his sympathies were with
the exiled Stuarts ; but he was far too honourable and
high-minded a man to join in any secret plots and con-
spiracies. There is, indeed, an idle story told of him,
that, hunting with the King's stag-hounds, which used to
meet in his neighbourhood, he gave a lead at a dangerous
leap to William III., also a bold rider, hoping that ' the
usurper ' would follow him and break his neck ; but if
he ever expressed the wish it could only have been in
joke, for such a truculent design was quite foreign to his
character. He made, however, no secret of his senti-
ments ; his noble residence in Shottesbrooke Park was a
general rendezvous, and often a harbour of refuge for dis-
tressed Nonjurors ; he could make up seventy beds, and
there he frequently entertained men like Kobert Nelson
and Thomas Ken ; and Charles Leslie, when outlawed,
lay for some months perdu, disguised in regimentals, in a
house belonging to Mr. Cherry at White Waltham, hard
by. He was not one of those Jacobites who tacitly
acquiesced in the claims of Queen Anne, on the ground
that she was a sort of regent for her brother. On the
contrary, he showed his marked disapproval of her con-
duct in accepting the crown. When she was still only
the Princess Anne, she gave tokens of her favour to the
handsome young squire whom she was accustomed to
meet out hunting ; but when she became queen, Cherry
carefully avoided her ; and she, so far from being of-
fended, sent him presents of wine, and said, 'I esteem
240 THE NONJUEOES
Mr. Cherry one of the honestest gentlemen in my
dominions/
There is a particular interest about the life of Francis
Cherry, because it presents to us, so to say, the other side
of the shield. The country gentleman of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries is often represented as an igno-
rant, bigoted, sensual animal, only one link removed from
a brute ; and such a slave to field sports that, as was
wittily said, Goliath's curse seemed to have passed upon
him, * I will give thee unto the Fowls of the Air and to
the Beasts of the Field.' l Macaulay's description of the
country gentleman of the period is too well known to be
quoted. It is derived, he tells us, partly from the light
literature of the day ; 2 but the description of Mr. Cherry
is drawn from well-ascertained facts; and it shows us
that if there were Squire Westerns, there were also
Squire Allworthys in real life. We must, of course,
make some little allowance for the partiality of Hearne
towards the man who had been the making of him ; but,
so far as I know, there is really nothing to be set per
contra to the glowing panegyrics which he passes upon
Francis Cherry. 3
The next member of the Shottesbrooke group is
Hearne himself.
Thomas Hearne (1678-1735) belongs, strictly speaking,
to the later Nonjurors ; but he was so very closely con-
nected with Dodwell and Cherry, ' his two best friends,'
that it would be almost cruel to separate him from them.
He has given so vivid an idea of himself, both in his
' Collections ' and his ' Autobiography,' that it would be
1 Quoted by Addison (?) in the Spectator, vol. viii. No. 583. Feras
consumere nati is Fielding's happy description of the class.
2 See History of England, i. 156-8.
3 See Reliquice, Hearniance, i. 287-8. Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.),
i. 272, iii. 336, and passim.
THOMAS HBARNE 241
sheer Philistinism not to describe him largely in his own
words.
Hearne was born at White Waltham, where his father
was parish clerk and ' kept a writing-school.' l Circum-
stances, of course, did not allow him to afford his son a
liberal education, who had therefore
to go to day-labour for a subsistence. But the boy being much
talked of for the skill he had obtained in reading and writing
beyond his years, it occasioned that pious and learned gentle-
man, Francis Cherry Esq r , to put him to the Free-School at
Bray on purpose to learn the Latin tongue, which his father
was not entirely master of.
So in the early part of 1693 he went to Bray School as a
day-boy, 'living at his father's house three miles off.'
This went on for about two years, and then, as Hearne
tells us with delightful naivet6,
Mr. Cherry being fully satisfied of the great and surprizing
progress he had made, by the advice of that good and learned
man, Mr. Dodwell (who then lived at Shottesbrooke) he resolved
to take him into his own House, which accordingly he did about
Easter, 1695, and provided for him as if he had been his own
son. He instructed him, not only in the true principles of the
Church of England, but in Classical Learning, and 'twas for
this end that when he was at home he constantly heard him
read, and when absent he took care that he should read to Mr.
Dodwell.
Then follows a grateful account of the pains these
two good men took with him, and then ' Mr. Cherry
thought now of nothing less than giving him an aca-
demical education.' So he had him 'entered a Battelar
at S. Edmund Hall,' and in ' Easter Term, 1696, came
himself with him to Oxford, provided a Chamber, and all
things necessary for him, and saw him fully settled down
1 In this sketch of Hearne, any words put between inverted commas are
quotations from the Autobiography, unless otherwise described in the notes.
R
242 THE NONJUEOES
before he returned.' Soon after he had taken his degree
of B.A. in 1699 ' a proposal was made to him by a Person
that was then looked upon as pretty honest, tho' he has
proved otherwise since, of going to Maryland.' This is
Hearne's rather ungracious way of describing a kind
letter, still extant, which Dr. Kennett, who was rector of
Shottesbrooke, and also Vice-Principal of St. Edmund
Hall, wrote to him offering him parochial work under
Dr. Bray. However, in the interests of learning, it is
certainly well that he did not accept it. Oxford was the
proper place for him, and at Oxford he remained. He
'went to the Bodleian every day, and Hudson when
elected Library Keeper took him, by consent of the
Curators, as assistant-keeper. The Library being in very
great confusion, and requiring the care of a very diligent
and knowing Person to put it in order ' such a person,
in short, as himself. In 1703 he became M.A., and ' some
time after a Chaplainship of Corpus Christi College was
offered him by Dr. Thomas Turner, the President, on
condition that he kept his place at the Library. But he
was forced to decline the offer, Dr. Hudson being resolved
that he should hold nothing else with the Library.' In
1712 he 'became Second Keeper of the Bodleian,' and
on ' Jan. 19, 1714-5, was very honourably elected Archi-
typographus and Superior or Esquire Bedell.' But ' Dr.
Hudson pretended that the offices of Under-Librarian
and Beadle were inconsistent,' so he actually locked the
Library against him. But Hearne ' continued to execute
the office of Librarian when he could get into the
Library until Jan. 23 [1715-6], when he desisted upon
account of the oaths, that being the last day fixed by the
new Act/ Some thought that the Act would not touch
him, but by the advice of ' his best friends ' he retired
quietly, and lived for the remaining twenty years of his
THOMAS HEAENE 243
life in his rooms in Edmund Hall, prosecuting his studies
to the great benefit of posterity. He had many posts
offered him, which he specifies, both in and out of
Oxford, but he declined them all, 'preferring a good
conscience before all manner of preferment and worldly
honour.' He died in his rooms on June 10, 1735, and
was buried in the neighbouring churchyard of St. Peter's
in the East.
Hearne derived his Nonjuring principles from Dodwell
and Cherry, and when he heard that they had returned
to the National Church he writes in approval of their
action ; but he had not then heard that ' the Nonjuring
bishops continued their succession' (as he puts it). 1
There is no doubt that eventually, in spite of his immense
respect for Dodwell, he identified himself with the Hickes,
not the Dodwell section. 2
It must be remembered, however, that Dodwell and
Cherry did not live long enough to see the accession of
the House of Hanover, and that towards the close of
their lives there was a very strong hope that Queen Anne
might be succeeded by her brother. But Hearne lived
to see all these hopes frustrated, and his expressions with
regard to those who complied under the new dynasty are
even stronger, if possible, than those which he used
against the compilers of the earlier period. He was, in
short, a thoroughpaced Jacobite and Nonjuror, and, with
rare exceptions, has a good word for those only who
agreed with his political views. He was also one of
those pen-portrait painters who have no such colour as
grey ; his black men are very black and his white men
very white. He thought also that he had been treated
shabbily, and hence there is a vein of disappointment and
soreness running through his ' Collections.' So, while they
1 Reliquia Hearniaiia, i. 187. * Ibid. iii. 116.
B 2
244 THE NONJUEORS
give one of the fullest and most vivid accounts we possess
of the time in which he lived, his estimates of his contem-
poraries must be taken with a large grain of salt. They
were not published, and probably not intended by him
for publication, though no greater service has been ren-
dered to letters than by the publication of the ' Reliquiae
Hearnianae,' containing judicious selections from the
145 * volumes ' by Dr. Philip Bliss in 1857, and a fuller
edition in 1869, and the far fuller publication still which
is now being made under able editorship by the Oxford
Historical Society. By a cruel irony of fate, the only
writing of Thomas Hearne on the Nonjuring question
published during his lifetime was one written on the
other side.
Among some MSS. of his patron, Mr. Cherry, was said to
be found a MS. of Mr. H. which he endeavoured in vain to
recover, and this disappointment very much vexed him. . . .
It was an undeserved piece of Chastisement as Mr. H. had
openly declared himself ashamed of a tract written in his
younger days, and never intended for the Press. It was ' A
Vindication of those who take the Oath of Allegiance to his
present Majesty ' [King William III.] and was printed in 1731.
The anonymous author of the Preface writes as if he
were a friend of Hearne; but it certainly seems as if the
publication were a grim and rather cruel joke. Probably
no one would have been more dismayed and annoyed by
the publication than Mr. Cherry himself, the unconscious
and innocent cause of it. But Hearne need not have
feared that posterity would doubt that he was ' an honest
man,' both in his own technical sense of the term and in
a wider and better sense.
There is another honoured name which for more
reasons than one we naturally associate with the Shottes-
brooke group. Eobert Nelson was an intimate friend of
them all, a frequent visitor at Shottesbrooke Park, and
KOBEET NELSON 245
one who took the same road that Dodwell and Cherry
took when they came to the parting of the ways at the
death of Bishop Lloyd. He was a link between the Non-
jurors and the Jurors ; for he numbered among his friends
such men as Sancroft, Ken, Frampton, Kettlewell, Cherry,
Dodwell, Hickes, and Lee on the one side, and Tillotson,
Bull, Beveridge, Sharp, Smalridge, S. Wesley, Bray,
Thoresby, and Mapletoft on the other. 1 It was not that
he was one of those vapid personages who, having no
particular opinions of their own, are ready to adapt
themselves to the opinions of those with whom they are
brought into contact. Quite the reverse. His principles
were perfectly definite ; but he had the happy knack of
being, in the proper Pauline sense of the expression, ' all
things to all men.' ' You,' wrote Hickes to him, ' can
discourse with all sorts of men, with whom you differ in
matters of religion in the same easy and obliging manner
as with those with whom you agree.' 2
'Robert Nelson (1656-1715) was a Londoner by birth,
the son of a ' Turkey merchant,' who died when Robert
was only a year old, leaving him a good fortune. He
was educated for a short time at St. Paul's School ; but
on the removal of his mother to Driffield, or Dryfield, near
Cirencester, his education was continued under a private
tutor, George Bull, then vicar of the two Suddingtons,
also near Cirencester. He probably owes his strong
Church principles to the early impression made on him
by Bull, and he amply repaid the obligation by writing
an appreciative life of his old tutor, one of the few
biographies that will live. He entered as a fellow-
commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, but for some
1 This point is well brought out by Mr. Abbey in The English Church
in the Eighteenth Century, ch. iii., ' Robert Nelson, his Friends, and Church
Principles.'
2 Secretan's Life of Nelson, i. 37.
246 THE NONJUEOES
reason never resided. 1 In 1679 we find him in London,
and about this time sprang up his intimacy with Tillotson,
the closest friend of his early manhood. He made the
Grand Tour a necessary completion in those days of
the education of a gentleman and became acquainted
at Kome with Lady Theophila, widow of Sir Kingsmill
Lucy, and daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, whom he
married in 1682. It is not quite clear whether it was
before or after her marriage with Nelson that Lady
Theophila joined the Roman Communion. At any rate
Nelson did not know it when he contracted the union,
and the discovery was a great grief to him. But the
difference of religion made no difference in his affection
for his wife, and their union was perfectly happy until
her death in 1706. So far, however, from being himself
in the least inclined towards Home, he wrote after his
marriage his first work under the title of ' Transubstantia-
tion contrary to Scripture; or the Protestant's Answer
to the Seeker's Eequest ' (1687).
When the Revolution took place, Nelson seems never
to have had the slightest doubt as to what his duty was
in regard to the King, but very considerable doubt as to
what it was in regard to the Church. Of course he had
no need to become a professed Nonjuror in the literal
sense, because he held no office which necessitated taking
the new oaths. But, like his friend Cherry, he was a
thorough Jacobite. He disapproved altogether of the
expedition of the Prince of Orange ; and when it was
imminent he withdrew from England, where he was paying
a visit, and spent some time in Italy, where he had much
correspondence with Lord Melfort, King James's ambas-
1 Among the ' Matriculations, Graduations, &c., of Nonjurors in the
University of Cambridge,' in the MS. book in St. John's Library, is ' Nelsoii
(Bob.), Coll. Trin. Socio-Commensalis An. 1678.'
EOBEET NELSON 247
sador at Eome. 1 He returned to England in 1691 with a
firm determination never to acknowledge William and
Mary as his sovereigns ; but he was not so certain whether
he was for that reason bound to leave the Communion
of the Established Church. The only difficulty which
weighed with him was that of attending services where
prayers were offered for sovereigns whom he could not
recognise ; and, oddly enough, the man who led him to
withdraw from ' the national Communion ' was Tillotson.
It was natural for him in his perplexity to consult his
friend ; and Tillotson 's reply was perhaps unexpectedly
decisive : ' I think it plain that no man can join in prayers
in which there is any petition which he is verily persuaded
is sinful. I cannot endure a trick anywhere, much less
in religion.' 2 So Nelson became a Nonjuror, and this
threw him into the society of men from whom he learned
to dislike more and more the latitudinarian and Erastian
views which were making headway in the National Church,
and also to take higher sacramental views. Kettlewell,
as long as he lived, and afterwards Hickes, took the place
which Tillotson held before, and their influence over
Nelson is very perceptible. But all the while it seems to
me that he was yearning for the breach to be healed ; and
he gladly embraced every opportunity of joining when he
possibly could in any good work with those from whom he
was temporarily divided. His was essentially a practical
mind ; and he probably felt that he could do more practical
good in conjunction with a large community than with a
small one. No one knew him during his Nonjuring stage
better than Dr. Hickes, and when he returned to the
Established Communion, Hearne tells us that ' Mr. Nelson
was not much wondered at by Dr. Hickes and his friends
for acting thus, for he bad all along spoke generally more
1 See Secretan, p. 33. 2 Ibid. pp. 46-7.
248 THE NONJUKOES
honourably of the complyers than of the sufferers, and
had written the Life of bp. Bull, who always did
comply, though he were undoubtedly a very great man.' l
But Nelson never ceased to be a Jacobite. The book
which, perhaps, of all others made the greatest flutter in
the Eevolution dove-cot, ' The Hereditary Eight Asserted,'
was not only approved by Nelson, but actually revised
by him before its publication, 2 and this, it must be re-
membered, was in 1713, when he was in full communion
with the Established Church. His withdrawal from the
Nonjurors was about as severe a blow as they could
have received ; for Nelson's high character and sound
judgment were so much respected by many Church-
men that they thought whatever he did must be right.
It was a particularly severe blow to his friend Hickes,
though he may not have been surprised at it. When he
heard that it was impending he begged Nelson to wait
until he should have had time to write out for him in full
the reasons for continuing the separation. Nelson con-
sented to wait until the following Easter, but no longer.
Hickes was prevented by sickness from carrying out his
work in time, and Nelson received the Holy Communion
at St. Mildred's, Poultry, on Easter Day, 1710, at the hands
of Archbishop Sharp, who had much to do with his return
to the Established Church. It is to the credit of both
parties that the step does not seem to have interfered
with the friendship of Nelson and Hickes. They had
been very intimate, and at one time when they lived close
together in Great Ormond Street, saw each other every
day. Nelson often speaks of * my neighbour the Dean,'
an expression which seems to indicate that on the one
hand he did not recognise Hickes's lay-deprivation of the
deanery, and on the other that he was not aware of his
1 Eeliquia Hearniance, iii. 117. 2 See Secretan, pp. 50, 85-8.
ROBEET NELSON 249
consecration to the episcopate. It is said that at one
time they lived together in Lamb's Conduit Street ; but
it is rather difficult, and not very important, to trace out
Nelson's various dwelling-places ; they were all in or
about London, as was necessary for a man who was in
the thick of all philanthropic and Church work. Having
lived for some years at Blackheath, he seems to have
removed in 1703 to Ormond Street, and after the death of
Lady Theophila to a smaller house. His last residence
was in a house of his own in Gloucester Street, to which
his remains were removed, for he died at Kensington in
the house of his cousin, Mrs. Delicia Wolff, on January 16,
1714-5. A curious circumstance is connected with his
burial, which illustrates at once the good sense of the man
and the extraordinary estimation in which he was held.
The nearest burying ground to his residence was a new
cemetery in Lamb's Conduit Fields, in the parish of
St. George the Martyr ; but there was for some reason a
prejudice against the use of it until Nelson, according to
his own directions, was buried there ; then the prejudice
was dispelled, as if it were quite safe to follow where so
good a man led the way. 1
To recount all the efforts for pious and benevolent
purposes in which Nelson took a more or less leading
part is really to enumerate almost all the organisations of
the English Church in one of the most active periods of
her history. The Keligious Societies (in the technical,
not the general, meaning of the term), the Societies for
the Keformation of Manners, the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the Associates of Dr. Bray,
the Charity Schools, the Corporation of the Sons of the
Clergy, the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches
1 See, e.g., Reliquice. Hearniance, iii. 176.
250 THE NONJUROKS
in and about London, all found in Eobert Nelson a most
active and intelligent supporter, who spared neither per-
sonal pains nor money in their behalf. Moreover, he
anticipated the work of a later day by suggesting many
others, such as theological colleges, hospitals for in-
curables, Schools for Blackguard Boys (corresponding to
what we call, more euphemistically, Eagged Schools). 1
In short, wherever there was any good to be done, there
was the ' pious Eobert Nelson ' 2 ready to do it.
With the name of Eobert Nelson one naturally asso-
ciates that of another Nonjuring layman, Francis Lee,
who took an active part in Nelson's benevolent schemes,
helped him in some of his publications, and worked up
the materials which Nelson and Hickes had collected for
the Life of Kettlewell. Lee subscribes one of his letters
to Nelson : ' To the best of friends from the most
affectionate of friends.' So, having noticed one of the
friends let us now turn to the other.
Francis Lee (1661-1719) was one of the Lichfield
family, who went from Merchant Taylors' to St. John's,
Oxford, as a scholar in 1679, and was elected fellow in
1682. Like many Nonjurors, when he was deprived of
his fellowship he studied medicine, and, having first been
a student at the University of Ley den, took the M.D.
degree at Padua, and practised as a physician for a year
or two in Venice. As he passed through Holland on his
way home in 1694 he became acquainted with the writings
of Mrs. Jane Lead, whom he sought out in London, and
became not only her convert, but her son-in-law, marry-
ing, at her suggestion, her widowed daughter, Barbara
Walton, in whose house in Hogsden Square he resided.
1 See Secretan, pp. 91, 147 et seq.
2 That was his general title, and Mr. Secretan rightly entitles his work,
Memoirs of the Life and Times of the pious Robert Nelson.
FEANCIS LEE 251
In conjunction with his old friend at school and college,
Richard Roach, he became a chief supporter indeed, one
of the founders of the short-lived Philadelphian Society,
he and Roach publishing the ' Theosophical Transactions '
of that Society at intervals in 1697. Meanwhile his old
friends were by no means pleased with his new proceed-
ings ; his brother, William Lee, strongly objected to his
marriage; his brother Nonjuror, Henry Dodwell, to his
* enthusiasm ' and separation from the Church. A very
long and interesting correspondence between him and
Dodwell ensued, commencing in 1697 and ending in 1702.
Dodwell began it with the words :
Worthy Sir, I was at once both troubled and surprised
to hear, that so good and so accomplished a person as you are,
should be engaged in a new division from that church, for
whose principles you had so generously suffered ;
and ended his letter :
Eeturn to your deserted brethren, and contribute not to the
further divisions and ruin of that small number, to which we
are reduced that I may again be able to justify by principles,
the subscribing myself, Your most affectionate brother,
HENRY DODWELL.
One can well understand the dismay of Dodwell, and
presumably other Nonjurors, at this defection from their
ranks, for Lee was an honour to their cause. He had a
high reputation at Oxford both for learning and character ;
on account of his knowledge of Oriental literature he was
called ' Rabbi Lee,' as Smith was called ' Rabbi Smith ' ;
and Hearne informs us that ' the Town's People of Oxon
had a mighty opinion of him.' l Lee replied to Dodwell
in the most humble and Christian spirit, as the first
sentence will show :
Most dear and worthy Sir, I esteem myself exceedingly
obliged to you both for the kindness and severity of your
1 Collections, i. 338.
.1252 THE NONJURORS
letter ; and do heartily pray that in the day of recompense, this
your most generous and Christian intention towards me in
special, and towards the Church of Christ in general, may be
had in remembrance before God, angels, and men. For I am
not able to thank you sufficiently myself, but am confident this
labour of love in you shall not lose its reward.
It is impossible to make further extracts from the
correspondence, which ends with those touching words
from Lee : * I beseech you to believe, Errare possum,
hcereticus esse nolo. And that my chief est study is to be
found a living and sound member of the Catholic Church.'
The whole of it appears in that extraordinary repertory
of information, Mr. Walton's * Memorial of William Law,'
pp. 188-232. The arguments of Mr. Dodwell, backed up
by those of Mr. Edward Stephens, are supposed to have
converted Lee. At any rate he returned to the communion
of the Nonjurors, and was warmly welcomed by them.
The Society of the Philadelphians was broken up in 1703,
soon after the correspondence closed, and in 1709 Lee
published a ' History of Montanism,' which was thought
to re-establish his orthodoxy; but I doubt whether he
ever gave up his belief in Mrs. Lead. His friend Koach
certainly never did, and there is at any rate a vein of
mysticism in Lee's later life which is probably due to
the Philadelphian episode. The writer of the article on
Lee in the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' seems to me
to hit the truth when he says : 'Lee then [after the break-
ing up of the Philadelphian Society] turned his activity to
more practical schemes. His intimacy with the intensely
practical Robert Nelson may have influenced him, as he
on his part unquestionably influenced Robert Nelson.' 1
The two were very closely connected in their later life.
1 See Mr. Abbey's remarks on this point in Tlie English Church in tJie
Eighteenth Century, vol. i. (of the original edition) ch. iii. ' Robert Nelson,
his Friends, and Church Principles,' pp. 120-1.
FEANCIS LEE 253
They prepared together the manuscripts of J. B. Grabe,
the learned Prussian, who was a friend of both, for
publication. Lee is said to have been the first to sug-
gest to Nelson the foundation of charity schools after
the German plan, and to have helped him largely in the
composition of his most famous work, ' A Companion to
the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England.' He
was entrusted by Nelson with his papers before his death,
and published in the same year (1715) from them the
'Address to Persons of State and Quality.' Nelson's-
friend Hickes seems to have had equal confidence in him,
and it was from the papers of Hickes and Nelson that he
compiled the biography of John Kettlewell, which gives
us, perhaps, more information than any other single book
about the early Nonjurors. By entrusting Nelson's papers
to Lee it was probably intended that he should write his
friend's life, but he did not live to execute the task. The
following interesting notice is taken from the Eawlinson
MSS. in the Bodleian : ' Easter Day, 1718, at the Oratory
of his brother, William Lee, dyer, in Spital Fields, Dr. F.
Lee read a touching and beautiful declaration of his faith
betwixt offertory sentences and prayer for Christ's Church.
It was addressed to the Rev. James Daillon, Count de
Lude,' l then officiating. The only puzzling thing about
this notice is its date. One can quite understand that
Lee, after what some would call his escapade in the matter
of the Philadelphian Society, would be required to reha-
bilitate himself by making a public declaration of his faith
before ' claiming Catholic Communion,' which was the
avowed object of the declaration ; and also that it should
be made at the oratory of his brother, who had felt himself,
1 James Daillon, Count de Lude, was the ejected vicar of Wrawby,
then, and until quite late years, the mother church of Brigg, a town of
considerable size in North Lincolnshire.
254 THE NONJUEOES
as we have seen, socially as well as theologically aggrieved.
But one certainly would have expected it earlier, and not
three years after the deaths of Nelson and Hickes, who
were quite the leading spirits among the Nonjurors, and
had both taken Lee to their hearts years before.
Thomas Bowdler (1661-1738), though far less pro-
minent than the rest, certainly belonged to that inner
circle of Nonjurors which embraced the Shottesbrooke
and the London groups, the principal members of which
have been already described. He was a near neighbour
of Nelson and Hickes in Great Ormond Street and an
intimate friend of both. He was a Non juror in a sense
in which from the nature of the case his friend Nelson
could not be ; for, holding an office under Government,
he was able to testify to the sincerity of his principles by
making a sacrifice for their sake of all his worldly pro-
spects. He was in the Admiralty, next in position to
Samuel Pepys, at the time when James, Duke of York,
afterwards James II., was Lord High Admiral. James
had, with all his faults, the true Stuart gift of winning
the devoted attachment of those who were brought into
personal contact with him ; so when he lost the throne
all the clerks of the Admiralty except one resigned office,
Thomas Bowdler among the number. On the death of
James his friends attempted to induce Bowdler to comply.
But he had probably by this time come under the powerful
influence of Dr. Hickes, who made and kept more men
Nonjurors than any other person. To an urgent letter
from his brother-in-law, adducing arguments why he
should ' qualify himself for public business by taking the
oaths,' Bowdler sent the following reply :
The report with you of the B. of G. [Frampton] is newes to
jnee, who have for some time lived close in the country, but I
believe you will find hee is abused. As to B. of B. and W.
THE HEADLEY GEOUP 255
[Ken] you have a friend with you who knowes as much of his
mind as another. And for D. of W. [Hickes] I believe I may
say of him that hee will continue his present sentiments as long
as he can distinguish right from wrong. They are all of the
great and good examples which I shall be proud always to
keep in my view. 1
So Thomas Bowdler remained a Nonjuror until his
death, which took place in Queen Square, in July 1738.
The Nonjuring tradition remained in the family, and his
grandson was one of the last of the body, and will be
noticed in a future chapter. The Church principles of
the Nonjurors were held by the Bowdlers within contem-
porary recollection. 2
Next to Shottesbrooke longo sed proximus intervallo
perhaps the most interesting country spot in connection
with the Nonjurors is the village of Headley, or Hedly,
in the beautiful district of Surrey, between Leatherhead
and Epsom. It is associated with four Nonjurors : the
two Bonwickes, father and son, Elijah Fenton, the poet,
and William Bowyer, the printer.
Ambrose Bonwicke, the elder (1652-1722), received
Holy Orders, and therefore properly belongs to the last,
not to the present chapter ; but he is so closely connected
with the other three that it seemed to be a more awkward
arrangement to separate him from them than to put him
out of his proper place. Moreover, it is not in his clerical
so much as in his tutorial capacity that he comes before
us. Indeed, he never had any parochial charge, and the
chief interest in him lies in the fact that he was father
of Ambrose Bonwicke, the younger. He was the son of
John Bonwicke, rector of Great Horsley, Surrey, and was
1 Memoir of John Bowdler, with some account of Thomas Bowdler,
p. 12. The ' John ' and ' Thomas ' of this Memoir were both descendants
of the Non juror.
9 See Archdeacon Churton's Memoir of Joshua Watson, i. 231, and
passim.
256 THE NONJUEOES
educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and thence proceeded
to St. John's College, Oxford, where he was successively
scholar and fellow. In 1686 he was appointed head
master of his old school by the Merchant Taylors' Com-
pany, who successfully resisted James II. 's infatuated
policy when, more suo, he attempted to thrust in a
creature of his own. But though James was no friend
to him, Bonwicke was faithful in his allegiance. He was
a successful head master, and great efforts were made to
overcome his scruples and retain his services, but nothing
could induce him to take the new oaths, so he had to be
dismissed in 1691. He then set up a private school at
Hedly, where he seems to have won the respect of all his
pupils.
Ambrose Bonwicke, the younger (1692-1714), son of
the above, had a rather touching story. He was brought
up, of course, in the Nonjuring principles of his father,
and was sent to his father 'sold school, Merchant Taylors',
of which he rose to be captain. There was no doubt
that, on his merits, he would have been elected to a
scholarship at St. John's, Oxford, which, leading as it
did to a fellowship, was the great ambition of Merchant
Taylors' boys. But the head boys had to read the school
prayers in turn ; and one of these prayers was the first
collect for the King or Queen in the Communion Office.
It really looks as if this prayer had been selected as a test
of loyalty ; for it is not a prayer which one would natu-
rally select for the use of schoolboys : and it was generally
considered a criterion of a clergyman's loyalty whether
he chose the first or the second collect for the sovereign,
the first implying the recognition of a sovereign de jure
as well as de facto, the second, not. Bonwicke, as a Non-
juror and the son of a Nonjuror, could not conscientiously
use the prayer, so in spite of the reasonings and remon-
AMBEOSE BONWICKE 257
strances of his friends, he persistently omitted it. This
reached the ears of the Company, who were the electors,
and, when the election came on, though Bonwicke was
admitted to have acquitted himself very well in every
way, he was passed over with a compliment, thus be-
coming a Confessor in the Nonjuring cause at an earlier
age than any of the little company. He was sent to
St. John's, Cambridge, instead of St. John's, Oxford,
and was quickly elected to a scholarship there. But
here again his sensitive conscience troubled him. He
had bound himself by an oath not only to observe the
statutes himself, but to make others do so ; and as he
could not do this he was tempted to * quit his scholarship '
until his ' good friend Mr. B. freed him pretty well [but
not altogether] from his scruples.' He positively died
of conscientiousness ; the amount of reading he went
through, all of which is minutely recorded in the ' Life/
is perfectly appalling ; he studied so hard, and lived so
ascetic a life that the strain was too much for him.
He died at the early age of twenty-two in his college
rooms, with his devotional books beside him. The
bereaved father was persuaded by William Bowyer l to
write anonymously a touching little memoir of his extra-
ordinarily promising son. It did not appear until 1729.
seven years after the author's death, under the title of
'A Pattern for Young Students in the University, set
forth in the Life of Mr. Ambrose Bonwicke, sometime
Scholar of St. John's College, in Cambridge ' ; and in
1870 the little work was re-edited by Professor J. E. B.
Mayor, with a most interesting address ' To the Reader '
prefixed, and a large number of notes, which are a per-
fect mine of accurate information about Cambridge in
the early eighteenth century.
1 See infra, p. 261 et seq.
S
258 THE NONJUEOES
The inext Nonjuror who was for a time connected
with Headley took no part in the Nonjuring controversy,
and is rarely or never mentioned by writers on the sub-
ject ; but there was no more consistent member of the
body.
Elijah Fenton (1683-1730) has the honour of a niche
in that literary Valhalla, Dr. Johnson's ' Lives of the
Poets,' and his personal character has found a warm
admirer in the stout old dictator. To tell the truth,
the man was better than the poet, whose effusions
did not reach a high standard, even for that un-
poetical age. But beyond a constitutional indolence,
which his varied work shows that he must have made
strenuous efforts to throw off, we hear nothing but good
about the man. His father, John Fenton, was a gentle-
man of ancient family and good circumstances in Stafford-
shire ; Elijah was the youngest of eleven children, and
was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, with a direct view
to his becoming a clergyman and earning his living in
that profession. Having taken his B.A. degree in 1704,
he found that, though he was quite ready to acknow-
ledge Queen Anne as his sovereign, he could not con-
scientiously take the Abjuration Oath; so the ministry
of the Established Church was closed to him. In the
stately language of Dr. Johnson :
With many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time
of discord and debate consulted conscience, whether well or ill
informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the
Government, and refusing to qualify himself for publick employ-
ment by the oaths required, left the University without a
degree ; x but I never heard that the enthusiasm of opposition
impelled him to separation from the Church. By this perverse-
ness of integrity he was driven out a commoner of Nature,
excluded from the regular modes of profit and prosperity, and
1 This is a mistake.
ELIJAH FENTON 259
reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain and fortuitous ; but
it must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and
never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same
sect, to mean and dishonourable shifts. 1
And he added in a later page : ' Of his morals and his
conversation the account is uniform ; he was never named
but with praise and fondness, as a man in the highest
degree amiable and excellent.' 2 Fenton gained a sub-
sistence by various honourable employments. First he
acted as secretary to the Earl of Orrery, Charles Boyle,
the same who had waged a very unequal war with
Bentley about the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris.
Then he became assistant to Ambrose Bonwicke, the
elder, in his school at Headley ; then master of a school at
Sevenoaks, which under him acquired some reputation ;
then we find him acting as tutor for six years to Lord
Broghill, son of his former patron Lord Orrery ; then in
the strange capacity of instructor in literature to Craggs,
the well-known Secretary of State, whose early education
had been neglected, and who, by the advice of Alexander
Pope, tried to improve himself under Fenton's direction,
but died of small-pox very soon after ; and finally in the
household of Lady Trumbull, widow of Sir W. Trum-
bull, already noticed, 3 at Easthampstead, to whom he
had been recommended by his faithful friend Pope. He
acted as tutor to young Trumbull, and when the youth
went to Cambridge, accompanied him thither as ' gover-
nor.' After the education was completed Lady Trumbull
still retained him at Easthampstead as ' an auditor of
accounts,' and there he died in August 1730.
Samuel Parker (1681-1730). was another quiet, scho-
larly man, like Fenton, who could not conscientiously
1 Lives of the Poets, ii. 227, ' Fenton.' 2 Ibid. ii. 231.
3 See supra, p. 223.
s 2
260 THE NONJUEOES
take the oaths, but was content to pursue the even tenour
of his way without creating any disturbance in either
Church or State. He was a son of that Bishop of
Oxford who obtained a rather unenviable notoriety in the
reign of James II. ; but like Diomede l he was cer-
tainly ' better than his father ' ; for there was nothing in
the career of the younger Samuel Parker which argued
the self-seeking and flexibility of conscience so painfully
manifest in the elder. He was educated at Trinity
College, Oxford, and lived at Oxford all his life, marrying
the daughter of Mr. Clements, a famous bookseller there.
From the first he identified himself with the Nonjurors,
and became a personal friend of their chief leaders. Like
them he was a studious man, fond of literary pursuits,
and produced several works of value, which will be
noticed in their proper place. He was one of those few
mysterious * others/ besides the Shottesbrooke group, who
were induced by the arguments of Dodwell to return
to the National Church in 1710-1. But he resolutely
declined to enter into controversy in print on the subject,
did not, after his compliance, take Holy Orders; as it was
expected that he would do, and died, it was said, from the
effects of an over-sedentary life, July 14, 1730, at Oxford.
In a brief ' Life ' prefixed to the 1734 edition of his
' Bibliotheca Biblica ' it is rather foolishly remarked
that ' he had from the beginning embraced the principles
of the Nonjurors, and constantly observed a strict uni-
formity in his principles and practice.' This, of course,
roused the ire of a thorough-paced Nonjuror like Hearne,
who wrote indignantly that it was false, for he had
severed from the true old Nonjuring principles, forsaken
his old friends, and so forth. 2
1 Tydides melior patre, Horace, Odes, i. 15. 28.
2 See Reliquice Hearniance, iii. 178-9.
NONJURING PRINTERS 261
Printers, who were often also in those days what
we should now call 'publishers,' were naturally a very
important element in the Nonjuring economy; for, as
the Nonjuring clergy were shut out of what were called
' the national pulpits,' and as they would be the very last
to preach in any other pulpits except those of their own
little oratories, where the congregation would be more
select than numerous, they were forced to have recourse
to the press as the only means of disseminating their
views. They could use this means very effectively, for
it is astonishing how exceptionally large a proportion of
Nonjurors, both lay and clerical, could, and did, handle
the pen of a ready writer. But printers would hardly be
forthcoming unless they were more or less in sympathy
with their authors' sentiments ; for they had to run the
risk of being prosecuted, and frequently were prosecuted
and punished for printing seditious matter. By far the
most important of those who performed this essential
service was another Nonjuror who was connected with
Headley.
William Bowijer (1663-1737) was the son of a
London citizen, was apprenticed by his father to a
printer, and followed that business through life. In 1686
he was admitted to the freedom of the Company of
Stationers. In 1699 he set up for himself in Little
Britain, but removed the same year to Dogwell Court,
Whitefriars. From the first he must have been employed
in printing the works of Nonjurors, for we are told that
the works of Hickes and Nelson were all ushered into
the world by Bowyer. Nelson * had a peculiar regard
for Mr. Bowyer,' and so had Charles Leslie. He rendered
great service to the Nonjurors, not only by printing their
books, but by employing Nonjuring clergymen, who were
often at their wits' end to find any employment at all
262 THE NONJUKOKS
remunerative, as correctors of the press for him. The
Nonjurors had on one occasion a chance of showing their
appreciation of his services in a very practical manner.
At the close of January 1712-3, his printing office and
dwelling in Dogwell Court were destroyed by fire, and
Bowyer suffered a loss of more than five thousand pounds,
which looked like ruin to a man in his position ; for he
was yet in a comparatively small way of business. But
a Boyal Brief was procured for him, and his friends rallied
round him, especially the Nonjurors. Nelson, who had
the means, helped him largely ; while Ambrose Bonwicke,.
the elder, contributed in a very touching way. Bowyer
had placed his son, known afterwards as 'the learned
printer,' under Bonwicke's charge at Headley, induced pro-
bably by the fact that Bonwicke was a Nonjuror. After
the catastrophe Bonwicke continued to board and educate
the lad for a whole year without making any charge,
and concealing from his father who was the benefactor.
Bowyer more than recovered from his loss, and became,
with the help of his son, whom he took into partnership
in 1722, the most famous printer of the day. He tho-
roughly identified himself with the Nonjurors; for we
find him present and signing his name as a witness at
the consecration of at least two Nonjuring bishops in a
Nonjuring oratory.
William Bowyer, the younger (1699-1777), was also
a Nonjuror. ' The learned printer ' was, of course, a far
more highly educated man than his father ; but, though
he went as a sizar to St. John's College, Cambridge, in
1716, and won Roper's Exhibition in 1719, he never took
his B.A. degree, finding, no doubt, the oaths an obstacle.
This probably prevented him from gaining a fellowship
there. His name occurs among the * Matriculations,
Graduations, &c., of Nonjurors in Cambridge/ sent by
THE TWO BOWYEES 263
Thomas Baker to Dr, Eawlinson ; and he made no secret
of his sentiments. It was he who persuaded his old
master at Headley to write the ' Life of Ambrose Bon-
wicke,' and himself wrote the Preface to that Life when
it was published in 1729 ; and in the same year he was
appointed printer of the Votes of the House of Commons
through the influence of Onslow, the Speaker. On that
occasion Onslow was asked in the House whether he was
aware that Bowyer was a Nonjuror, and replied, ' I am
quite sure of this that he is an honest man.' He was
also a very religious and charitable man, of irreproachable
life; and this work is largely indebted to him for the
share he had in writing Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes of
the Eighteenth Century,' so often quoted herein. Another
Nonjuring printer was James Bettenham, who was
certainly also a Nonjuror himself, for we find him a
member of the last congregation of regular Nonjurors in
London under the ministry of Bishop Gordon. 1
It is not so easy to label laymen as to label clergy
Nonjurors, unless they held some office for which the
taking of the oaths was a qualification. Those who held
commissions in the army would, of course, come under
this head, and we gather incidentally that there were
officers in the army who lost their commissions as Non-
jurors. Thus, when Kettlewell (December 20, 1694) wrote
to Bishop Lloyd proposing that a fund should be raised
for the relief of their clergy, he says : ' Were this a fund
for the soldiery, though God knows many of them have
need enough, it may be, some might fancy they could
1 See Political and Literary Anecdotes of His Own Times, by Dr. Wm.
King, Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxon., p. 191, &c. King calls Bettenham
' a sanctified member of Gordon's congregation, but one of the greatest knaves
I have ever known ' ; but then King had violently quarrelled with his old
friends the Jacobites, and, moreover, had just had a lawsuit with James
Bettenham.
254 THE NONJUROBS
with better colour charge it as a listing of men ' ; l and
Bishop Ken left in his will ' To the Deprived Officers the
sum of Forty Pounds.' 2 But the names of military men
are not prominent among the Nonjuring laity.
Schoolmasters, again, who required a licence from the
bishop of the diocese, and could not be licensed without
taking the oaths, would be legally bound to declare them-
selves, whether they were ordained or not. But the law
does not seem to have been at all strictly enforced in
their case, for we find several Nonjurors Ambrose Bon-
wicke and Elijah Fenton, to wit who had recourse to this
occupation in order to gain a living. In December 1705
the subject came before Parliament in rather a curious
way during the famous ' Church in Danger ' debate.
My Lord W n 3 in the House of Peers took notice that
* a certain noble Lord of that House had educated his sons at
a seminary kept by a Nonjuror.' The Archbishop [of York,
Dr. John Sharp] who perceived himself was pointed at, declared
that although he had sent both his sons to Mr. Ellis's school,
who was a sober, virtuous man, and a man of letters, yet he
had qualified himself according to the laws, when they were
sent to him. But as soon as he was informed that Mr. Ellis
had refused to take the oaths he immediately took away his
son, who then only remained with him, and removed him to
another and unexceptionable place. And this was above three
years before the complaint was made in the House of Peers,
and was rather an instance of his dislike of those principles he
was charged with abetting. Whereas others chose rather to
run the hazard of such unreasonable censures and reflections
than forego the advantages of so flourishing a school, and such
an able instructor of their children. Thus did several persons
of note and distinction, without being thought inclinable to
Jacobitism. 4
James Ellis, the Nonjuror in question, was a graduate
of Oriel College, Oxford, but does not appear to have
1 Quoted by Plumptre, Life of Ken, ii. 96. 2 Ibid. ii. 208.
1 Wharton. 4 Life of John Sharp, Archbishop of York, p. 269.
NONJUEING SCHOOLMASTEES 265
taken Holy Orders. He is described in lists of Non-
jurors simply as ' Schoolmaster of Thistleworth ' (Isle-
worth), near the Thames, in Middlesex. Hearne twice
refers to him as a successful and high-class schoolmaster
at Thistleworth. 1 Thomas Jacomb, master of the Free
School, Coleshill, also a layman, followed the example of
his saintly vicar, John Kettlewell, and became a Nonjuror ;
and Jonathan Moor, ' Schoolmaster at Long Melford,'
following probably the example of his parish priest,
Nathanael Bisbie, did the same ; and so did George Speed,
' Master of the School in St. Mary Axe,' London, Henry
Johnson, ' Master of Wandsworth School,' and Thomas
Lee, master of the famous school of St. Saviour's,
Southwark.
In a lower grade there would probably be many
teachers in the charity schools who were Nonjurors at
heart ; for there was a widespread impression, which
could hardly be without some foundation, that these
excellent institutions tended to become nurseries of
Jacobitism. Bishop Gibson, for instance, was the last
man to make reckless and unfounded statements, and he
distinctly affirms that * while the Protestant succession
was doubtful some persons, otherwise virtuous and good
men, endeavoured to get the management of charity
schools into their hands, and to make them instrumental
in rousing and spreading an aversion to the Protestant
Settlement.' 2 Archbishop Wake also complains of an
attempt of the sort in 1716 ; and in an account of the
riots which took place in London on May 28 and 29 (the
King's birthday and the Eestoration anniversary) we are
told that ' among the noisiest and most violent of the
1 See Collections, i. 19 and ii. 9.
2 Instriictions to Masters and Mistresses of Charity Schools, 1724 ; also
Gibson's printed Charges, p. 145, and Skeat's History of the Free Churches,
p. 272.
266 THE NONJUROES
Jacobite mob were the charity school boys It was
said the masters and mistresses poisoned the children
with principles which would lead to the gallows. Boys
were told that the institution from which they derived so
much advantage was about to be abolished.' l
The medical profession numbered some Nonjuring
clergy, two of whom were bishops, among its ranks, and
also some Nonjuring laymen of great distinction. One
has been already noticed, Francis Lee, whom it was
thought better not to separate from his friend and coad-
jutor, Bobert Nelson, particularly as he does not appear
to have practised medicine in England. But he certainly
studied medicine at Leyden, took an M.D. degree, and
practised in Venice, and also became some years later
(1708) a licentiate of the College of Physicians in London.
Roger Kenyan 2 also, one of the ejected fellows of St.
John's, Cambridge, became physician at the Court of St.
Germains, first to James II. and then to his son, James
Francis. There he formed an intimate friendship with
Charles Leslie, and it is to Kenyon more than any one else
that we owe the collection and publication of Leslie's very
valuable theological works. In 1719, when Leslie felt
that his sands of life were running out, he expressed a
wish that his theological (not, be it observed, as charac-
teristic of the Nonjurors' position, his political) works
might be collected and published 'for the good of the
Church of England.' He communicated his desire to
Roger Kenyon, who took up the matter warmly, wrote to
his friends in England, and enlisted among others the
services of William Bowyer, who collected large subscrip-
tions. The result was the publication, in 1721, of the two
1 London in the Jacobite Times, i. 236-7.
2 In Thomas Baker's letter to Dr. Eawlinson on the Matriculations
&c. of Nonjurors at Cambridge ' we find ' Kenyon (Roger), Lancastriensis,.
admissus Socius Coll. Job. Mar. 15, 1686/7.'
NONJUEING PHYSICIANS 267
folio volumes dedicated to 'R. K.' that is, of course,
Roger Kenyon. 1 Roger was the brother of George
Kenyon, of Peel House, Lancashire, whose valuable MSS.
are now at Gredington, in the possession of the present
Lord Kenyon. There is also among the ' Matriculations,
&c., of Nonjurors in the University of Cambridge' another
Roger Kenyon, who graduated B.A. in 1685, ' nee ultra pro-
greditur ' 2 no doubt because he could not take the oaths.
Another distinguished member of the medical profes-
sion who became a Nonjuror was James Henry Paman
(1626-95). He had been early trained in the principles
which led to this result, for in his undergraduate days he
was a pupil at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of William
Bancroft, with whom he contracted a lifelong friendship.
He was afterwards elected fellow of St. John's College,,
and became one of the famous socii ejecti at the first
deprivation. He seems always to have had the medical
profession in view, for having graduated in Arts he kept
an Act for a medical degree in 1656, graduated M.D. in
1658, and was incorporated M.D. at Oxford in 1659. He
was Senior Proctor at Cambridge in 1656, elected Public
Orator in 1674, and held that office until 1681 ; he was
appointed Professor of Physics at Gresham College in
1679, was elected F.R.S. in the same year, and fellow of
the College of Physicians in 1687. In 1677 he went to
live at Lambeth with his old college tutor, Sancroft, then
Archbishop of Canterbury, and in 1684 graduated LL.D.
at Cambridge, and was appointed by Sancroft Master of
the Faculties. It will thus be seen that he had a distin-
guished career, but he had no hesitation about resigning
his mastership and following his friend and mentor into
1 See a most interesting article, by the Hon. Mrs. Bulkeley-Owen (mother
of the present Lord Kenyon), in Tlie Newbery House Magazine for July 1893,
and the Kev. B. J. Leslie's Life of Charles Leslie, p. 508, and passim.
2 T. Baker to Dr. Rawlinson, ut supra.
268 THE NONJUEORS
retirement when the archbishop refused the oaths.
During the last few years of his life he lived in the parish
of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and was buried in St. Paul's
Church.
Samuel Jebb (1694-1772) was another Nonjuror who
embraced the medical profession. He was educated at
Mansfield Grammar School and St. Peter's College, Cam-
bridge, with a view to his taking Holy Orders ; and,
joining the Nonjurors, he was ordained deacon and priest
by Collier. He is said to have found employment as
librarian to Collier in London, and this tallies with the
fact that most of the letters sent by the Nonjuring
bishops (of whom Collier was ' Primus ') between 1716
and 1725 to the Eastern Patriarchs were ' done into Latin
by Mr. Jebb.' l In 1726 Collier died, whereupon Jebb,
on the advice of the famous Dr. Mead, directed his atten-
tion to medicine and became a successful physician at
Stratford-le-Bow. He was also a good classical scholar
and a diligent writer on a variety of subjects, but none of
his writings were connected with the Nonjuring question.
Sir Richard Jebb (1729-89), son of the above, was
also another physician who was a Nonjuror, and in con-
sequence could not graduate at Oxford. He was highly
distinguished in his profession.
In the legal profession the first Nonjuror to be men-
tioned is Hugh Wynne, fellow of All Souls' College,
Oxford, who took the degree of B.C.L. in 1667 and D.C.L.
1 See the interesting paper of the present Bishop of Edinburgh (Dr.
Dowden), in the Journal of TJieological Studies, vol. i., entitled ' Note on
the Original Documents containing, or relating to, the Proposals of the
Nonjuring Bishops for a "Concordate " with the Holy Orthodox Church of
the East.' One of these ' Original Documents ' contains the information in
the text about Dr. Jebb. The notice of Jebb's ordination in the Bawlinson
MSS. runs thus : ' 1716, July 25th Mr. Samuel Jebb, B.A., of Peterhouse
in Cambridge, ord. d. in Mr. Gandy's Chapell by Mr. Collier [Witnesses].
Preist Jan. 23, l?i| in Mr. Laurence's Chapel by Mr. Collier ' [Witnesses].
NONJUKING LAWYEKS 269
in 1672, and afterwards became Chancellor of the Diocese
of St. Asaph. Dr. Wynne had the honour of being the
first to suffer at Oxford for conscience' sake, and for that
reason appears to have been an object of great interest to
Hearne. He lived on quietly at Oxford, where he died in
the parish of St. Giles, November 9, 1720. 1 Another
Nonjuring lawyer was Richard Jones, of Jesus College,
Oxford, who took his B.C.L. degree in 1674 and D.C.L.
in 1679, and became Chancellor of the Dioceses of Bangor
and of Llandaff. A third is described as ' Pearce of Took's
Court, a well-known Nonjuring attorney and an agent for
the Nonjuring party ' ; but however ' well known ' he may
once have been, he appears now to be only known in con-
nection with a rather ghastly story. He is said to have
picked up the head of Christopher Layer, the Jacobite
conspirator, when it was blown down from Temple Bar,
and to have sold it at a high price to Dr. Rawlinson, but
the story rests on slender foundations. 2
A fourth and far more distinguished Nonjuring
lawyer was Roger North (1653-1734), youngest son of
Dudley, fourth Lord North. In 1678 he became, on
Sancroft's appointment, Steward of the See of Canter-
bury, and legal adviser to the archbishop; in 1684
Solicitor-General to James, Duke of York ; and in 1686
Attorney-General to the Queen, Mary of Modena. At
the Revolution he did not desert his old friends, but
became a Nonjuror at the sacrifice of a large profes-
sional income. Like so many Nonjurors he retired
quietly into the country, and, eschewing politics, lived
for thirty-five years at Rougham in Norfolk (still the
seat of his descendants), usefully occupying his leisure
1 See Reliquice Hearniance, ii. 113-4, and Hearne's Collections, iii. 409.
2 See Doran's London in the Jacobite Times, i. 436; Nichols's
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century ; and article on Bawlinson
in the Dictionary of National Biography.
270 THE NONJUEOKS
with agriculture, literary pursuits, and music, giving his
neighbours the benefit of his legal knowledge when
any dispute had to be settled. Like Cherry, he is an
instance of the cultured country gentleman. His valu-
able writings will be noticed in the chapter on the
general literature of the Nonjurors.
Nonjuring laymen were to be found among all classes.
James Millington, whose munificence founded the hospital
and charity school which still bear his name at Shrews-
bury, was a draper in that town, and died in 1737. The
whole family of Matthews, printers in the City of London,
but of a much humbler type than the Bowyers, were
Nonjurors, and one member suffered death in the cause
of the Stuarts. Many belonged to the class. of country
gentry. Among those who were taken prisoners in the
struggle of 1715, Patten (who, having changed sides, has
naturally seldom a word of praise for any of his old party)
speaks very highly of one Robert Cotton, ' a gentle-
man of very good fortune, a Nonjuror.' l This is pro-
bably the same Eobert Cotton whose name is found as
a witness to the consecration of some Nonjuring bishops.
Whether he was a relation of Sir John Hynde Cotton,
the Jacobite politician, or of the Sir John Cotton who
inherited the Cottonian Library, and with whom Thomas
Smith found a home as already described, 2 1 am unable
to say. Another of the same class was Ralph Lowndes,
of Lea Hall, Cheshire, which had been in the possession
of the family for some generations. His name has be-
come very familiar to all students of Nonjuring literature
from the fact that his ' Penitential Declaration,' in
which he declared his * sincere repentance for his sin
1 History of the late Rebellion, by the Rev. Robert Patten, formerly
Chaplain to Mr. Forster (1717), pp. 149-50.
2 See supra, p. 176.
NONJUEING COUNTEY GENTEY 271
and weakness in having been induced by the general
Example of men of reputed Prudence and Integrity ' to
take the oath, is inserted in an Appendix to Kettlewell's
4 Life.' He is there described as ' Ealph Lowndes of
Middlewich, gentleman.' There was another Ealph
Lowndes, also a Cheshire man, the rector of Eccleston,
who was deprived in 1690. Whether the layman and the
clergyman were related is not known, but the coincidence
is very striking if they were not. 1 Another Cheshire
gentleman, who is said by Oldmixon to have been sent
to the Tower as a Nonjuring member of the House of
Commons, was Francis Cholmondeley, of Vale Royal, in
Cheshire. He was at any rate a kind friend and patron
of Nonjurors, and wrote a Latin epitaph on a monument
which he erected to the memory of John Oakes, deprived
vicar of Whitegate, in Eccleston Church, which could
hardly have been written by any but a Nonjuror. 2 The
Cholmondeleys were a sort of link between the gentry and
the nobility ; so we naturally pass on to some of the latter
class, who were either Nonjurors themselves or, at least,
friends and patrons of Nonjurors.
Among these the first place must, of course, be
assigned to the one who was nearest the throne, Henry
Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon (1638-1709). He was
certainly in the literal sense of the term ' a Nonjuror,'
for he persistently declined to take the new oaths ; but
he was sorely tried. On the one side was his brother-
in-law, James II., to whom he owed no obligation from
the time one might, indeed, say from before the time
when James had married his sister; on the other side
were his own nieces, Mary and Anne, to whom he was
always attached. He was, like his father, a thorough
1 See The Cheshire Sheaf, No. 80, for August 1896.
2 Ibid. No. 84, where the epitaph is given in full.
272 THE NONJURORS
Church of England man, and therefore quite as much
opposed to the Romanism of James as to the latitudina-
rianism of William ; and the new type of Churchmanship
of Tillotson and Burnet was very unlike that wherein
he had been brought up. His ' Diary ' gives us a most
graphic account of the crisis which led to the Non-
juring separation. If Hearne is to be trusted, his end
was very sad : ' He almost wanted bread to eat.' l
Thomas Thy nne, first Viscount Weymouth (1640-1714),
though not a Nonjuror himself, is closely identified with
the party, owing chiefly, but not solely, to his connection
with Bishop Ken. His career was rather a peculiar one,
for he was actually one of the four lords sent to convey
the invitation, drawn up at the memorable Guildhall
meeting in 1688, to the Prince of Orange to come over
and undertake the government ; but he was in favour of
the Eegency scheme, and never cordially accepted William
and Mary as his sovereigns. Indeed, until the accession
of Queen Anne the ' characteristick ' prayers do not
appear to have been used in his private chapel at Long-
leat, where a Nonjuring chaplain always officiated. His
early training was of a kind to make him a strong Church-
man. As nephew of Dorothy, Lady Pakington, he was
brought into contact with the old Church and Royalist
traditions of Westwood; he was educated at Christ
Church, Oxford, under the direction of Fell and Hammond,
and his undergraduate friends were evidently the Church
set, for it was at Oxford that he commenced his life-long
friendship with Ken, then an undergraduate at New Col-
lege. His marriage with Lady Frances Finch, daughter of
the second Earl of Winchilsea, would tend to strengthen
the impressions previously made. His tastes were theo-
logical, and the important additions he made to the
1 Collections, ii. 297.
NONJUEING NOBLEMEN 273
splendid library at Longleat consist chiefly of theological
works. Two successive chaplains at Longleat, Robert
Jenkin and George Harbin, were strong men, and would
be sure to make their influence felt ; and then, to crown
all, there was Thomas Ken, his honoured guest for nearly
twenty years. Lord Wey mouth always treated Ken
with the greatest hospitality, consideration, and kindness,
allowing him an annuity of SQL for the capital sum of
700Z., which was all that the deprived prelate possessed,
and assigning him apartments of his own at Longleat.
It was rather a trouble to the good bishop when, on the
accession of Queen Anne, prayers for the reigning Sove-
reign began to be used in Longleat Chapel. 'I shall
spend this summer,' he writes to Bishop Lloyd, ' God
willing, most at Longleat, though I am now very uneasy
there ; not but that my Lord is extremely kind to me, but
because I cannot go to prayers there, by reason of the
late alteration, which is no small affliction to me.' l But
Ken's attachment to his patron remained unbroken to
the end, and some years after his complaint of uneasiness
at Longleat he compared his happy retreat there to that
of Gregory of Nazianzum in the touching Dedication of
the first volume of his poems to Lord Weymouth :
When I, my Lord, crush'd by prevailing Might,
No cottage had where to direct my Flight ;
Kind Heav'n me with a Friend Illustrious blest,
Who gives me Shelter, Affluence, and Rest ;
In this alone I Gregory outdo,
That I much happier Refuge have in you ;
Where to my Closet I to Hymn retire,
On this side Heav'n have nothing to desire.
I the small dol'rous Remnant of my Days,
Devote to hymn my great Redeemer's Praise ;
1 See Plumptre's Life of Ken, ii. 124.
274 THE NONJUEORS
I, nearer as I draw towards Heavenly Rest,
The more I love th' Employment of the blest.
In that Employment while my Hours I spend,
This Prayer I offer for my Noble Friend,
Whose shades benign to sacred Songs invite,
Who to those Songs may claim Paternal Right :
Rich as He is in all good Works below,
May He in Heav'nly Treasure overflow !
The last line but one reminds us that there were others
besides Ken who were under obligations to Lord
Weymouth. We have already seen how he sent 100Z. to
Hilkiah Bedford when he was fined and imprisoned ;
Hearne always writes as if Nonjurors would be sure of
finding a friend in Lord Weymouth, and, indeed, expresses
his personal obligations to him ; l and he joined with
Kobert Nelson in actively promoting the scheme of
charity schools.
But Lord Weymouth's connection by marriage,
Heneage Finch, fourth Earl of Winchilsea, though he is
less known as a friend of Nonjurors, identified himself
more closely with them than Lord Weymouth ever did.
We find his name as an attesting witness at the con-
secration of more than one Nonjuring bishop ; he supplied,
as we have seen, a home for one of them, Samuel Hawes,
after he was deprived of the living of Braybrooke ; and
Hearne distinctly calls him, as he never calls Lord
Weymouth, a Nonjuror. 2 He died at Eastwell, his seat
in Kent, September 30, 1726 ; and in the Neivcastle
Courant appeared an obituary notice, supposed to have
been written by Mr. Harbin, in which it is said :
Above all, he is to be valued for the noble example he has
given the world by a life eminently conformable to the strictest
1 See Collections, iii. 220, 468.
2 Ibid. iii. 427. ' A very honest Worthy Nonjuror to y e great joy and
content of y e writer of these matters.'
OTHEE LAY SYMPATHISEES 275
.rules of honour and religion. At the time of the Eevolution,
being Gentleman of the Bedchamber and a Colonel of the Guard
to King James II., he was one of those resolute gentlemen
that could not be persuaded that his Loyalty ought to terminate
with his Prince's prosperity, and therefore chose to deny him-
self all those advantages in Life, which his Birth, his great
Virtues and many excellent qualities, intitled him unto, rather
than abate any of that constancy and fidelity which he thought
it became him to maintain to the last period of his life.
His wife, who died in 1720, was a kindred spirit.
There were other noblemen who were more or less
connected with the Nonjurors. The Earl of Exeter
received into his family as domestic chaplain Robert
Jenkin after he was ejected from his preferments in 1690
and before he went to Longleat ; l John Oakes, the ejected
vicar of Whitegate, Cheshire, went from Vale Koyal to
Eaton Hall, the seat of the Grosvenors, where he stayed
until his death. 2 If Jacobite and Nonjuror were con-
vertible terms (which they are not) something would also
have to be said about James, second Duke of Ormonde,
who was the head of the Jacobites ; but, though he was
a staunch Church of England man, he does not appear
to have had much connection with the Nonjurors.
There were several other distinguished laymen who
were in strong sympathy with the party, though they
were not actual Nonjurors in the sense in which the term
is used in this work. The two famous diarists, Samuel
Pepys and John Evelyn, come under this head. Pepys
quietly retired into private life when James II. lost his
crown ; and when he felt that he was nearing his end,
and required spiritual ministration, would have none but
Nonjuring clergy to minister to him ; so he applied to
1 History of St. John's College, Cambridge, by T. Baker, edited by
J. E. B. Mayor, p. 998.
2 See The Cheshire Sheaf, No. 84, p. 75.
T 2
276 THE NONJUEOES
[Robert Nelson, who recommended Nathanael Spinckes ;
and Spinckes became his spiritual adviser. He received his
last viaticum from Hickes, who also officiated at his funeral
in Crutched Friars Church (St. Olave's, Hart Street), whither
his corpse was removed from Clapham in 1703. John Evelyn
had evidently strong sympathy with the ' deprived Fathers/
with some of whom he was on terms of great intimacy ;
and he was so far dissatisfied with the Revolution that he
henceforth lived like Pepys in greater retirement ; but he
was not properly speaking a Nonjuror. Anthony Wood,
the antiquary, tells us that * people said he was a Jacobite
and favoured the Non jurors,' : and there were certainly
some grounds for the impeachment, but he was never re-
cognised by the Nonjurors proper as one of their body.
Instead, therefore, of dwelling on such doubtful cases
it will be better to conclude this chapter with some ex-
tracts from a letter among the Rawlinson MSS., which
illustrates vividly the anomalous position in which a Non-
juring layman sometimes found himself. The name and
address of the writer are given in full, but have been so
carefully obliterated that it is quite impossible to decipher
them. The letter runs as follows :
To my neighbours the inhabitants of the parish of [illegible]
and to my friends and acquaintance elsewhere, if any such
shall happen to read these papers.
I suppose it is by this time known to most of you that are
inhabitants of the parish of [illegible] that I have left the Parish
Church because I was wont to meet you there heretofore with
some degree of constancy, but now have been absent about
twelve months, from which it seems you have taken the freedom
to talk what you pleas'd, but very variously concerning me,
some saying that I have become a papist, others a quaker and
the like, and others that I absent myself to avoid praying for
K. W. and the parliament, nay some by their malice have been
1 See Wood's Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iii. 398.
LETTEE OF A NONJUEING LAYMAN 277
carried so far as to insinuate that I was privy to the late plot. 1
Others, more favourable, wonder that so constant a frequenter
of the Church (as they now please to account me) should at last
quite forsake her, these aspersions, together with mine own
inclination to satisfie my friends, made me soon resolve to
offer something in mine own vindication, which I had done
long agoe but that by a bodily indisposition I was hinder'd from
this performance. m
Then, after saying how cruel it was to accuse him of
being a papist, which would expose him to the fury of
the mob :
If you will needs have me to be a papist, and there is no
help for it, I must tell you that I am such a papist as disowns
the Pope's supremacy over the Catholick Church, such a papist
as disbelieves his infallibility both in and out of a general
Council, such a papist as disbelieves the corporall presence of
Christ in the Sacrament, such a papist as cannot worship
images, such a papist as abhorres divine service in a tongue
unknown to the congregation, and if you will have any more,
such a papist as detests one part of popery which is the
deposing doctrine that many of you most zealously defend, tho'
our divines used to tell us it was one of the most odious parts
of popery.
As much a papist as I am reputed to be, ... I declare that
I am (notwithstanding my leaving the publick places of worship)
as much a protestant as ever, as much a Church of England
man as ever, as much as any of you.
Then as to my being accounted a quaker or fanatick, or
the like, I suppose I need not make any defence, because a man
may be of any religion or of none if he please so that he be not
a papist. I say that he may be now-a-days of any religion but
a papist, except it be a thing called a Jacobite, which is accounted
somewhat worse
I hope I shall make it pretty plain to you that I have not
left the Church tho' I come not to the usuall place of worship.
The Church, I suppose, is not confined to any particular place.
The Church, I believe, remains with, or in the Bishops that
adhere to the doctrine of the Church notwithstanding their
illegall or invalid deprivation, which is of no force to dissolve
1 The Preston Plot.
278 THE NONJUEOES
the relation between them and their flocks, for I cannot for my
life conceive how the children can deprive their fathers, the
sheep their shepherds, or the subjects their superiors in any
ecclesiastical or civil society.
Some of you may think that I am possest with a belief of
King James' return, and if that should happen I may hope for
preferment under him [the return is unlikely], but if I were sure
it would be so yet that would not justify me in leaving your
communion. There is something else to bar me, as you shall
know by and by. . . .
But suppose it should be granted that I do desire the King's
return, what advantage shall I make by it ? You know that I
am neither courtier nor soldier nor anything else that I know
of whereby to deserve any favour of the King. ... If I had a
revelation from heaven that the King will never be restored,
yet I should be what now I am in matters relating to worship.
It is very plain that the Church is divided ; it is too evident
there is a schism among us ; I mean in the Church of England :
her bishops are divided, her priests are divided, her people are
divided, one part going one way, and the other another . . .
both parties call each other schismatics to the great scandall
of the Church of England in particular, and of the Christian
religion in general.
He then puts forcibly and racily the usual arguments
to show that the parties who change are those who make
the schism, and that lay deprivations are invalid, and
proceeds :
Tho' I happen to be singular in the parish where I live, yet
there are many in other places, I think I may say in all parts of
the nation of my opinion.
Our deprived clergy are known to be well studied, men of
great abilities and depth of learning, and not only so, but for
the honour of our cause are men of extraordinary piety and
integrity, so that their adversaries cannot but speak in their
praise, men of undaunted courage, unshaken constancy, steady
in all trials to their old principles, firm to that ancient doctrine
of the Church of England which they and their professed adver-
saries once agreed to be true.
[As to their adversaries] how shall we reconcile their
doctrines in the late reigns with their practice since ?
LETTEE OF A NONJUBING LAYMAN 279
Some may say I have nothing or little to lose. . . . Yet my
ancestors had a plentifull estate, not only as good as any in the
parish, but the best by far, except the rectory and the mannors,
but the zeal of those pure times in which they lived eat [sic] up
a great part thereof, else it might have been preserved entire till
my time, it was their fault, it seems, to be firm to the King's
interest, they were (as the great Sherlock is pleas'd to shew)
men of stupid and slavish loyalty. . . .
... It has been easy to observe since I left you, how your
carriage towards me has changed, some, when they meet me,
refusing to open their lips, others looking another way that
they might avoid speaking, others seeming not to see me, others
gazing rudely on me as if I were some monster. . . .
I cannot but be persuaded that right is right notwithstand-
ing want of success, and all other discouragements it may meet
with, and that wrong is wrong, tho' it be never so prosperous
and successfull, nor can I like any cause the better for having
a multitude on its side, or the worse for being countenanced by
a few.
But if the worship at the Parish Church be sinfull, why did
I not leave it sooner, but continue to join in it three or four
years after it became sinfull? I answer, when any doubt
arises on religious matters, nothing should be resolv'd upon
rashly. It was some years before works justifying our deprived
fathers came into my hands. That I was unfixt long before is
known, particularly to the minister of our parish.
Now if after all that I have said any of you shall charge me
with leaving the religion of the Church of England, I do here
solemnly profess that I have not left it, but what I have done
proceeds from a steadfastness in the doctrine and communion
of it, and if this be not sufficient, I challenge you and all the
world besides to prove that I have departed in any, the least
instance from her ancient doctrine, and that is more than you
that railed at the deprived can say for yourselves tho' you go
never so constantly to the publick worship.
[Signature in full, but carefully erased.]
Aug. y e 10 th 1696.
Then follows a postscript describing a Jacobite, in
which the writer clearly intimates that he is one himself.
280 THE NONJUKOBS
CHAPTEK VI
NONJUEING MODES OF WOBSHIP
THE principles of the Nonjurors of course led them to
attach the deepest importance to the details of public
worship, and their internal disputes about these details
more than anything else led to their decay and downfall ;
for a small community quite at variance with the spirit
of the age cannot afford to have disputes among its own
members, and that was just what the Nonjurors had.
From the first there were differences among them con-
nected directly or indirectly with public worship. All
thought that at the Kevolution it was unlawful to take the
new oaths ; but then another question immediately arose.
Was it necessary that because they differed from their
fellow Churchmen upon a political point they should hold
aloof from common worship with them ? Even their
leaders, the deprived Fathers, were not all of one mind on
this question. Archbishop Bancroft, when asked by some
who worshipped at Lambeth Chapel in the interval
between his suspension and deprivation whether they
might attend the services of the Established Church,
replied that 'if they did, they would need Absolution
at the end, as well as at the beginning of the service ; '
and he himself acted consistently with this principle ;
for, after his retreat to Fressingfield, he wrote (Decem-
ber 23, 1691) : 'I constantly officiate myself secundum
usum Lambethenum, and never give the Holy Sacrament
but to those of my own persuasion and practice ; ' l and
! D'Oyly's Life of Bancroft, ii. 19.
ATTENDANCE AT PAEISH CHUECHES 281
he never attended the parish church, though the clergy-
man of the parish frequently visited him. 1 Bishop
Frampton, on the other hand, regularly ' went to the
public prayers of the Church ' at Standish, in spite of the
expostulations of Mr. Dodwell. 2 Other Nonjurors followed
Frampton's example, and this drew from Jeremy Collier
a stirring and spirited appeal, entitled in brief ' A Per-
suasive to Royalists.' 3 Mr., afterwards Bishop, Hawes
wrote on the same subject advocating the same line. 4
Two of the most highly and universally respected of all
the later Nonjurors, Thomas Baker and William Law,
always attended the national worship, and Charles Leslie,
when there was no Nonjuring service at hand, went with
his family to the parish church. 5
The Nonjurors, however, as a rule much preferred
services of their own, and the majority of them would
attend no others. To discover, therefore, the various
Nonjuring places of worship, which they sometimes called
' oratories,' sometimes ' chapels,' is an interesting task,
but at the same time a most difficult one. For necessity
compelled them to keep their places of meeting secret ;
they were liable at any moment to be interrupted, to have
the oaths tendered to them, and, if they refused them, as
of course they would, to be hurried off to prison. It was,
therefore, adding insult to injury to taunt them contemptu-
ously with the secrecy of their worship, for they could not
help themselves. The poet laureate himself (N. Kowe)
1 Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors, p. 100.
2 See Life of Bishop Frampton, edited by Simpson Evans, p. 203.
3 The full title is, A Persuasive to Consideration Tendered to the
Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England. Second Edition.
1695.
* Considerations What a Christian is to do who goes into a country or
place where the Clergy is unwarrantable or the Worship Corrupt, or both ?
by Eev. Mr. Samuel Hawes, among the Bawlinson MSS.
s See E. J. Leslie's Life of Charles Leslie, p. 231.
282 THE NONJUEOES
in his Prologue to Colley Gibber's play, ' The Nonj'uror/
complains that :
Each lurking pastor seeks the dark,
And fears the Justices' inquiring clerk.
In close back rooms his routed flocks he rallies
And reigns the patriarch of blind lanes and alleys.
There safe he lets his thundering censures fly,
Unchristians, damns us, gives our laws the lie
And excommunicates three stories high.
What may be fairly called the first Nonjuring places
of worship were the private chapels of the two Nonjuring
prelates, Bancroft and Turner, at Lambeth and Ely House
respectively. The services at Ely House in especial attracted
much attention and aroused alarm. Bishop Turner used
to officiate there every Sunday in his robes even after his
deprivation; (it will be remembered that the sees were
not filled up till a year later, so the chapel was vacant).
His ministry was attended by so large a congregation that
the new sovereigns were highly displeased, and the Bishop
of St. Asaph (Dr. Lloyd), who still kept up his friendship
with his brother confessors in the Tower, though they
took different roads at the [Revolution, was commissioned
to tell him that he must shut the chapel up ; but it was
not until Turner had received a second intimation of the
danger he incurred that he reluctantly consented to do so.
Lord Clarendon was a regular worshipper at Ely House
Chapel. When Sancroft left Lambeth the chapel there,
of course, ceased to be available.
But in London, at any rate, Nonjuring places of
worship abounded for many years. Bishop Nicolson,
of Carlisle, writes in great alarm to the Archbishop of
Canterbury (Wake) on September 20, 1716, declaring,
among other things, that there were fifty churches of
Nonjurors in London. 1 This is probably either an
1 See Ellis's Original Letters, Series iii.
NONJUEING OEATOEIES IN LONDON 288
exaggeration, or else it includes private houses where few,
if any, besides the family worshipped ; but still there is
evidence enough of the existence of many chapels or
oratories in the metropolis. One of the most noted was
in Scroop's Court, afterwards Union Court, near St.
Andrew's Church, Holborn, where Hickes, Gandy and
Grascome successively officiated. Another was on College
Hill, where Roger Laurence, afterwards a bishop, was
minister ; another called Trinity Chapel, in the parish of
St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, where first Robert Orme
officiated, and afterwards John Lindsay ' until his death
in 1768,' so that this must have been one of the last
remaining chapels of the Nonjurors in London ; another
in an ' upper room ' in Broad Street, where Jeremy Collier,
assisted sometimes by Samuel Carte, used to officiate ;
another in ' the Savoy ' ; another in Spitalfields, which
is called the oratory of William Lee, dyer, brother of
Francis Lee, the opening of which in 1716 caused a riot ; l
another in Gray's Inn, where Richard Rawlinson and
John Blackbourne officiated, and where several ordinations
took place ; another in Goodman's Fields, in the parish
of Whitechapel, where Welton, ex-rector of Whitechapel,
was minister ; this must have been a large building, for
when it was invaded by the civil authority in 1717, two
hundred and fifty persons were assembled there ; another
in * Bedford Court, Holbourne,' where Matthias Earbery
was minister ; another in Fetter Lane, about which more
will be said presently ; another perhaps in Great Ormond
Street, for Ralph Thoresby speaks of visiting Nelson and
Hickes there and finding Hickes at ' the Nonjuring Con-
venticle,' though it has been suggested that ' probably
the Conventicle was at one of their houses ; ' 2 another in
1 See London in tlw Jacobite Times, i. 269.
2 See Notes and Queries, Series i. vol. ii. No. 52, October 26, 1850.
284 THE NONJURORS
Dunstan Court, Fleet Street, where a Dr. Bryan 1 is said
to have officiated ; and one in or near Theobald's Road,
where Bishop Gordon ministered to the very last Non-
juring congregation of the regular line in London. These
fall very far short of Bishop Nicolson's fifty, but they
are enough to show that Nonjuring chapels were pretty
numerous in London ; and it may fairly be presumed
that there were more than those mentioned, for the chief
reason why we know anything about these is because
their ministers were more or less well-known men. It is
in every case the man who brings note to the oratory,
not the oratory to the man ; when the minister of an
oratory was not known, the oratory would not be.
We cannot, however, argue from London to the
country. Nathanael Marshall, in his ' Defence of our
Constitution in Church and State' (p. 170), remarks that
the chief efforts of the Nonjurors were confined to London,
and the preceding pages sufficiently show how the party
tended to gravitate to the metropolis as a centre. It
appears also that Nonjurors used to come up to London
on great festivals to attend services which they could not
have in the country. This point is illustrated in a curious
'Dialogue,' published in 1756, but probably applicable
with still greater force to an earlier period when the
Nonjurors were a less minute and more flourishing
community. If the writer was, as is conjectured, John
Lindsay, the pamphlet is of more value as coming from
an eminent and responsible person. At any rate it is
worth quoting as illustrative of the attitude of the Non-
jurors towards public worship. It is entitled ' The Grand
and Important Question about the Church and Parochial
Communion, Fairly and Friendly debated in a Dialogue
1 Qy. Matthew Bryan, formerly rector of Limington, Somerset ?
DIALOGUE ON PUBLIC WOKSHIP 285
between a worthy Country Gentleman and his Neighbour
newly returned from London,' and runs :
C. G. Welcome home, Neighbour? What news do you
bring from London ?
N. News, Sir ! I met with none ; being otherways better
employed while I stayed there.
C. G. Seeing you set out so early yesterday morning, I did
not doubt but some extraordinary business called you abroad
on such a solemn day as Easter Sunday.
N. It was indeed the Business of the Day that called me to
London, which, I thank God, I have despatched to my great
comfort and satisfaction.
C. G. I always understood the proper Business of such a
Day to be the Service of God, and particularly at the Church ;
which (you will give me leave to say) seems hardly consistent
with a London journey of so many miles.
N. . . . The only business and occasion of my going
yesterday was in order to God's Service in the Church ;
which I would never neglect, on the more solemn Festi-
vals, at least, tho' Providence has now placed me where I
am not in a Capacity of attending it so frequently and con-
stantly as would be most agreeable both to my inclination
and duty. . . .
C. G. I suppose then, Sir, you are so zealously affected
with the solemn Choir Service at St. Paul's or Westminster-
Abbey that you cannot relish the plain service at a Country
Church. For I do not remember to have ever seen you at our
Parish Church, which has made many of us conclude you are
not a member of the established Church of England.
N. I assure you, Sir, it is far otherwise. I really am, and
trust in God to enable me steadfastly to continue a member of
the Established Church of England, as it was happily reformed
from the errors of Popery, and distinguished in Doctrine by her
39 Articles and Homilies, in Discipline by her Canons, and in
worship according to her Liturgy or Common Prayer, maturely
settled by Church Eepresentation in Convocation in 1661, and
enforced by the temporal Sanction of the Laws of the Land in
the Act of Uniformity.
C. G. . , . I hope we may cement our friendship by going
together to worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness.
N. With all my Heart, if you are stedfastly attached (as.
286 THE NONJUBOKS
I am) to the Church of England, so reformed and established,
as I have before defined it.
C. G. I know not why you should doubt of that, since no
man in the parish is more constant at our Parish Church. . . .
And the Vicar of our Parish is as eminent and exemplary, in
all the requisites of his sacred office as any in the Diocese.
Then follow the usual arguments on both sides, which
need not be repeated.
As to the services held at the Nonjuring chapels, it
goes without saying that they were strictly in accordance
with the order of the Church of England, the names of
the Sovereign and Koyal Family prayed for being omitted.
The writer of a squib entitled ' A Jacobite Conventicle '
(1692) describes how he dogged the steps of a 'moody
Jacobite ' to the place of rendezvous, and then proceeds :
But hold Before to Fetter Lane I go
"Pis requisite the entrance word I know ;
Last Sunday 'twas commandement the fifth,
And now St. Germains is the Shibboleth.
'Tis so, and now with eager steps I fly
To the true Church of England's ministry
To hear a sort of men who ever knew
Still to be faithful, loyal, firm and true,
Who for their souls detest the swearing vice,
Either to get or keep a benefice.
I sate me down upon a hassock,
Expecting clergyman in cassock, &c. &c.
Before the clergyman comes all talk politics. The room
is crowded with both men and women, all of whom are
sullen and discontented. At last the clergyman arrives,
and then :
His surplice on, they then prepare
To joyn with him in Common Prayer ;
Nor Psalms nor prayers did he omit any,
Till coming to that place i' th' Litany,
SERVICES IN NONJUROKS' ORATORIES 287
Wherein obliged by name to pray
For those who bear the Sovereign sway,
He did in 's prayer no name put in,
But those of gracious King and Queen ;
Which prayer, no sooner did it reach the
Ears of them all, but ' We beseech Thee '
Echoed more loud by persons there
Than the response to any prayer
Which in the Liturgy we read
From the Lord's Prayer to Nicene Creed.
The clergyman takes for his text Eomans xiii. 1, 2, and
the sermon is described or imagined. In the middle of
it the meeting is interrupted by a constable and party of
musketeers, who drag them all before the magistrates.
The oath is tendered and refused, and everyone has to pay
a fine of forty shillings. It is impossible to say whether
this is a real or an imaginary scene ; it is probably an
exaggerated account of what actually took place, and the
catastrophe is exactly what happened some years later in
the Goodman's Fields Chapel, under Dr. Welton, except
that the punishment in the real case was more severe.
One occasional service in the Nonjuring chapels, which
from the nature of the case could not find a counterpart
in the Established Church, was the admission of a
Penitent that is, one who had taken the oaths, and, now
repenting, desired to be admitted into the fold. ' A Form
of Kecantation' was drawn up by Mr. Kettlewell, in
which the Penitent humbles himself to the very dust,
and is then received with the most solemn injunctions.
The whole service is of great length ; it will be found in
full in Appendix XIX. of Kettlewell's ' Compleat Works
and Life.' Another Form for ' Eenunciation of y e Schism
made by y 6 Eevolution Church,' dated December 15, 1716,
followed by ' The Manner of Conferming their Orders
who were ordained in Schism,' dated March 20, 1716-7,
288 THE NONJUEOKS
is among the Kenyon MSS. at Gredington. In the Non-
juring Prayer Book of 1718 (to be noticed in the next
section), there is a ' Form of Admission of a Penitent/
and in 1746 Dr. Deacon put forth a ' Form of Admitting
a Convert into the Communion of the Church/ which
it is to be feared was not much used, for the Nonjurors
after 1746 dwindled rapidly away.
Passing from London to the country we find Nonjuring
assemblies very sparse and irregular. They were either
held in the private chapel of some nobleman or gentleman
who was favourable to the cause, and, being privileged to
keep a chaplain, was glad to avail himself of the services
of some Nonjuring priest ; this, as we have seen, was done
at Longleat, at Shottesbrooke, at Burghley, at Eastwell, at
Vale Eoyal, and other places which might be mentioned,
or else they arose from the enterprise of some individual
clergyman ; Thomas Brett at Spring Grove is one instance,
and the following is a still more interesting one, which is
found among the Bawlinson MSS. in the doctor's un-
published continuation of Wood's * Athenae Oxonienses.'
Moses Soame (or Some) was a graduate of Christ's
College, Cambridge, and became rector of Broughton,
near Kettering, l of which benefice he had the advowson,
which he sold on the change of Government at the Revo-
lution and then resigned, his conscience not permitting
him to take the new oaths.' He retired to the hamlet
of Little Calworth, in Hunts, where he had an estate of
his own, and there ' he built a small chapel, resolving to
dedicate the remainder of his days to the service of God
in this place, in which chapel he performed the daily
offices of Morning and Evening Prayer for many years
together for all the remaining part of his life. He also
therein, both morning and evening, every day throughout
the year, administered the Holy Communion to his family,
NONJUEING SEEVICES OUTSIDE LONDON 289
and to as many others of the neighbourhood as would
come to partake of it the cup in alder wine, which
answered the purpose as he thought, since his circum-
stances would not allow him to purchase other wine for
such constant use.'
At the chief centres, outside London, of the Nonjurors
we have rather vague and scattered notices of some sort
of provision made for their common worship. Hearne
writes with provoking vagueness in 1705 : ' It seems the
Non-Jurors in Oxford receive the Sacrament at Mr.
Sheldon's chamber at X* Church, who finds all the
necessaries for it.' 1
About Cambridge we have a much more distinct
notice in the Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, the
antiquary, of St. John's College, who writes :
1695, Oct. 3. The Jacobites set up separate meetings all
over, when there was any number of them, at which meetings
I myself have once or twice been in Cambridge, for we had
about 20 fellows in our College that were Nonjurors. The
service they used was the Common Prayer, and always prayed
heartily for King James, naming him most commonly ; but in
some meetings, they only prayed for the King, not naming who.
. . . Their meetings in Cambridge were oftentimes broken up
by order of the Vice- Chancellor.
Thomas Baker's remark to Hearne several years later,
that he continued to worship at the Established Church
and did not understand ' this new communion,' 2 seems
possibly to imply that provision was made for the worship
of * the new communion ' at Cambridge ; and the late
Mr. Potts, of ' Euclid ' fame, told me himself that he dis-
tinctly remembered when he was young a place being
pointed out to him at Cambridge where the Nonjurors
used to worship. As Mr. Potts was born in 1805, the
Hearniancs, i. 32. * Collections, i. 44.
U
290 THE NONJUEOES
traditions of a Nonjuring chapel may well have lingered
on until the time of his youth.
At Bristol a certain Mr. Bisse (his name occurs in no
list of Nonjurors) is said to have been arrested for preach-
ing to a Jacobite congregation in 1718 ; but ' the con-
gregation rescued their pastor.' 1 The West of England
was the last part in which Jacobitism lingered, so the
story is highly probable ; but I doubt whether it means a
Nonjuring chapel proper, which was not necessarily the
same thing as a Jacobite meeting. At, or near Ash-
bourne, there was a service regularly conducted by Thomas
Bedford, son of Hilkiah. At Manchester, which became a
great stronghold of Jacobitism, there were for the later
Nonjurors two chapels, one in Fennell Street, served by
the well-known Dr. Deacon, and one called Trinity Chapel,
served by the 'Oxford Methodist,' Mr. Clayton, which
was virtually, if not nominally, a Nonjuring place of
worship ; and (horresco refer ens !) the Collegiate Church
itself, then called ' the Old Church,' had, to say the least
of it, strong Jacobite and Nonjuring sympathies. Later
still there was a Nonjuring chapel at Shrewsbury, served
by Dr. Cartwright, Dr. Deacon's son-in-law. These will
come before us again in connection with the later Non-
jurors. But before that time a lamentable division
occurred in connection with the Nonjuring services.
During the first quarter of a century, speaking roughly,
there was practically a unanimity in the little com-
munity on this point. Then the apple of discord was
thrown in their midst in the shape of what was techni-
cally called
THE USAGES CONTEOVEESY.
It is difficult to help connecting the outbreak of this
dispute with the death of Dr. Hickes. Hickes died on
1 London in tlie Jacobite Times, i. 319.
THE USAGES CONTEOVEESY 291
December 15, 1715, and left no one behind him who
could quite fill his place as the universally recognised
head of the community. His natural successor as metro-
politan, so to speak, of the Nonjurors was Jeremy Collier,
who, in the larger world, at any rate, was even better
known by his writings than Hickes himself ; and it was
more than once hinted by his opponents that it was
Collier's ambition to hold this place which originated
the unhappy controversy. If this were so, Collier was
assuredly ' hoist with his own petard ' ; for it was this
very controversy, more than anything else, which de-
barred him from assuming the mantle which Hickes had
dropped, and which should naturally have fallen upon
him. But there is no evidence to show that Collier was
actuated by any such motive in taking the leading part he
did in the matter ; and, on the other hand, there is quite
sufficient reason to account for his conduct, without un-
charitably assigning to him the baser motive of personal
ambition.
In fact, the outbreak of the controversy, deplorable
though it was, was the most natural thing in the world
to happen. The Nonjurors assigned the very highest
importance to the Holy Eucharist as the central act of
Christian worship. Not only so; they insisted strongly
on its sacrificial character. Everything that could ele-
vate the Holy Sacrament and bring out prominently its
sacrificial aspect would be likely to find acceptance with
them. Well, but was there not an office which some of
the holiest and most competent Churchmen of the day,
men like Archbishop Sharp, Bishop Wilson, of Sodor and
Man, John Johnson of Cranbrook, Joseph Bingham,
none of whom were Nonjurors, would fain have seen
restored in place of the one in established use a service
for which their late venerable father, Dr. Hickes, had
u 2
292 THE NONJURORS
expressed his preference, had printed in an Appendix to
his ' Christian Priesthood,' and had actually used in his
oratory in Scroop's Court ? It would have been strange
indeed if the Nonjurors, who were naturally drawn to
liturgical study, who were unfettered by State trammels,
who were tied neither by duty nor by gratitude to * the
Establishment,' which had been but a harsh stepmother
to them, had not thought of that First Prayer Book of
King Edward VI., which certainly met their wants
better than the one in use. And so the question arose,
not from the private ambition of any individual, but from
the nature of the case.
Before entering into the history it may be premised
that the * Usages ' were these four :
(1) The mixed chalice.
(2) Prayers for the faithful departed.
(3) Prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost on the
consecrated elements.
(4) The Oblatory Prayer, offering the elements to the
Father as symbols of His Son's Body and Blood.
These four points are all covered by King Edward's
First Prayer Book : wherein (1) the rubric orders the
putting a little pure and clean water to the wine in
the chalice; (2) instead of 'Let us pray for Christ's
Church militant here in earth,' the invitation is 'Let us
pray for the whole state of Christ's Church,' the later
words being added for obvious reasons ; and in the prayer
itself there is a long and beautiful clause commending to
God's mercy those 'which are departed hence from us
with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of
peace ; ' and (3) and (4) are both distinctly covered by two
clauses in the Consecration Prayer which were expunged
from the second and subsequent Books. It was not,
however, exactly the First Prayer Book of Edward VI.
NON-USAGEE'S ACCOUNT OF ITS EISB 293
which the Usagers made their form of worship, as we
shall see presently.
The uprise of the controversy has been described
vividly by two hands, one that of a Non-Usager, the other
that of a Usager ; so by the insertion of both accounts a
fair view of the situation will be gained.
The first is appended to a tract entitled ' Mr. Collier's
Desertion Discussed ; l or, The Office of Worship in the
Liturgy of the Church of England defended against the
bold attacks of that Gentleman, late of her Communion,
now of his own.' It is dated 'Worcester, December
1719,' and has been attributed variously to Blackbourne,
Hawes, and Gandy. It runs as follows :
An Historical Account of the Schism.
In July, 1716 there happened in conversation some mention
of Edward VI.'s first Liturgy, and Proposals for reviving it ;
which being several times repeated and insisted on by the
Advocates of its Restoration, at length they desired that a
time and place might be fixed on to deliberate farther on this
affair ; which was granted.
Then follows a long account of the two meetings and
their chairman, who was undoubtedly Collier, though no
names are given.
At the Second meeting a Paper by way of Petition for the
Alterations aimed at was (to most) unexpectedly produced and
read, which had been signed by some within doors, but by more
without. Then [after a dispute] the alterations were proposed ;
which being fairly and calmly debated on both sides, and put to
the vote, a great majority declared against them, and this Dr.
Brett himself frankly owns. ' The majority would not allow
that an Iota or Tittle of the Office in the Common Prayer-
Book should be altered ' (Vindic. of P.S. Pref. p. 6). 2 Upon our
standing our ground, and abiding by the resolution of the last
meeting the Restorers assembled, where they were secure of
1 This title has, of course, reference to the title of Collier's own tract,
The Desertion Discussed, published just twenty years before.
2 For an account of this ' Vindication ' see infra, p. 304.
294 THE NONJUEORS
having no opposition and drew up an instrument declaring
they thought it necessary to put those Primitive and Catholic
Usages (as they call 'em) in Practice, Dec. 19, 1717. And the
next day two of them sufficiently declar'd they would no longer
join in Communion with us, by giving Injunctions for altering
the Liturgy. This on Dec. 20, 1717. . . . The governing
principle, humanly speaking, precludes all possibility of union,
as if the most distinguished merit consisted in running as far as
they could from old friends. Thus they broke off from the
Communion both of the English and Scotch Church, and are in
Communion of no part of the world ; composed a New Office
and withdrew from those who could not approve it, forbidding
Communion to be held with all such. This act was their Pre-
paration for Easter, 1718, when they defaced the beauty of
holiness by their new office. The Assembly where this was
enacted, consisted of 8 English and 6 Scotch clergymen, and
even of that number, one who was under deliberation made no
long delay to declare for the Church of England; another
like the Scapegoat, was sent packing into the Wilderness of
Popery ; and a third, if of any communion, has wandered into
the same broad way.
In the last fatal interview the Chief l opened the causes of the
assembly, viz. : the unsuccessfulness of the Proposals and the
necessity of the things debated, upon which (he said) a Separa-
tion became unavoidable ; and then he recommended to them
the New Communion Office which was read distinctly, and in
most things approv'd by those present.
Thus far the Non-Usager. Now let us see what the
Usager says about the same matter. As to the authorship
of this account there is no doubt, for it occurs in Brett's
extremely valuable 'Collection of Liturgies' (1720),
printed with his name attached, and the writer begins
with his own personal experience :
When I had quitted the public Communion and joined
myself to the Communion of Bishop Hickes, ... I conceived
I had authority, or at least his leave to do those things which
he had so much recommended in his public writings. I from
that time, when I did administer the Eucharist, always mixed
1 Collier.
USAGEE'S ACCOUNT OF ITS RISE 295
water with the wine ; I left out the words * militant in earth,'
and I said the Prayer of Oblation and Invocation aloud.
Other persons who were sensible of these defects in the esta-
blished Communion Office endeavoured to supply them in such
a manner as they thought most expedient, some one way, some
another, which broke our Uniformity. This being observed
by some among us, some months after the death of Bishop
Hickes, they thought it advisable to lay the case before their
superiors and to desire their direction on these points, that the
Uniformity might not be broken. Hereupon the Bishops and
several Presbyters met to consult what was to be done in this
matter ; but the Major part declared, that as there was a
Liturgy established, the way to preserve Uniformity was to
stick close to that, and they had no authority to recede one
tittle from it : That as to the matters proposed concerning
mixing water with the Sacramental Wine, praying for the
departed, making an Oblation of the Elements, and Invoking
the Descent of the Holy Ghost to bless and sanctify the Bread
and Cup, some said they were indeed desideranda ; however it
was not seasonable to introduce them at this Time, and others
seemed not to approve of them at any Time. But as there
were some there of both Orders who thought these things to be
essentially necessary to the Eucharist, they very much pressed,
that as there was an English Liturgy made in the 2nd and 3rd
years of King Edward VI. which contained all that was now
desired, the Communion might be administered among us
according to that Office ; or at least some of the Prayers and
Directions in that Communion Office might be added to the
present Office. But the Majority still insisted that they were
obliged to adhere to the present Liturgy, and could make no
alterations in it. [Hence the Schism.]
The controversy begins moderately, but, as is the
way of controversies, vires acquirit eundo. 'Reasons
for Restoring some Prayers and Directions as they stood
in the First English Reformed Liturgy' was the first
contribution ; it appeared in 1717, and created such a
sensation that it reached a fourth edition in 1718. The
writer was Jeremy Collier, and it is written temperately,
and, needless to add, very ably. He specifies the Four
296 THE NONJUEOES
Points, shows how they are all contained in the First
Prayer Book, affirms that he ' goes on the ground that
the Holy Eucharist is a proper Sacrifice,' fortifies his
position by citations from the Primitive Fathers and
Apostolical Constitutions, and quotes the statute which
says of the first Prayer Book, ' 'twas finished by the aid
of the Holy Ghost.' He was immediately answered in a
pamphlet, ' No Eeason for restoring the Prayers and
Directions of Edward VI. 's First Liturgy,' by a Nonjuror
(1717), the < Nonjuror ' being Nathanael Spinckes. This,
too, was ably written ; but the writer does not know so
much about his subject as Collier, and in more than one
point lays himself open to a crushing retort. For in-
stance, he expresses some doubt as to what Justin Martyr
means by the Kpa^a, or Mixture, and objects that it is
mentioned by no one before Justin Martyr ; he declares
that Tertullian was the first Christian who mentions
Prayers for the Dead, and hints that he probably ' re-
ceived it with his Montanism,' adding that ' we hear
nothing about it out of Afric for 100 years after him,'
that it is * built wholly on Tradition,' and that ' S. Cyprian
is the only authority for it in the third century.'
Collier was not the man to let such slips pass. There
quickly appeared 'A Defence of the Beasons,' &c. (1718),
in which he asks very pertinently, Is not Justin Martyr
the first Father who gives an account of the Christian
worship ? defends successfully the argument from tradi-
tion by the analogy of Sunday, and asserts sweepingly,
but giving strong grounds for his assertion, that * the
Tradition for the mixt cup was early, general, and un-
interrupted.' Spinckes quickly replied in a pamphlet
entitled ' No sufficient Beason for restoring some Prayers
and Directions of King Edward VI. 's First Liturgy '
.(1718). The insertion of the qualifying epithet 'suffi-
BEETT'S DEFENCE OF THE USAGES 297
cient ' may perhaps indicate that the writer felt he had
gone too far in his former work.
Others rushed into the fray ; but Collier and Spinckes
were regarded as the leaders of the Usagers and Non-
Usagers respectively, and for various reasons they were
the proper persons to be so ; but they were not, in my
opinion, the best and most effective writers on either side
on this particular subject. The best defender of the
Usagers with his pen was Thomas Brett, because he
knew more about liturgical matters than any who took
part in the dispute. The best defender of the Non-
Usagers was Charles Leslie, not because, like Brett, he
had made liturgiology his special study, but because his
plain common sense, his logical mind, and his forcible,
incisive style enabled him to point out the real weakness
of the Usagers' position more clearly than anyone else.
Dr. Brett entered the lists in his valuable little work
entitled ' Tradition necessary to Explain and Interpret
Holy Scripture ' (1718). It deals towards the close with
Spinckes' ' No Eeason,' &c., but after the sheets were sent
to the press Spinckes' second pamphlet ' No Sufficient
Keason,' &c., had appeared, so Brett adds a postscript
dealing with ' the learned Gentleman's little Treatise,' of
which he evidently has not a very high opinion. With
the utmost courtesy he points out clearly how the proper
use of tradition bears upon the matter in hand, showing^
among other things, that the Mixture was sanctioned by
the example of Christ, who at the institution of the
Holy Eucharist obviously used the Paschal Cup, which,
as a plain matter of history, contained wine with a
mixture of water.
If it had been an abstract question of ecclesiastical
history and primitive use, the Usagers could probably
have proved their point, particularly as there was no one
298 THE NONJURORS
on the other side who knew the subject so well as Brett,
or who could write so effectively as Collier. But Charles
Leslie saw that that was not the real question. He was
in exile, but a report reached him about the controversy
in his distant home; indeed, his advice was formally
asked on the points at issue, and he became a most
valuable ally of the Non-Usagers, not so much from his
knowledge of the subject as from the plain, common-
sense view which he took of it. He wrote (1) * A Letter
from Mr. Leslie to his Friends against Alterations or
Additions to the Liturgy of the Church of England *
(1718) ; (2) ' A Letter from the Kev. Mr. Charles Leslie
concerning the New Separation to Mr. B ' [probably
Mr. Bowyer] (1719). In the first he seems to me rather
to give himself away by unduly depreciating the value of
tradition. It immediately brought out an ironical reply,
entitled 'An Answer to a Printed Letter said to be
written by Mr. Lesley.' The writer professes to think
that Leslie could not really have written the letter ; for
he would never, with his principles, have decried tradition,
or ' put the tradition of the Elders on a level with the
Tradition of the Illuminated Fathers of the Christian
Church/ or have not known that we believe the Holy
Scriptures themselves from tradition. ' Mr. Leslie,' he
adds, ' knows very well that the Standard of our English
Eeformation is Primitive Doctrine, Discipline, Worship,
and Government, and that we have not yet come up to
our Standard, and therefore ought by all means to get it
as soon as we can.' Accordingly, he suggests that ' some
of those Sectarians or Heretics whom God enabled Mr. L.
to confute forged this letter in his name.' The 'Answer '
is, from the writer's point of view (which, one might have
imagined, would be Mr. Leslie's view also), unanswerable ;
it is extremely able, and one cannot help fancying that
CHAELES LESLIE ON THE USAGES 299
Collier's hand had been at work, though there is no
evidence that it had. But in his next ' Letter ' Mr. Leslie
hits the real blot, and with his usual acumen turns the
tables against the Usagers. Mr. B was a Usager,
and Leslie begins most pertinently : ' That I may not go
upon misinformations .... who made this separation ?
Did they separate from you because you put water in
your wine ? or did you separate from them because they
did not ? ' This seems to me to be the whole gist of the
question, which was not whether the Usages were primi-
tive or not, but (1) whether they were essential ; (2) if
not, whether it was expedient to insist upon them at the
risk of dividing an already small and diminishing body ;
and (3) whether the whole Church of England since the
Eeformation had been in schism for want of them. Upon
these points Leslie insists with remorseless logic, and he
was not at all adequately answered. In one reply it was
rather weakly urged, ' Notwithstanding our Persuasion
that none of these Primitive Usages can be dispensed
with, yet we do not insist on their being received by our
Brethren as necessary things ; provided they officiate by
them, they may, if they please, declare their compliance
means no more than Temporary Concessions and Expe-
dients for Union.' l As if the Non-Usagers could be
content with a compromise which really meant that they
should do one thing and think another ! Another answer
is a long pamphlet, probably by Eoger Laurence, in
which the writer adopts the same ironical strain, but with
less force, which had been previously adopted namely,
that ' some one or other has presumed to burlesque his
[Mr. Leslie's] orthodoxy in printing Letters from him
which none that know him are willing to believe were
1 ' Answer to a Letter from the Rev. Charles Leslie concerning what he
calls the New Separation ' (1719).
300 THE NONJUEOES
ever the productions of his pen.' l But neither of these,
nor any of the other answers, deals adequately with the
main point, which was not whether the Usages were
primitive, nor whether they were desirable in themselves,
but whether they were essential. The Usagers contended
that they were, and hence were called Essentialists. Now
this would mean that the whole Church of England, a
great number perhaps the majority of the Nonjurors
themselves, the whole Church of Home (which, though
sanctioning such usages, did not regard them as essential),
and of course all other religious communities were un-
churched, and that the Church in Europe consisted of a
small fragment which had only just come into existence !
Or, as Mr. Leslie put it, their contention obliged them
to refuse Communion with all other Churches (which were all
in the nation) who celebrated the Communion according to the
established liturgy of the National Church, to disown the
Liturgy to which they themselves have given their unfeigned
assent and consent, and which has been established by all
authority, spiritual and temporal, in the nation, and never to
use it more, especially by no means the Communion Service ;
and that we have had no true Sacrament (except at Barking)
since the Eeformation. 2
This is strongly but not unfairly put, and an answer to it
was not forthcoming. The reference to Barking alludes
to the plea urged that Dr. Hickes had used the mixed
chalice when he was vicar of Allhallows Barking. Another
writer probably Spinckes puts the matter in rather a
different form, but quite as pertinently : ' I earnestly beg
of our old Friends and Brethren, who have so unhappily
withdrawn from us, that they will remember we continue
1 Mr. Leslie's Defence from some Erroneous and Dangerous Principles
Advanced in a Letter, said to have been written by him, concerning the New
Separation, by a known Friend of Mr. Leslie (1719).
2 Leslie's Letter to Mr. B.
NEW COMMUNION OFFICE OF 1718 301
still the same as we were, and that when we were united
it was upon our Principles, not theirs.' 1 In short, it
seems to me that, while the Usagers had the best of the
argument in detail, Brett and Collier really knowing most
about the subject, they put themselves hopelessly in the
wrong by insisting upon the necessity of what was not
really necessary, and what was being introduced at a
singularly inopportune time. As ' Usagers ' they were
right ; as * Essentialists ' they were wrong.
While this controversy was going on the New Com-
munion Office appeared under the title of ' A Communion
Office, taken partly from Primitive Liturgies and partly
from the First English Eeformed Common Prayer Book,
Together with Offices for Confirmation and the Visitation
of the Sick.' The Communion Office did not differ much
from the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. except in
one important particular. The ' Prayer for the Descent
of the Holy Ghost on the Consecrated Elements '
('ETTt/eXT/erts), which, it will be remembered, was the third
of the * Four Points,' recognises the Objective Pre-
sence more distinctly than the corresponding prayer in
King Edward's Book. In the latter the invocation is :
' Vouchsafe so to bless and sanctify with Thy Word and
Holy Spirit these Thy gifts of bread and wine, that they
may be unto us the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly
beloved Son ' ; in the office of 1718, instead of ' that they
may be unto us,' the words are * that they may become ' ;
also in King Edward's Book the invocation comes before
the words of institution, in the Nonjurors' Book after
the words of institution ; and the ' Prayer for the whole
Estate of Christ's Church' is placed after instead of
before the Prayer of Consecration : 'For when the Sacrifice
1 Preface to No Just Grounds for tJie Introducing the New Communion
Office, &c., by a Nonjuror (1719).
302 THE NONJUEOES
commemorative of that upon the Cross is finished, is the
most proper time to declare the ends of the Oblation,
and to recommend the Church to the Divine Protection/
So writes the author of the Preface, who also tells us that
at the placing of the Elements on the Altar, there is a Prayer
for Acceptance abridged out of S. Basil's Liturgy ; the Eecital
of signal instances of Divine Providence as introductive to the
Words of Institution paraphrased from S. James' Liturgy, and
the Prayer of Oblation and Invocation, from the Apostolical
Constitutions ; that the Cross and the Chrism were restored in
the Confirmation, the Cross being used in the first Eeformed
Liturgy, and the Chrism being primitive ; and that the Anoint-
ing with Oil in the Office was primitive, being commended by
S. James ; and that it was not by way of Extreme Unction, but
in order to recovery.
It is an interesting question, 'Who wrote this Pre-
face ? ' because it is all but certain that whoever wrote it
had the main hand in drawing up the Office. It is curious
to observe how many different theories there are about
the composition. Some attribute it to Deacon, which is
absurd on the face of it, as Deacon was then under twenty
years of age ; others to Collier ; others to George Smith
of Durham (afterwards a Nonjuring bishop), under the
direction of Brett ; others think that three Scotchmen,
Campbell, Gadderar, and Battray, had much to do with it.
Of these the two most noted as liturgical scholars were
Brett and Battray ; and as Battray was certainly in
London and in close connection with the English Non-
jurors about the time when the new Office was being
compiled, he would naturally be consulted on the mat-
ter, and his opinion would have great weight ; Collier
also would, of course, have his say, for he was the primum
mobile of the whole affair, and nothing would be done
without his approval ; but, though it is mainly conjecture,
it seems to me that Brett must have been the chief
BEETT AND THE NEW OFFICE 303
compiler of the book, and also the writer of the Preface ;
the internal evidence of style and matter points in this
direction. Indeed, in a * Vindication,' &C., 1 which will
come before us directly, he all but admits it. Speaking
of the ' Four Points,' which he calls ' essential Points
and necessary to Salvation ' (!) he adds :
I believed them to be desidemnda only, for a considerable
time before I could persuade myself they were any of them
essential. I examined them before the framing [the italics are
mine] and enjoining a New Communion Office, and I have in
my discourse upon the Liturgies given my Reasons at large
why I believe all these to be Essential Points.
But this is anticipating. Let us go back to the time
of the. first use of the New Prayer Book, that is, Easter
1719. Before the year was over it was assailed in various
pamphlets, the most important of which was one entitled
1 No Just Grounds for introducing the New Communion
Office, or Denying Communion to those who cannot
think themselves at liberty to reject the Liturgy of the
Church of England for its sake. By a Nonjuror' (1719).
* A Nonjuror ' was undoubtedly Nathanael Spinckes, and
the work was specially intended as an answer to Dr.
Brett, with whom, as we have seen, 2 he had already crossed
swords. In the Preface he complains :
Our zealous restorers have thought fit to change the scene,
and to drop King Edward VI. 's Liturgy in behalf of which they
had set out with a great deal of warmth and to compile
another of their own ; whence they have expunged the Deca-
logue, pray that the Bread in the Eucharist may be made
our Saviour's Body and the Cup his Blood, and added two
new Offices for Unction, one in Confirmation, one upon the
sick bed.
In the body of the work he deals with the question of
Scripture and tradition, and discusses the evidence of the
1 See infra, p. 304. 2 See supra, p. 297.
304 THE NONJUROES
Fathers, the whole being directed against Brett's treatise
on Tradition, especially its Postscript and Appendix. It
will be observed that in the sentence quoted from the
Preface the writer makes a strange slip, implying that the
expunging of the Decalogue was an innovation of the New
Communion Office. 1 Of course Dr. Brett was up in arms
at once, and in 1720 published the work already quoted,
1 A Vindication of the Postscript to a Book called " The
necessary Use of Tradition to understand the Holy
Scriptures," in answer to a Book entitled " No Just
Grounds for Introducing the New Communion Office, &c."
By Thomas Brett, LL.D.' It is a curious instance of the
veneration in which Dr. Hickes's memory was held that
in the Preface he shelters himself under that great man's
writings, though Brett himself was probably the better
liturgical scholar of the two. His ' Vindication ' is in one
sense quite unanswerable. He contends that the ' Four
Points ' were restored, not because they were in the First
Liturgy of Edward VI., but because they had been in all
the liturgies of the Church from the Apostles' days to
the Reformation Act. * The New Communion Office ' (as
it was called) contained nothing but what was much
older than the present Communion Office of the Church
of England where it differed from it. He points out
courteously, but plainly, his opponent's slip, reminding
him that ' the Decalogue is not in the Communion Office
of K. Edward's First Liturgy, nor in any office that is
not of a later date ' ; and that ' Make the Bread the Body
of Christ and the Cup the Blood,' instead of ' that they
may be unto us,' is in all the liturgies used in any Church
before the Reformation, excepting the Roman Canon.
1 Of course the words may only mean that the Decalogue which stands
in the established Office is expunged in the New Office ; but surely this
should have been expressed more clearly.
COLLIEE ON THE USAGES 305
Collier also published some very strong tracts in 1719 and
1720, dealing mainly with another point which was dis-
tinctly ad rein. Having spoken of the action of ' Calvin
and Knox and some others of their principles,' he adds in
his strain of polished sarcasm :
These were the men that laid aside the Mixture ; that
declar'd against Prayer for the Dead ; that allowed no
Eucharistick Sacrifice, nor any Oblatory Prayer which might
carry to that sense. Were I worthy to recommend to these
gentlemen Nonjurors, I should rather suggest a Preference for
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus &c., those Primitive, non-resisting
Fathers, than resign to the novelties of the 16th century and be
governed by the tenents of those men who in several countries
turned the World upside down, and pressed their Eeformation
with Fire and Sword. 1
And in a later tract (1720) he points out, certainly with
great force and truth, as Hooker pointed out before him,
that it was * the Dissenter's, not the Churchman's, position
to require in points of worship an explicit warrant from
Scripture, an undisputed Text, to almost a Calvinistical
excess.' Those, he says, were ' not enemies to the Church
of England who would revive the main of her first
Keformation, when all her Managers were English, when
she was neither embarrass'd with Novelists abroad, nor
overset with the Eegale at home.' 2
At first the weight of defending the Usages and the
New Office which incorporated them seems to have fallen
almost entirely upon Collier and Brett, who were, how-
ever, quite strong enough to bear it. Their chief allies
were two very young men, Thomas Deacon and Thomas
Wagstaffe, the younger. The former published in 1718
a singularly able pamphlet, considering his age, on ' The
1 A Vindication of the l Reasons,' dc., and ' Defence,' dc., by the Author
of them, part ii., 1719.
2 A Further Defence, dc., by the Author of the ' Reasons,' dc., 1720.
X
306 THE NONJUEOES
Doctrine of Borne concerning Purgatory,' showing that
it differed in toto from the Usagers' doctrine when they
advocated prayers for the dead, and prefixing a most
modest Dedication to Dr. Brett, which shows that he
(Deacon) hardly deserved to be twitted, as he was, with
his youthful presumption. Wagstaffe published in 1719
a Defence of the Mixed Chalice in excellent Latin, but
these only dealt with single points in the controversy,
and neither of the writers had come to his full maturity.
On the other side the Non-Usagers had many well-
known names among their writers. Spinckes and Leslie
have already been noticed. Matthias Earbery wrote
vehemently, not to say violently, on the same side;
William Snatt, who had been associated with Collier
in the absolution of Sir John Perkins, also rushed into
the fray on the opposite side to Collier; so did John
Blackbourne, who was a very prominent man in the party
and an uncompromising Non-Usager to the last ; and so
did Henry Gandy, whose writings are the most able and
effective of all against the Usages, at any rate after those
of Spinckes.
But in spite of the numerical superiority of the Non-
Usagers and the greater bulk of their writings the New
Office made its way; and after fourteen years, during
which the two sections of the Nonjurors were entirely
separated, each section consecrating bishops and ordain-
ing clergy for its own body, the two united again on
the Usagers' terms about 1731, in which year Timothy
Mawman was consecrated by three bishops, two of whom
were Usagers and one a Non-Usager.
The triumph of the Usagers was not surprising when
one looks into the matter. Controversial writings, like
votes, must be weighed as well as counted, and Collier's
and Brett's outweighed all on the other side, which
TRIUMPH OF THE USAGERS 307
did not improve its chances by being too often wildly
extravagant and very personal. Such expressions as
' Tradition, that dear Idol which they have worshipped,
as some do the devil, only to be left in the lurch,' 'a
few ridiculous Liturgies ' (that is, the Clementine, St.
James's, St. Basil's, &c. !), ' the Apostolick Constitutions,
the spurious offspring of a weak, hot-headed Impostor,' l
'that gentleman [Collier] late of her Communion [the
Church of England], now of his own,' 2 ' I see two things
very ill coupled, Boy and Confidence ' [in allusion to
Deacon's youthfulness], 3 really did more harm to the
writers' own side than to that of their adversaries.
Leslie's powerful pen could do nothing more for the
Non-Usagers after his ' Letter to Mr. B.,' which was his
last production. The death of Spinckes in 1727 removed
the man who, not only by his learning and abilities, but
by his saintly character and reputation, was their most
influential supporter. The younger Nonjurors also who
were coming to the front were Usagers. Thomas Deacon
was gaining age and experience, and could no longer be
reproached with his youth and presumption; Thomas
Wagstaffe, the younger, proved himself quite as able a
man as his father, if not more so ; Thomas Brett, the
younger, took exactly the same line as Thomas Brett, the
elder, and from 1727 father and son were bishops to-
gether ; the two Scottish bishops, Campbell and Gadderar,
who were most closely associated with the English Non-
jurors, were strong ' Usagers.' What may seem strange,
however, the exiled Wanderer, whom both parties alike
recognised as their lawful king, sympathised with the
Non-Usagers. As he was himself a Roman Catholic it
1 Reflections upon Modern Fanaticism, by M. E. (Matthias Earbery).
2 Mr. Collier's ' Desertion Discussed.'
3 A Dialogue in Vindication of our Present Liturgy and Service :
between Timothy a Churchman, and Thomas an Essentialist.
x 2
IIBRARY ST. MARY'S COILEG*
308 THE NONJUEOES .-
might have been expected that he would side with those
who were supposed to approach nearest to Kome, and
were, indeed, charged, both by Non-Usagers and Corn-
pliers, with a tendency to popery. But this was probably
one reason why the Chevalier took the other side ; he was
anxious to conciliate his Protestant subjects, and knowing
what Rome was, he was perfectly well aware that the
Usagers were in reality not one step nearer her than the
Non-Usagers ; from a theological point of view there was
nothing to choose between them, while from a political,
advantages might be derived from his taking the Non-
Usagers' side. But the Nonjurors had quite sense enough
to see that in such a matter the Chevalier's views were
worth just nothing at all. The New Offices were by
degrees generally accepted, and by 1733 there was only
one bishop, John Blackbourne, and a very few priests
who ministered according to the established liturgy. But
there was no real and permanent union; fresh causes
of dispute soon arose and fresh divisions took place.
'The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out
water,' and the spirit of discord once introduced was
never healed.
309
CHAPTEE VII
THE LATER NONJUEOES
INTEENAL dissensions contributed largely to the decline
of the Nonjuring cause ; but in justice to the later Non-
jurors it should be added that there were other reasons
for which they can hardly be regarded as responsible.
In the first place, time was against them. As year after
year elapsed, the memory of the invalidly deprived
Fathers, who had sacrificed eminence for obscurity, af-
fluence for penury, in the cause of consistency, of loyalty,
and of resistance to the encroachments of the State upon
the spiritual independence of the Church, grew fainter
and fainter. The rising generation had been brought up
from their infancy in the new state of things, and knew
no other. 1
Men were in no mood to tolerate in the Church any
more than in the State another revolution, which must
have happened before the Nonjurors could have their
way. It is true that, after the establishment of the House
of Hanover a temporary reaction set in. Some of the
warmest friends of the Protestant Succession had been
bitterly disappointed ; when that Succession became an
established fact it did not bring in the halcyon period
which they had fondly expected; and it became so
unpopular among the unthinking populace as to raise
riots which verged perilously near to another revolution-
1 This point, so far as politics were concerned, is brought out with his
usual clearness and raciness by Dean Swift, in An Inquiry into the
Behaviour of the Queen's [Anne] last Ministry, and in Free Thoughts on
the present State of Affairs (1714).
310 THE NONJUEORS
But, oddly enough, this very discontent, which might
have been expected to be favourable to the Nonjurors,
was in reality one of the most potent causes of their
downfall. The Hanoverian dynasty was so unpopular
that the return of the Stuarts was anticipated', but it
was anticipated not with satisfaction, but with the
utmost alarm, not to say panic ; and the Nonjurors, in
conjunction with the papists, were regarded as fons et
origo mali. So no language was bad enough for them.
Lord Chesterfield spoke of them as ' the malicious and
contemptible sect of the Nonjurors ' ; when the Nonjuring
chapel in Spitalfields was opened in 1716, the Weekly
Journal hoped that ' all persons loyally affected to King
George will timely suppress the diabolical society, as they
have done the like seditious assemblies of blind, deluded
fools in the Savoy, Scroope's Court in Holborn, and in
Aldersgate Street ' ; another writer mildly remarked :
'Jacobites and Nonjurors are but a race of British
Hottentots, as blind and bigotted as their brethren about
the Cape, but more savage in their manners.' It was
thought no hardship to tax them double ; in 1722 it was
proposed and carried in Parliament to raise 100,OOOZ. on
the estates of Nonjurors and papists; and a Nonjuring
clergyman was thought to have been far too leniently
treated when he was put in the pillory, fined, and
imprisoned for three years, for being concerned in the
publication of a book which had been stamped with the
full approval of the saintly Eobert Nelson ; while another
had his gown stripped off his back by the common
hangman. This violent antagonism, added to the negative
disadvantage of being entirely shut out from all public
employments, undoubtedly contributed to the gradual
dwindling away of the Nonjuring body.
But in that body there were still men of transcendent
NEW CONSECRATIONS IN 1720-1 311
ability and piety, as the following sketches of individuals
will, it is hoped, show.
The bishops must, of course, come first. The prin-
ciples of the Nonjurors led them to attach so great
importance to the episcopate that it would be quite out
of harmony with their spirit to give their bishops any but
the first place; but it is fair to add that some who
did not attain episcopal rank were far more eminent than
some who did. In fact, several of the later bishops will
require only a very brief notice.
The first two who were consecrated after the Usages
controversy arose were Hilkiah Bedford and Ralph
Taylor. The consecration took place on St. Paul's Day
(January 25), 1720-1, in the chapel at Gray's Inn, of
which Dr. Richard Rawlinson was the minister. The
consecrators were Bishops Spinckes, Hawes, and Gandy,
all Non-Usagers. Neither of the two lived to enjoy his
new honours long, Bedford dying in 1724, and Taylor in
1722 ; and neither of them took any prominent part in
Nonjuring affairs after his consecration. Bedford's life-
work was done before he reached the episcopate, and
therefore his career has been traced in connection with
the earlier Nonjurors. 1 He was not an old man in years
when he became a bishop, but one can well understand
that his troubled life, with his three years' imprisonment,
would make him old before his time, and that he would
be glad of rest. Ralph Taylor was an old man at the
time of his consecration ; having taken his B.A. degree at
Trinity College, Oxford, in 1670, he must have been at
least seventy. He had been rector of Stoke Severn for
some years before the Revolution, when he refused to
take the oaths and was deprived in 1690. Like many
Nonjurors he went abroad, joining his lost sovereign. He
1 See supra, pp. 198-203.
312 THE NONJUEOBS
was for some time chaplain to the English Churchmen at
the Court of St. Germains. There he came into contact
with Denis Granville, the deprived Dean of Durham ;
and when Dean Granville died at Paris, in 1703, Dr.
Taylor officiated at his funeral. The only use he appears
to have made of his very brief episcopate was to per-
form an act which he had much better have left undone.
He was induced to consecrate two bishops, by his sole
authority, and without the assistance or approval of the
regular Nonjurors, and thus commenced a short-lived
irregular succession, as will be duly described in a future
page. This was in 1722, and he died in December the
same year.
The Usagers quickly followed with a consecration on
their side ; but they were reduced to such straits that
Collier and Brett were obliged to call in the aid of a
Scotch bishop, Archibald Campbell, and on November 25,
1722, the three joined in consecrating John Griffin to the
episcopate.
John Griffin (1680-1731) was born at Towcester, in
Northants, where his father was a surgeon. He was
educated at the neighbouring grammar school of Green's
Norton, and proceeded thence to Merton College, Oxford,
in 1696. He was ordained deacon in 1702, priest in 1704,
was curate of Compton in Kent for about two years, and
then settled at Sarsden/near Chipping Norton, where he
was curate to a Mr. Vernon ; and in 1709 he was also
made lecturer of Churchill, within half a mile of Sarsden.
In 1715 he refused the oaths, quitted both posts, and
became chaplain to Lord Plymouth. He went in 1728 'to
take care of the congregation at Newcastle-upon-Tyne,'
being at that time a bishop; and among the ordina-
tions recorded in the Eawlinson MSS. we find ' William
Fothergill ordained Deacon at Newcastle-upon-Tyne by
JOHN GEIFFIN HENBY DOUGHTY 313
Mr. John Griffin.' In 1730 * he was obliged to remove
for his health's sake/ so he returned to Sarsden and
remained there, ' at the seat of Sir David Walter, Bart.,'
until his death, July 8, 1731. He was buried in the
chancel of Churchill. 1 An obituary notice in the Daily
Post, September 25, 1731, says that ' he lived retired, was
an excellent scholar, and remarkable for his singular
modesty and exemplary life and conversation, which
captivated the affections of all that had the happiness
to know him.' When he became a bishop he joined
ollier, Brett, and other Nonjuring prelates in their cor-
respondence with the Eastern Church, and his signature
'Johannes Anglo-Britanniae Episcopus,' appears in all
the later letters. 2
The next consecration was on the part of the Non-
Usagers, and was performed by four Scotch bishops, who,
unlike Campbell and Gadderar, had no particular con-
nection with the English Nonjurors. Thinking, perhaps,
that some apology was needed (as it certainly was) for
acting outside their province, without the co-operation,
as in other cases, of any bishop belonging to the English
Nonjurors, they explained in the Apographum that they
had acted because 'most of their dearest brethren and
colleagues in the Episcopal College among the Britons
had fallen asleep in the Lord, and the very few who
survived were all but worn out by manifold cares, by
diseases and by the weight of old age.' 3 The new bishop
was Henry Doughty (1662-1730), son of Henry Doughty,
rector (?) of Elton, in the diocese of Durham ; he was
1 Most of this information is derived from a letter (not published) of
N. Sturges to Dr. Eawlinson, dated ' Sarsden, June 13, 1733.'
2 See G. Williams's The Orthodox and the Nonjurors, p. 124 onwards,
and Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors, p. 353.
3 The full apographum is given in a very interesting paper, entitled
'Fragmenta Varia. No. 1. Pope Innocent XII. and the Nonjuring Con-
secration,' in The Union Beview, vol. i. January to December 1863.
314 THE NONJUEOES
educated at Durham School, and graduated at St. John's
College, Cambridge (B.A. 1686, M.A. 1689), and became
curate of Kobin Hood's Bay, Flamborough. There are
three interesting letters from him to Mr. Hope, Dean
Granville's former curate at Easington, inserted in
Granville's Remains ; they are dated respectively 1709,
1712, and 1714, and show that the writer was in the
full swim of Nonjuring life, while his correspondent was
not. 1 Doughty and Hope would be known to one another
through their connection with Durham.
Unlike all the rest of the Nonjuring bishops, Doughty
was consecrated, not in a Nonjuring oratory in London,
but at Edinburgh on March 30, 1725, by John Fullarton
(Bishop of Edinburgh), Arthur Miller, William Irvine,
and David Eairbairn, bishops, and the Apographum says,
they 'had taken upon them the responsibility of this
consecration, at the earnest request of Bps. Spinckes
and Collier.' Bishop Doughty died on July 14, 1730, and
his death is thus noticed in the Grub Street Journal,
1 Wednesday, July 15. Yesterday died in the 69 th year of
his age the Rev d * Mr. Doughty, a Nonjuring Clergyman.
He was a gentleman eminently distinguished for all those
good qualities, which make a man an ornament to his
profession, and was deservedly loved and esteemed by all
who knew him.'
The next bishop was a more notable man, 'John
Blackbourne consecrated at Grey's Inne by Mr. Spinckes,
Gandy and Doughty on Ascension Day, 1725 in the
presence of Heneage, Earl of Winchilsea, Mr. John
Creyk, Jos. Hall, Sir Thos. L'Estrange, Bart., Mr.
Tho. Martyn, and Mr. Wm. Bowyer.'
John Blackbourne (1683-1741) graduated from Trinity
College, Cambridge, and after refusing the Abjuration
1 See Remains of Denis Granville (Surtees Soc.), ii. 251-4.
JOHN BLACKBOUBNE 315
Oath of 1715, became a corrector of the press for
William Bowyer, and was ' one of the most accurate of
any that ever took upon him that laborious employ.' l
But he also published literary work on his own account,
culminating in an edition of the Works of Francis
Bacon, an ambitious undertaking which professed to be
the first complete edition ever issued in England ; and, as
already noted, he was probably the writer of that im-
portant pamphlet, ' Mr. Collier's " Desertion Discussed,"
and the * Historical Account ' of the rise of the Usages
controversy. If so, he must have been living or staying
at Worcester at the time, for that document is dated
'Worcester,' 1719. But his permanent home was London,
where he officiated at the oratory in Gray's Inn, known
as * Mr. Blackbourne's Chapel.' He was the last of
the Nonjuring bishops who held out against the Usages,
continuing to officiate according to the use of the Estab-
lished Church until his death in 1741. He took a leading
part in a meeting about the Usages in 1731, which for
the time prevented what may be called the surrender of
the Non-Usagers. An obituary notice of Blackbourne,
taken from the MSS. of Eichard Bowes, D.D., is inserted
in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes,' which, after having
mentioned the facts noted, gives the following interesting
anecdote :
This good man for several years has been a Nonjuring
Bishop equal to most of our bench. I waited on him often in
Little Britain, where he lived almost lost to the world, and hid
amongst old books. One day, before dinner, he went to his
bureau and took out a paper. It was a copy of the testimonial
sent to King James (as he called him), signed by his Lordship
(Winchelsea) and two others (I think) in his behalf. He after-
wards shewed me the commission for his consecration. Upon
this I begged his blessing, which he gave me with the fervent
1 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of tJie Eighteenth Century, i. 252.
316 THE NON JURORS
zeal and devotion of a primitive Bishop. I asked him if I was
so happy as to belong to his diocese? His answer was (I
thought) very remarkable : ' Dear friend ' (said he) ' we leave
the sees open, that the gentlemen who now unjustly possess
them, upon the restoration, may, if they please, return to their
duty, and be continued. We content ourselves with full epis-
copal power as suffragans.' l
Blackbourne died at Islington, and was buried in
Islington Churchyard, where his epitaph (a long one)
describes him as ' Pontificorum aeque ac Novatorum
Malleus,' which implies that he wrote both against
papists and Protestant Dissenters.
Another consecration on the Non-Usagers' side
quickly followed that of Mr. Blackbourne. On St.
Barnabas's Day (June 11), 1725, ' Mr. Henry Hall
[1672-1731] was consecrated in Mr. Blackbourne's
Chapell in Grey's Inne by Rev. Mr. Spinckes, Gandy,
Doughty and Blackbourne ; present, Jos. Hall, John
Creyke, Wm. Law, Mr. Geo. Bew, Mr. Wm. Bowyer,
Tho. Martyn, and Mr. Brewster.' The new bishop was
trained in Nonjuring traditions, for he was the son of
Thomas Hall, rector of Castle Camps, who had refused
the oaths at the Kevolution ; and both he and his brother,
Joseph Hall, followed their father's example and became
Nonjurors. As a member of St. John's College, Cam-
bridge, he would see the Nonjuring element well repre-
sented. He died in 1731, and the following account is
given of him in the Evening Post :
Nov. 25, 1731 was decently interred at the West-end of S fc
James's chur-yard Westminster the Corpse of the late Rev d-
M r - Henry Hall, formerly of S. John's Col. Cambridge, who
had travelled very much in foreign parts, from whence he was
but lately returned. He was an accomplished Gent, of singular
learning, modesty and other valuable qualifications, which in
other times might have rendered him an Ornament to the
1 Nichols's Lit. An. i. 252-3.
H. HALL T. BEETT, THE YOUNGER 317
highest station in his Profession. He was justly lamented by
all who enjoy'd the happiness of his acquaintance.
The writer evidently did not know that he was a Non-
juring bishop, which is not surprising, as such bishops
were addressed, even by Nonjurors, simply as ' Mr. So-
and-so.'
It is somewhat strange that little or nothing should
be known about the next bishop, who bore a famous
name, and belonged to a family which preserved the
Nonjuring traditions after they had nearly died out else-
where. Thomas Brett, the younger, was consecrated by
his father, Thomas Brett, the elder, John Griffin and
Archibald Campbell, April 9, 1727 ; he was, of course, on
the Usagers' side, and took part with his father in one
consecration. But he must have died early ; for, whereas
we hear much about his brother Nicholas (who was
chaplain to Sir Robert Cotton, and afterwards lived in the
family house of the Bretts, Spring Grove, and is described
as *a man universally esteemed for his great learning,
general knowledge, and extensive benevolence ')/ we hear
nothing of Thomas. In a biographical notice of the
elder Thomas Brett it is said that ' he left a widow and
one surviving son ' ; as Nicholas certainly survived him
for many years, dying in 1776, it would seem that
Thomas died before his father.
The next consecration was that of a man who in com-
mon gratitude ought never to be forgotten by those who
take an interest in the history of the Nonjurors ; for more
than any other man he has supplied original, contem-
porary, and trustworthy information which is simply
1 See Monuments of Kent, by Philip Parsons, minister of Wye, p. 4.
See also Letters relating to the State of the Church of England with respect
to tlie Roman Church, both in her Doctrine and Practice, by Dr. Brett
edited by T. Bowdler, 1850. There Nicholas occurs, but not Thomas.
318 THE NONJUEOES
invaluable for that history. The reader of the preceding
pages will have already anticipated the name.
Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755) was the son of Sir
Thomas Rawlinson, a London citizen, a vintner, who
was Lord Mayor in 1705, and had been knighted twenty
years previously. Kichard was the fourth son in a family
of fifteen children ; but his father was probably a rich
man who could afford to give all his children a good
education. Richard passed from St. Paul's School to
Eton, and thence to St. John's College, Oxford, where he
entered as a commoner in March 1707-8. His father
died in November 1708, when he became a gentleman-
commoner and graduated in 1711. While still an under-
graduate he began to develop his taste for antiquities and
curious literature, for as early as 1709 Hearne refers to
him in connection with these topics ; and he became so
well known that at the early age of twenty-four he was
elected Fellow of the Royal Society. All through his
life his tastes seem to have been antiquarian and topo-
graphical more than ecclesiastical ; so, from the point of
view of this book, he will not require so long a notice as
his priceless services to the subject before us might seem
to demand. Being a staunch Nonjuror and Jacobite he
did not, of course, seek Holy Orders in the Established
Church, but he was ordained deacon by Collier on St.
Matthias's Day, 1716, and priest on the following Sunday.
He concealed, however, his clerical office, dressing as a
layman, and requesting his friends not to address him
as 'reverend.' He travelled largely both at home and
abroad, following his favourite pursuits until 1726, when
his elder brother, Thomas, a man of kindred tastes and
principles, died ; then he settled in London, living, it is
said, in a garret in Gray's Inn. The oratory in Gray's
Inn is sometimes called ' Dr. Rawlinson's Chapel,' but
EICHAED RAWLINSON 319
more frequently ' Mr. Blackbourne's,' the latter being the
regular minister. It was on the Festival of the Annun-
ciation (March 25), 1728, that Rawlinson, or, as he him-
self puts it, ' x x x xxxxxxxx was consecrated by
Mr. Gandy, Doughty and Blackbourne, in Mr. Gandy's
Chapell, in presence of Mr. Kichard Kussell, John
Lindsay, Rob. Gordoun, Thos. Martyn, Rich. Tireman,
Tho. Peirce, Tho. Gyles and John Martyn, jun r .' He
was a Non-Usager, and joined in a declaration against
the Usages ; but he took little or no part in Nonjuring
affairs, and as he says that he had been ' over-prevailed
to be more public ' than he desired, it is not unlikely
that he would have preferred not to have been made
a bishop at all. The collecting of rare editions, rare
MSS., coins, seals, quaint inscriptions and epitaphs
in short, the pursuits of a virtuoso were more to his
mind. At the same time it must be remembered that it
is to this same inquiring mind applied to other subjects
that we owe vast stores of information respecting the
Nonjurors. For Dr. Rawlinson was quite as much in-
terested in contemporary matters with which he was,
or had been, connected. Thus, his very first literary
project seems to have been a Life of Anthony Wood,
whose memory was still fresh at Oxford when Rawlinson
went into residence; he made great preparations for
writing a history of Eton College, collected materials for
a continuation of Wood's ' Athense Oxonienses,' which, of
course, would soon have brought him to his own con-
temporaries, and also for a History of the Nonjurors. 1
Happily the materials for both the latter works are still
extant in manuscript, and have been largely drawn upon
for the composition of the present volume. But it is not
only for his own manuscripts that students of Nonjuring
1 See RetiguMB Hearniance, iii. 160.
320 THE NONJUROBS
history are indebted to Dr. Eawlinson. To him also
they owe the preservation of the Hearne manuscripts, a
treasury which has as yet been only partially unlocked,
but which, even as far as it has gone, is priceless. For it
was Eawlinson who bought all Hearne 's Collections and
diaries of the widow of Hilkiah Bedford for 105Z., Hearne
having left them to Thomas Bedford, the son of Hilkiah ;
and, as Eawlinson left all his manuscripts to the Bodleian
Library, Hearne returned, as it were, after his death to
the place where he had spent so much of his life. Dr.
Eawlinson was in some respects eccentric, and if it were
the object of this book to make people laugh it would
be easy to give specimens, more or less authentic, of his
eccentricity. But it would be very ungracious in one
who owes so much to him to repeat the idle tales, none
of which, however, are inconsistent with his character as
a Christian and a Churchman. Eawlinson's information on
all subjects, including that with which we are now specially
concerned, is thoroughly to be relied on, and that is the
main point. It will suffice to add that some time after
the death of his elder brother, Thomas, he removed from
Gray's Inn to London House (so called because it had
once been a residence of the bishops of London), in
Aldersgate, but died at Islington on April 6, 1755, and
was buried in St. Giles's Church, Oxford Oxford being a
fitting resting-place for one who had been a great bene-
factor to the University while living, and a still greater
one by the bequests which he left to it at his death.
The next bishop was a man of high type, both intel-
lectually and spiritually. George Smith (1693-1756) was
a native of Durham. His father, John Smith, a pre-
bendary of Durham, was one of eleven brothers, all of
whom rose to more or less eminence, especially Joseph,
who was a noted Provost of Queen's College, Oxford ;
GEORGE SMITH 321
his mother's maiden name was Cooper, and her sister
married Hilkiah Bedford ; his godfather was the well-
known Sir George Wheler, after whom he was named.
He was educated at Westminster, living with his uncle,
Hilkiah Bedford, who, as we have seen, kept a flourishing
boarding-house for Westminster boys. Thence he pro-
ceeded in 1709 to St. John's College, Cambridge, but
removed in 1711 to Queen's College, Oxford, where his
uncle, Joseph Smith, was then fellow. He next became
a student at the Inner Temple ; but in 1715 his father
died, leaving him a good fortune, and in 1717 he bought
New Burn Hall, near Durham, where he resided as a
country gentleman. He married his cousin, Christian,
eldest daughter of Hilkiah Bedford, by whom he had a
numerous family, and who survived him for twenty-five
years. When he became a Nonjuror and when he received
Holy Orders is not known ; his name does not occur in
Eawlinson's list of Nonjuring ordinations. Indeed, I find
no notice of him in this connection until St. Stephen's
Day, 1728, when he was consecrated a bishop on the Non-
usagers' side by Gandy, Blackbourne and Eawlinson. His
valuable writings do not bear directly upon the Nonjuring
question, and therefore do not belong to this chapter,
with the exception of a tract entitled ' A Defence of the
Communion Office of the Church of England,' that is, as
against the New Communion Office of the Usagers ; but
his most valuable contribution to the Usages controversy
was his attempt to end it. To him, on the one side,
*ind Dr. Brett on the other, is mainly due the partial
reunion of the two sections of Nonjurors in 1731, and
he and the two Bretts joined in the consecration of a
bishop who represented both sides in that year. 1 Some
1 There are some interesting letters (MS.) preserved in the Library of
'St. John's College, Cambridge, from the Scotch bishop, John Gillan, to
322 THE NONJUEORS
years after he became a bishop he wrote two treatises on
a subject in which both sections of the Nonjurors were
interested the sacrificial character of the Eucharist,
measurings swords with no less an antagonist than the
mighty Dr. Waterland. The first is entitled ' An Episto-
lary Dissertation Addressed to the Clergy of Middlesex
wherein the Doctrine of St. Austin concerning the Chris-
tian Sacrifice is set in a true light. By way of Keply to
Dr. Waterland's late Charge to them. By a Divine
of the University of Cambridge (1739).' He is charac-
teristically courteous to his opponent. 'Our Doctrine/
he writes, ' of Sacrifice was, in the dispute between the
late Dr. Hickes and his opponents, formerly cryed down
as Popish ; of this Imputation Dr. Waterland has been so
just as to clear it, for which we cannot but return him
our thanks ; ' and he ends : ' I hope I have said nothing
which can give your worthy Archdeacon, whose uncommon
learning and merit I highly reverence, any reasonable
offence : and if this Controversy is to be continued I hope
it will be carried on in a friendly and Christian manner/
In connection with the same great divine Smith published
* An Historical Account of the Primitive Invocation or
Prayer for a Blessing upon the Eucharistic Elements. . .
A Confirmation of some things mentioned in the learned
Dr. Waterland' s Review, and by way of Supplement to
it. In a Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1740.'
The controversy was ended by the death of Dr. Waterland
in the year in which this letter was published. Bishop
George Smith died on November 4, 1756, and was buried
at St. Oswald's, Durham, where there is an English
inscription on his tomb in the churchyard, and a Latin
George Smith, in which Gillan congratulates Smith on his efforts to bring
about reunion : * God will certainly reward you for contributing to so
meritorious a work. B. are the peacemakers,' and so forth.
ROBERT GORDON 323
one on a monument to him in the church. He will meet
us again as a learned writer and editor of works not con-
nected with the Nonjuring question.
Of the bishop who represented the union effected by
the Christian efforts of Smith and Brett, all that appears
to be known is that his name was Timothy Mawman,
that he graduated from Queen's College, Oxford, in 1705,
that he was consecrated in July 1731, and that he joined
with the elder Brett and Smith in consecrating the next
and last bishop of the regular succession among the Non-
jurors on St. Barnabas's Day, 1741. Thus ten years elapsed
before another consecration followed that of Mawman, a
fact which in itself is sufficient to show that the party
was dying out, for in the preceding ten years there had
been no less than nine consecrations. But the new bishop
survived for many years, and heroically kept together the
last congregation of regular Nonjurors after the rest had
melted away.
Eobert Gordon, or Gordoun (d. 1779), was a Scotchman
by birth, and was brought up in what he calls the ' Scottish
Nonjurant Church,' but from his early years he had been
connected with the English Church, and that connection
was strengthened by his marriage. We gain a curious
glimpse of his early years from the interesting collection
of letters entitled 'The Lyon in Mourning,' for the
preservation of which we are indebted to Eobert Forbes,
Bishop of Eoss and Caithness, and for their .publication to
the Scottish History Society. We learn from these that
he was probably educated at Durham, for he told Bishop
Forbes in 1769 that
he remembered well that, when eleven or twelve years of age,
he had been in the quire at Durham with a crowd of boys,
when Lord Crew was bishop, and he then saw several young
folks confirmed, but that he did not remember that he himself
had kneeled down "and received that benefit. He therefore
Y2
324 THE NONJUEOES
begged that to remove all doubts and scruples from his mind I
might make up that defect. I agreed, and to-morrow morning
was accordingly appointed before breakfast for that purpose in
his own bed chamber, none to be present but Mrs. Forbes only. 1
In later years he was connected with Durham through
his marriage with Elizabeth, younger daughter of Hilkiah
Bedford, whose eldest daughter married Bishop George
Smith, of Burn Hall, near Durham. Gordon frequently
visited the Smiths at Burn Hall, on his way between
London and Scotland, when he visited his friend Forbes.
He refers more than once to ' Sister Smith ' and ' my late
brother-in-law, Thomas Bedford,' and we gather that
young Mr. Smith, his wife's nephew, helped him in his
ministrations in London. His home was in Theobald's
Road, and there he ministered to a little congregation up
to the time of his death. His oratory was probably in
the immediate neighbourhood. Of his ministrations there
we learn something from the same Bishop Forbes, who
describes vividly in a ' Journal ' a visit which he and
Mrs. Forbes paid to London in 1764 :
After dinner we drove to Bishop Gordoun's, Theobald's
Eow [sic], who, being abroad Mrs. Gordoun informed us where
we were to lodge; upon which we wheeled about to Mr.
Falconar's house, where Bishop Gordoun favoured us with a
visit in the evening most kindly welcoming us to London, and
telling us that Mrs. Gordoun w y ould call for us next morning to
conduct us to his chapel. Sunday, Sep. 30. Mrs. Gordoun
called for us in the morning and took us along with her to
Prayers ; and sorry was I to see the suffering Nonjurant clergy
so poorly attended in England ; only about 30 or 40 in Bp.
Gordoun's chapel. Sunday, Oct. 7. I performed Matins and
Vespers for Mr. Gordoun, and was at the same Altar with him,
where only about 30 persons communicated. S. Luke's Day.
I read Matins for Bpi Gordoun (when he informed me, upon
asking, that there were none of the same character, but himself
only in England), he performing the 2nd service at the Altar.
1 Lyon in Mourning, iii. 231.
EOBEET GOEDON 325
Then he tells us that Gordoun omitted the words
' militant ' and
made this great addition, all sick and distressed Persons par-
ticularly such as may be suffering in the cause of Truth and
Righteousness, &c. and added Exiles to Prisoners and Captives ,
made a long pause after these words, * Departed this Life in
thy Faith and Fear/ during which he and his people, with
hands and eyes lifted up unto heaven were commemorating
mentally such of the faithful departed as they should judge
most proper at the time ; and in the prayer of Consecration, he
also made a long pause after these words, ' Hear us, Merciful
Father, we most humbly beseech Thee,' in order to introduce
mentally the Invocation of the Holy Spirit of God upon the
elements of Bread and Wine. Immediately after the Prayer of
Consecration he used the Oblatory Prayer. 1
Bishop Gordon saw with great grief the gradual drop-
ping off of adherents to the N onjuring cause. He was an
intimate friend and frequent correspondent of Thomas
Wagstaffe, the younger, who held the rather anomalous
office of Protestant chaplain to the Roman Catholic
Prince, Charles Edward, and his sorrow at Wagstaffe's
death in 1771 is heightened by the rumour that he was to
be succeeded by young Mr. Smith, Mrs. Gordon's nephew,
who was a sort of assistant curate to his uncle. 2 It was
a still greater grief to him to hear about the same time
that the Bretts of Spring Grove, hitherto the staunchest
of Nonjurors, were about to desert the cause, 3 and he con-
trasts their conduct with that of the Bowdlers, who still
remained faithful; Bishop Forbes was called in to the
rescue, and made an ineffectual journey into Kent to try
and persuade Nicholas Brett to adhere to the ' suffering
remnant.' Poor Bishop Gordon seems now to have felt
1 See Journals of Episcopal Visitations of Robert Forbes, Bishop of
Boss and Caithness, with Memoir, by J. B. Craven, the Editor, 1886,
pp. 30-34.
2 See Lyon in Mourning, iii. 293.
9 Ibid. iii. 334.
326 THE NONJUKOBS
that there was nothing left for him but to wrap his robes
around him and die gracefully; on March 5, 1777, he
solemnly commended his flock to the Scotch Nonjuring
bishops in a touching letter addressed to ' The Primus
and his Colleagues of the Church of Scotland ' :
Considering my age and infirmities I feel anxiety to provide
for the spiritual comfort and security of the poor orphans of
the anti -re volution Church of England, whom I shall leave
behind me; it is therefore my earnest desire and request to
your paternities, that you would vouchsafe to take the poor
minished remnant under the wings of your paternal protection,
receiving them into full Communion as sound members of the
Catholick Church, by such synodical act as your paternities
in your wisdom shall deem meet ; wherein, right Reverend
brethren, you will afford the highest satisfaction and comfort
to your affec. brother and devoted servant in Christ.
He must have derived a crumb of comfort from the
following reply of the Scotch prelates :
We hereby declare upon every proper occasion our willing-
ness to take under our care and tuition ; and to receive into
full communion with us, in all offices of Christian Communion
and fellowship, as members of Christ's Mystical Body, all who
are in communion with you ; and we promise they shall be
entitled to the same privileges, in the participation of the Holy
Mysteries, and all other means of grace dispensed by the
bishops and ministers of our church, equally with those
under our pastoral care in this our ancient kingdom. 1
Bishop Gordon was from first to last not only a
staunch and uncompromising Nonjuror, but a most
enthusiastic Jacobite, quite undaunted by the abortive
attempt of 1745, and ready to the last to join in any
measure for the restoration of the ancient line. He kept
up a constant communication with the Chevalier, all of
whose doings he reports to his friend Forbes, calling
1 Quoted from the MS. 'Register of the College of Bishops,' i. 27-30, in
the excellent Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by George Grub, iv. 90.
ROBERT GORDON 327
him 'The lady your favourite,' 'The lady our friend,'
' Cousin Peggie,' ' Poor Peggie.' The Bowdlers were
faithful to him to the last ; and their biographer, another
Bowdler, worthy of his descent, writes of him :
The Right Revd. Robert Gordon died in November, 1779, at a
very advanced age. Bowdler attended him with the unremitting
kindness which was due to his father's old and intimate friend ;
and ' never,' said he, ' was I witness to such piety, resignation,
benevolence and true politeness. He was a truly primitive
bishop, a tender husband, a warm friend, and a true gentleman ;
and so pleasing in his manners and unexceptionable in his
conduct, that in spite of the inconveniences and insults to
which his character and the times exposed him, he lived
unmolested and respected by all who knew him.' l
Not quite all. Gordon, like all men who hold tenaciously
unpopular opinions, had his enemies as well as his friends,
and the most bitter would naturally be among those who
had once held the same opinions, and afterwards aban-
doned them. Dr. William King had been the energetic
leader of the Jacobite party at Oxford up to the accession
of George III., and then, like many others, abandoned it.
Such tergiversation would be sure to irritate Gordon, who
adhered all the closer to the Stuarts the more hopeless
their cause seemed ; and as William King was a man
who used strong language, we can very well understand
how he could write about Gordon in very different terms
from those of John Bowdler. 2
There is a contemporary notice of Gordon's funeral :
4 1779, last week of November, reverential groups were as-
sembled in Theobald's Road to witness the passing to the
grave of the last Nonjuring bishop of the regular succes-
sion Bishop Gordon.' 3 Probably his burying-place was
1 Memoir of John Bawdier, with some account of TJiomas Bowdler, p. 82.
2 See Political and Literary Anecdotes of His Own Times, by Dr.
William King, Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxon., p. 191, et scq.
3 See London in the Jacobite Times, ii. 352.
328 THE NONJUROES
the same as that in which Bobert Nelson was laid, for it
was in the vicinity, and was much used by Nonjurors.
It might be expected that after the death of Gordon,
and the winding up of affairs by the transference of his
charge to the Scottish bishops, the history of the Non-
jurors would come to a natural end. But this is by no
means the case. There were two distinct offshoots of the
regular Nonjuring body, both of which arose before the
consecration of Gordon, while one of them survived his
death for a quarter of a century. Belonging to the first
were three bishops ; to the second ten. But, without any
disrespect either to the individuals or to their episcopal
claims, it can hardly be said that these prelates stand
quite on the same footing as the rest. For this, if for
no other reason. The regular Nonjurors were most strict
about the consecration of their bishops. Three bishops
at least took part in the rite ; it was always done in the
presence of responsible witnesses ; the acts of consecra-
tion were always signed, sealed, properly attested, and
carefully preserved; and a regular officer was formally
appointed as keeper of Nonjuring Church registers. But
the irregular successions were each through one bishop
alone, which was regarded as uncanonical by the regular
body ; nor were the names of the witnesses (if any)
officially chronicled and preserved. The first irregular
succession originated from special circumstances. It was
made in order to meet a special want in the * plantations/
and there is a considerable amount of mystery about it.
The second arose from the dissatisfaction of one single
man (who, by the way, was not an English Nonjuror at
all) with the extent to which the Usagers had carried
their return to primitive usages, and who made this new
DETACHMENT OF LATEE NONJUROES 329
division in order to advance it farther. It seems, then,
the proper course to make these two offshoots a subject
of separate treatment, and to proceed at present with the
history of the regular body, passing on from the bishops
to the other clergy and laity who attached themselves
to it.
One striking contrast between the earlier and later
Non jurors was that the latter were a far less compact and
united body, and had less of the esprit de corps about
them. It was not so much that they differed from, as
that they were detached from, one another, taking each
his own line instead of working together. This was, no
doubt, in part owing to the dispute which raged within
the little community between the years 1717 and 1731,
and which left its sting behind long after it had been
patched up after a fashion. But there was another
reason which is noticed by Mr. Hutton : ' As the body
came to have less and less relation to the religious life of
the whole nation, it became more and more literary, anti-
quarian, and theological.' 1 There is a tone of despondency
in the later Nonjurors, when writing about their cause,
which intimates that they had almost despaired of its
success, and that all they could do was to liberate their
own souls by giving a clear testimony, and then help the
general cause of ' true religion and sound learning ' as
best they might. The faithful remnant was becoming
smaller and smaller, and there w r as no tie that bound
it together in any definite way. But when we turn to
individuals we find there were eminent men among the
later Nonjurors who will quite bear comparison in every
way with any that could be selected at an earlier period.
Let us begin with one who is, perhaps, the best known
of them all.
1 Social England, edited by H. D. Traill, iv. 531-4.
330 THE NONJUROES
William Law (1686-1761) was a man who could
hardly have failed to take a foremost place in any religious
community. His outer life was very uneventful. He
was born at King's Cliffe, in Northants, where his father
was a grocer; went as a sizar to Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, in 1705 ; was ordained deacon and elected
fellow of his college in 1711 ; lost his fellowship on the
accession of George I. because he refused to take the
oaths; after a period of unsettlement found a home in
the family of Mr. Edward Gibbon, grandfather of the
historian, at Putney, first as tutor to the second Edward
Gibbon, the historian's father, and then as 'the much-
honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family,'
to quote the words of the third Edward Gibbon, the
historian himself. 1 In 1737 the elder Mr. Gibbon died,
and the household at Putney was broken up. Law, after
another period of restlessness, retired in 1740 to his native
place, and remained there until his death in 1761. Two
pious ladies, Mrs. Hutcheson and Miss Hester Gibbon,
daughter of his patron, placed themselves under his
spiritual direction, and the three strove to live lives based
on a literal application of the principles of the Sermon on
the Mount, as adapted to modern circumstances by Law
himself in what he calls his ' two practical treatises.'
In his remote Northamptonshire home Law was quite
out of the main stream of Nonjuring life, and qua Non-
juror he seems there to have stood alone. He always,
indeed, had his little knot of admiring disciples one
might almost say hero-worshippers with whom his word
was law; but with one exception, and that a doubtful
one, they were not Nonjurors, and there is hardly a
passage in his works from which, unless one read between
1 Memoirs of My Life and Writings, i. 17, in Gibbon's Miscellaneou s
Works, edited by Lord Sheffield, 1796.
WILLIAM LAW 331
the lines, it could be gathered that he was a Nonjuror
himself. Nor could it be gathered by the casual observer
from the ordinary course of his life. So far from absent-
ing himself from public worship, he made a point of
attending every service in his parish church ; and in the
touching regulations which he drew up with his own
hand for his charity schools, his almshouses, and his
clerical library at King's Cliffe, he showed the utmost
loyalty to that Mother Church which had proved but a
harsh step-mother to him. The rector of King's Cliffe
for the time being was always to be a trustee for his
charities, both for children and for ' widows and ancient
maidens.' ' Every boy and girl at their going out of the
school are to have a new Bible, and Book of Common
Prayer distinct from it, given to them.' The girls (who
were his peculiar charge) were to be l constant at church
at all times of Divine service, as well on the week-days
as on the Sundays.' ' They must always go to church
at all funerals, and placing themselves at those times
together, all of them join in singing the psalm that shall
then be appointed.' He composed a beautiful little
' prayer on entering church ' for them, and at his request
the Psalms were always sung at King's Cliffe Church.
Nevertheless, Law had more sympathy both with the
Nonjuring and with the Jacobite cause than is commonly
supposed. In his hot youth he had involved himself in
trouble at Cambridge by giving vent to hardly veiled
Jacobite sentiments in a Tripos speech, for which he
was ' degraded,' and to those sentiments he adhered,
though with much greater reserve and reticence, through
life.
He wrote a fine, manly letter to his elder brother
George to explain why he could not take the oath in
1715, and from the views expressed in that letter he
332 THE NONJUEOES
never swerved to the close of his life, forty-four years
later. He never joined the active opponents of the new
Government, for he had no mind to meddle with politics.
It was a matter of indifference to him personally whether
King James or King George were sitting on the throne ;
but his political sympathies were always with the exiled
Stuarts, and his theological with the Nonjurors. From
the latter he received priest's orders. In the list of
ordinations in the Eawlinson MSS. this entry occurs :
' (24) 1727, Jan^ 18 th , William Law, M.A., ordained
preist by M r - Gandy, present D r - Kawlinson, M r - Gordoun,
M r - Bowyer, M r * Bettenham, and M r< Charles Smith ' ;
and from the same trustworthy source we learn that he
was one of the witnesses present at the consecration of
Bishop Henry Hall ' in M r> Blackbourne's Chapell in
Grey's Inne.' He took some part, but it is difficult to
ascertain what part, in the ' Usages ' controversy. On
the whole, I am inclined to think that his clear, logical
mind perceived, as the clear, logical mind of Charles
Leslie perceived, that it was a mistake to make the Usages
essential; in other words, that he was not an 'Essen-
tialist.' But, as this is not a biography of William Law,
it would take up too much space to go into the matter
thoroughly, though it would be necessary to do so in
order to arrive at a conclusion. He sympathised with
the sufferings of the Nonjurors ; for when poor Dr.
Deacon's health and mental power broke down, and he
was in dire distress, we hear of Law sending him ten
guineas through John Byrom. 1 There are various inci-
dental notices which show that the more active Jacobites
and Nonjurors appreciated Law's talents and character
as they deserved to be appreciated. John Byrom avowedly
1 See Private Journal and Literary Bemains of John Byrom (Chetham
Soc.), ii. 545.
W. LAW J. LINDSAY 333
took Law for his lord and master, 1 regarding him with
the same sort of reverence with which Boswell regarded
Johnson. John Clayton, Wesley's Jacobite friend, when
both were Oxford Methodists and very High Churchmen,
refers to Law as a kind of final authority. 2 Two of the
ablest and most noted of the later Nonjurors, Thomas
Deacon and John Lindsay, both refer to Law in terms of
high respect. ' I want sadly to see you/ writes Deacon
to Byrom, February 20, 1729-30, to know what Mr. Law
says of you. Thos. a Cattell cannot relish his book.
O Christianity, where art thou to be found ? Not amongst
the clergy.' 3 Cattell was a clergyman, and the book
was, no doubt, the ' Serious Call/ which had been lately
published. ' Mr. Law/ writes John Lindsay to the same
correspondent in 1753, ' has cured me of curiosity/ 4 The
cure might have been effected either by Law's public
writings or by private correspondence or intercourse, for
Law and Lindsay were personal friends, though, owing
to that detachment which separated the later Nonjurors,
they saw little of one another.
The last sentence introduces us to another Nonjuror,
who, though not of so lofty a type or so rare a genius as
Law, was yet one whose attainments would have done
honour to any community in any age of the Church.
John Lindsay (1686-1768) was probably a native of
Cheshire, though his early history is rather obscure. He
is said to have been of the same family as Theophilus
Lindsey, the clergyman who became a Unitarian; and
the difference in the spelling of their names is not fatal
1 Oh ! how much better he from whom I draw,
Though deep yet clear his system ' Master Law.'
Master I call him ; not that I incline
To pin my faith on any one divine.
Epistle to a Gentleman of tlie Temple.
2 See Tyerman's Oxford MetJwdists, p. 38.
3 Byrom's Journal, vol. i. part ii. 429. 4 Ibid. iii. 552.
334 THE NONJUEORS
to the theory, for in the eighteenth century people had
not yet become at all particular about the spelling of
proper names. He is described in his epitaph as an
1 alumnus ' of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but his name does
not appear on the books. He is said to have been first
an attorney in Cheshire, and then, having received Holy
Orders, chaplain to Lady Fanshawe ; but he was then
only a deacon, for we find in the Eawlinson MSS. :
4 1717, June 18. Mr. John Lindsay was ordained preist
in Mr. Orme's Chapell (commonly called Trinity Chapell)
in the parish of S. Botolph Without, Aldersgate.'
He acted, like Blackbourne, as corrector of the press
for "William Bowyer, and was for many years minister of
the chapel in which he was ordained, succeeding Mr. Orme
in that post in 1733, and retaining it until his death in
1768. His own description of his life in 1747 gives one the
impression that his ministerial duties were rather light :
* I removed last Christmas from the Temple, and took a
lodging in Pear-Tree Street, near St. Luke's, Old Street,
where I spend my time chiefly among books, or in my
garden.' 1 It was there that in 1764 Bishop Forbes ' drank
tea with Rev. Mr. John Lindsay and his wife, near S.
Luke's Church/ and ' received from Mr. Lindsay two of
his own books in a present.' 2 He was certainly a corre-
spondent of William Law, though it is not always easy to
determine whether the ' J. L.' of Law's letters is John
Lindsay or James Langcake. At one time he lived at
Islington, for the Preface to his best-known publication
is dated from that place, and in Islington Churchyard he
was buried. The majority of his very able works are on
general subjects, and will therefore be noticed elsewhere ;
and one of those which bear directly upon the Nonjuring
1 ' Letter of John Lindsay,' quoted in Nichols's Lit. An. i. 376.
2 Journals, <&c., of Bisliop Robert Forbes, p. 34.
THOMAS CAETE 335
question has already been noticed. 1 Most of the works
assigned to Lindsay were published anonymously, and we
have to trust to tradition for their authorship ; there is,
however, the internal evidence of the style, which is
bright, easy, and scholarly, and corresponds exactly with
that of the works which he published under his own
name.
Among the later Nonjurors was another writer who
was in his own day more widely known than either Law
or Lindsay ; he touched life at more points, threw him-
self far more actively into the political, if not the theo-
logical, interests of his party, and produced a standard
work on a general subject which would find its way into
quarters into which even Law's works, which were all
exclusively religious, would never penetrate. Posterity,
however, which rarely makes a mistake in such matters,
has redressed the balance and placed Law far above Carte,
who now comes before us.
Thomas Carte (1686-1754) was born at Clifton-upon-
Dunsmore, where his father was vicar. He was an
Oxford man and graduated B.A. from University College
in 1702, and was then incorporated at Cambridge, where
he took his M.A. degree from King's College in 1706. He
then received Holy Orders, and became Reader at the
Abbey Church, Bath, a post which he held for several
years. He was known all the while to be a strong
Jacobite, but that would not go against him in the reign
of Queen Anne, especially in the last four years of that
reign. It was not until the accession of George I. that
his hand was forced ; he declined the new oaths, lost or
resigned his readership, and assumed a lay habit as some
other Nonjurors for prudential reasons did ; but this did
not at all mean that he was ashamed of his profession,
1 See supra, p. 284-6.
336 THE NONJUEOES
but simply that it was dangerous for him, thoroughgoing
Jacobite as he was, to appear without disguise. He was
suspected, probably not without reason, of being con-
cerned in the rebellion of 1715, and for some time lay
perdu in the house of Mr. Badger, curate of Coleshill,
occasionally, it is said, officiating in Kettlewell's old
church. This is by no means unlikely, for the Jacobite
party was still very strong, and it was not the policy of
the Government to inquire too closely into the political
opinions of the clergy. He then became connected with
Bishop Atterbury, acting probably as his secretary; so
when Atterbury was committed to the Tower in 1722, a
proclamation was issued offering 1,OOOZ. for the appre-
hension of Carte. Happily for him the description of his
personal appearance in the proclamation was absurdly in-
accurate, so he was able to escape to France, where he
lived under the assumed name of Phillips for six years,
employing his time in the most indefatigable literary
labour. He gained a well-deserved reputation for learn-
ing ; and therefore, on the accession of George II., Queen
Caroline, who was a steady patron of all learned men, no
matter what their opinions were, interceded for him, and
he returned to England in 1728. His valuable literary
work will be described in a later chapter.
Thomas Wagstaffe, the younger (1692-1770), second
son of Thomas Wagstaffe, the elder, is another distin-
guished man among the later Nonjurors, and it is only
owing to the fact that he lived at a time when the party
was dispersed, disunited, and diminished that he does not
hold so prominent a place in it as his father. Whether
he was an Oxford man like his father does not appear to
be known for a certainty, but at any rate he became,
as his writings abundantly prove, an excellent classical
scholar, besides being a well-read divine ; he was closely
THOMAS WAGSTAFFE, THE YOUNGER 337
associated with the leading Nonjurors, who showed their
confidence in him by making him keeper of their Church
records immediately after his ordination. 'In 1717-8
Mr. Thomas Wagstaffe, son of Mr. Tho. Wagstaffe, suf-
fragan Bp. of Ipswich, was ordained deacon by Mr.
Collier in Mr. Lawrence's Chapel ; present Mr. Lawrence,
Mr. Kichard and Thomas Kawlinson, Mr. Sam Jebb and
Mr. Eivett. Preist by Mr. Collier, at the same place, 25
April, 1719.' In the same year he published a pamphlet
of fifty-seven pages in excellent Latin on the subject
of the Mixed Chalice. It was written in reply to Samuel
Drake, a scholar of no mean repute, who had preached in
the University pulpit a sermon against the necessity of
' the Mixture.' Wagstaffe's pamphlet was entitled ' Vino
Eucharistico Aqua necessario admiscenda,' to which Drake
replied in 1721, in a long Latin pamphlet addressed ' Ad
Thomam Wagstaffe ' ; and Wagstaffe rejoined in another
pamphlet (1725) entitled ' Eesponsionis ad Concionem
Vindiciae, &c.' It will thus be seen that W T agstaffe was
a, Usager and Essentialist. His powers as a Latinist are
strikingly displayed in numerous Latin epitaphs, some of
which may be found in the pages of Nichols and Hearne,
while a still more interesting one has been discovered by
the present rector of St. Margaret Pattens (Rev. J. L.
Fish), which Wagstaffe wrote on his father, once rector
of that parish. He was also an accomplished Grecian,
and employed much time in collating the Greek MSS.
in the Vatican and Barberini Libraries at Kome. 1 And
besides being a classical scholar he was a good linguist
all round. ' He could speak seven languages besides his
own, and was as much at home in Hebrew, Arabic and
Syrian [sic] as in Italian or French.' At what time he
1 See, inter alia, the excellent article on the two Wagstaffes, in the
Dictionary of National Biography.
Z
338 THE NONJUBORS
finally left England is not known, but it was certainly
before 1738 that he went as Anglican chaplain, first to
the elder and then to the younger Chevalier, and re-
mained in that capacity for more than thirty- two years.
He did not succeed in converting either of them, but he
was highly respected by both, and by the Kornan people
generally. He is described in his old age as * a fine, well-
bred old gentleman, and, what is still infinitely more
valuable, a sincere, pious, exemplary, good Christian, so
conspicuously so that the people there [at Borne] were
wont to say that had he not been a Heretic, he ought to
have been canonised.' 1 It was Wagstaffe who kept
Gordon posted in the latest information about ' the King
over the water,' which information Gordon retailed to
Forbes. Gordon felt Wagstaffe's death deeply, and wrote
to Forbes on the occasion :
Jan. 1771. I am sorry that our hearty gratulations of the
new year, to yourself and good Mrs. Forbes, should be accom-
panied with the doleful news of the death of my old, and very
dear, dear friend, Mr. Wagstaffe, who departed this life full of
days and full of honour and all true worth, 011 the 3rd ult. in a
fit of apoplexy, which was notified to me by his patron [that is,
of course, Prince Charles Edward], who seems a good deal
affected by the loss, speaking of him in terms of high esteem
and regard. But God's will be done, and His name ever
glorified, who hath permitted it so to be. The good man
departed will be the gainer in being removed to the mansion of
peace and rest ; and our temporary loss, though grievous to
poor mortals, will be compensated in the reflections on the
rare virtues and illustrious and edifying example of our dear
brother, now happy, I doubt not, in the society of the faithful
departed ; to which society may we who survive prepare our-
selves by constant and assiduous endeavour to be united
Faxit Dem ! 2
1 See Tlie Lyon in Mourning, and Dictionary of National Biography,
Wagstaffe, Thomas.'
* The Lyon in Mourning, iii. 257.
THOMAS BEDFORD 339
It is rather remarkable that, though the Nonjurors
were a small and an ever diminishing party, they seem to
have had in an unusual degree the power of impressing
their views strongly upon their own families. It is al-
most a commonplace that the children of religious parents
too often fly off at a tangent to quite different opinions ; it
would be invidious to give instances, but anyone who is at
all acquainted with the religious history of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries will be able to supply
numerous instances for themselves. But it was not so
with the Nonjurors. The Bretts, Wagstaffes, Bowdlers, and
Bonwickes are instances, and now we come to another.
Thomas Bedford (1707-73), second son of Hilkiah
Bedford, followed closely in the steps of his father, and is
less known only because the later Nonjurors were a less
united body. The few facts that are known about him all
tally with what his circumstances would lead us to expect.
He was educated at Westminster School, as was natural,
since his father kept a boarding-house for Westminster
boys. Thence he.proceeded in 1730 to St. John's College,
Cambridge, as sizar to Dr. Jenkin, the master. Being a
strict Nonjuror, he could not take a degree ; in fact, his
residence at Cambridge must have been very brief, for
Bawlinson tells us that * Thomas Bedford was ordained
deacon at x x x , preist on St. John's Day, Dec. 27, 1731,
by Mr. Gandy in his own chapell.' After his ordina-
tion he found a home and employment as chaplain in
the household of Sir John Cotton ; and we next find him
in the county of Durham, near his sister, Mrs. Smith. It
was at this period that he laboured in Durham Cathedral
at his best known work, an edition of the chronicler,
Symeon of Durham's * Historia Ecclesiae Dunelmensis '
(1732). His last move was to Compton, near Ashbourne,
in Derbyshire, where he resided until his death in 1773,
z2
340 THE NONJUEOES
officiating as minister to the Nonjurors of the neighbour-
hood, but whether in private houses or in a Nonjuring
chapel we are not told ; if it was the latter, and Bedford
officiated in it to the end, it must have been one of
the last congregations of the regular Nonjurors outside
London. At Compton he wrote an 'Historical Cate-
chism' (1742), partly taken from the Abbe Fleury's
' Catechisme Historique,' and did another piece of literary
work, which shows him in a very amiable light. Though
he was a Nonjuror, he became a great friend of Ellis
Farneworth, the assistant curate in the neighbouring
parish of Ashbourne, who eked out a scanty livelihood by
translating foreign works into English. Bedford trans-
lated from the French the Abbe Fleury's ' Short History
of the Israelites,' and made a present of it to Farneworth
that he might raise a little money from the sale, for
Farneworth was very poor and had two sisters dependent
upon him for support.
What has been said in a former chapter respecting
the difficulty about labelling laymen as Nonjurors in the
earlier period is still more applicable to the later ; for, in
spite of much grumbling and occasional outbreaks of
rebellion, the Hanoverian Government became yearly
more and more settled, and the opposition to it more and
more hopeless. Hence those laymen who were inclined
to be Nonjurors, but were not obliged, for official reasons,
to show their hands, were naturally less and less disposed
to do so. Nevertheless, there were several laymen who
deserve notice as being, at any rate, in full sympathy with
the later Nonjurors. But we may begin with one who
went further than this, and sacrificed his worldly prospects
for conscience' sake as literally as any clergyman did.
EDWAED HOLDSWOETH CHARLES JENNENS 341
Edward Holdsworth (1684-1746) was a very promis-
ing Oxford man, who, having taken his degree as demy of
Magdalen in 1708, remained at Oxford as tutor of his
college until the time came when he would in the natural
course of things have been chosen fellow ; but it was the
critical year 1715, and, as Holdsworth could not con-
scientiously recognise the new Government, he resigned
his post and quitted the University. During the rest of
his life he earned a precarious living by acting as tutor in
families where there were Jacobite sympathies. He had
a high reputation as a classical scholar, particularly for
his knowledge of Virgil, of whom Pope's friend, Spence
(a good judge), says he had the best understanding of any
man he ever knew. He used to study Virgil's works on
the spot where they were written, and wrote much on the
subject. But his numerous writings have nothing to do
with the Nonjuring question, and therefore do not come
under our notice. Hearne gives an interesting account of
a visit paid by Holdsworth to his old University :
1720. Sep. 3. Mr. Holdsworth, lately fellow of Magdalen, 1
and now a Non juror called upon me. He is a right worthy
man, and hath been lately at Eome. He shewed me pictures
of King James III. and his Queen. The Queen is a very fine
lady. The King, he says, is a prince of admirable sense, cheerful
and finely shaped. 2
Holdsworth finally settled in the family of Lord Digby,
whose predecessor had been Kettlewell's kind patron, at
Coleshill, and there he died, and was buried in Kettle-
well's old church. His name is connected with that of
another Nonjuring layman.
Charles Jennens (1700-73) was a curious medley,
being on the one hand a great friend and supporter of
1 He never was full fellow.
2 Reliquice Hearniance, ii. 112.
342 THE NONJURORS
the musician, Handel, who was the protec/e of the Hano-
verians and the abhorrence of the Jacobites ; and on the
other hand both a Nonjuror himself and a kind friend
and patron of distressed Nonjurors. He was educated
at Balliol College, Oxford, a stronghold of Jacobites, but
never graduated, because his conscience forbade him to
take the oaths. He can hardly be called a sufferer in the
cause, because he succeeded to the family estate and be-
came a rich squire at Gopsall, in Leicestershire. There
he erected a sort of Ionic Temple, containing a monument
to his friend, Edward Holdsworth, whose literary talents
and Nonjuring principles he alike admired. The next
layman requires a longer notice.
John Byrom (1692-1763) was a man of varied tastes
and accomplishments ; he was a quaint and pleasing poet
in his way ; the inventor and teacher of a new system
of shorthand ; a mystic, or rather a humble student
of mysticism under the tutelage of W. Law ; and
a diarist worthy of being placed by the side of Pepys,
Evelyn, and Thoresby. Strictly speaking, he cannot be
called a Nonjuror, because, after many doubts and mis-
givings, he did take the oaths both of Allegiance and
Abjuration in order to qualify himself for a fellowship at
Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he was elected just
after the accession of George I. 1 It was well for the
Trinity fellowship that he had not yet come under
the spell of a fellow of a neighbouring college. It was
not till 1729 that Byrom became acquainted with William
Law, whom he at once took for his 'master.' This con-
nection would, no doubt, confirm his Nonjuring sym-
pathies ; but so far as active Jacobitism was concerned
Byrom outran his master, and on one occasion was warned
by him against being premature, Law telling him (as
1 See Byrom's Journal and Remains, vol. i. part i. pp. 24-5 and 31.
JOHN BYBOM 343
Byrom records in his artless way, reminding one of the
way in which Boswell wrote of Johnson) ' that there should
not be so much talk about such matters ; that the time
was not now ; that he loved a man of taciturnity.' l But
Byrom had friends at Manchester who were much more
impetuous and less reticent on the subject than William
Law. Manchester was a stronghold of the later Jacobites,
and as the Byroms were a very old and highly respected
family, and formed a large clan in the neighbourhood, the
adherence of the ablest and most prominent of them was
warmly welcomed. Byrom certainly became more and
more sympathetic with the Jacobite cause. As early as
1727 he had a sharp dispute with Sir Hans Sloane at a
meeting of the Royal Society, of which they were both
fellows, on the subject of an address to the new King
(George II.) . He became an intimate friend of Dr. Deacon,
a staunch Jacobite and Nonjuror at Manchester, who
always seems to assume in the correspondence between
them that they were both on the same side. John Clayton,
Wesley's Jacobite friend, and perhaps also the clergy at
the Collegiate Church, influenced him in the same direc-
tion. Dr. Hibbert Ware distinctly affirms that ' the cause
of the Jacobite party, which had become very strong
[1730-1], was much aided by the powerful talents of
Dr. Byrom,' 2 and Mr. Owen, a Presbyterian minister of
the place, published, in 1748, a violent pamphlet entitled
* Jacobite and Nonjuring Principles freely examined.
In a Letter to the Master Tool of the Faction in Man-
chester ' that is, Byrom. There is little doubt, too, that
he joined with Deacon in producing a series of papers
which first appeared in the Chester Courant, a Jacobite
organ, and were published separately in a small volume
1 Byrom's Journal for August 1, 1739.
2 History of Foundations in Manclwster, ii. 77.
344 THE NONJUKOES
entitled ' Manchester Vindicated,' in 1749. But in spite
of all this we gather from his eldest daughter's journal,
published in the ' Kemains,' l as well as from his own
conduct, that he did not commit himself, at least to any-
thing like the same extent as his friends. His own
position is probably described in the best known of his
many racy epigrams :
God bless the King, God bless our faith's defender,
God bless no harm in blessing the Pretender ;
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless us all ! that's quite another thing. %
Thomas Eawlinson (1681-1725) was another learned
layman who stood somewhat in the same relation to the
Nonjurors and Jacobites that Byrom did, but for a different
reason. It was not because he would not commit himself,
but simply because he was so immersed in his books and
manuscripts that he had no time for other interests. He
was the elder brother of the bishop, and certainly shared
his views. He was educated at Eton and St. John's
College, Oxford, but left the University after two years'
residence to study at the Middle Temple. He was called
to the Bar in 1705, but on his father's death in 1708 he
succeeded to a large estate and was able to follow his
favourite pursuit. He is said to have been the original of
Addison's brilliant sketch of Tom Folio in the Tatter
(No. 158). If this be so, Addison is extremely unjust to
him, for he describes him as a sort of freethinker, which
1 Vol. ii. part ii. pp. 385-414. Miss Byrom's Journal gives a most
vivid and delightful account of the rising of '45, so far as Manchester was
concerned ; it is all the more delightful and, indeed, trustworthy, because it
is given with the fresh artlessness of a young girl, who simply tells what
she saw and heard on the spot. She describes the panic that prevailed,
gives the names of many who joined the Prince's standard, and of others
who were very cautious ; among the latter was Dr. Byrom : ' My papa
and my uncle are gone to consult with Mr. Croxton, Mr. Feilden, and
others, how to keep themselves out of any scrape, and yet behave civilly '
(pp. 391-2).
THOMAS RAWLINSON 345
he certainly never was ; but he was a Tory and a
bibliophile, two characters for which the great Whig
essayist had a profound contempt. Hearne, on the other
hand, had a strong sympathy both with his principles and
his tastes. He is frequently mentioned in the ' Collections '
in connection with literary matters ; but in one passage
Hearne bears the highest testimony to his character in
excellent Latin. 1 An extended notice of one who took so
little active part in the Nonjuring movement would be out
of place, but he furnishes one more instance of the attrac-
tion which that movement had for men of the highest
culture, particularly in classical and antiquarian subjects.
1 See Collections, ii. 285.
346 THE NONJUEOES
CHAPTER VIII
THE TWO IRREGULAR SUCCESSIONS
THAT the Nonjurors, with their strong convictions on
the unity of the Church, should have had so many inter-
nal divisions is a painful illustration of the fact that
when the process of dividing once begins it has a fatal
tendency to go on making subdivisions and subdivisions,
till there is scarcely anything left to divide. It is to the
credit of John Blackbourne that when he was left alone
as a Non-Usager among the bishops, he did not imme-
diately proceed to consecrate a bishop on his own
account. It would have been well if others had acted
with the same self-restraint. But there were unfortu-
nately two irregular successions, through the uncanonical
action of two individual bishops, which have now to be
considered.
The first arose in 1722, when, as Eawlinson tells us,
Eic. Welton, D.D., was consecrated by Dr. Taylor alone in
a clandestine manner.
xxx Talbot, M.A., was consecrated by the same person
at the same time, and as irregularly.
In justice to all concerned, it should be added that these
two consecrations were intended to meet a very crying
want, which all who called themselves Churchmen, low
or high, juring or nonjuring, agreed in deploring ; but this
was not the right way to meet it. Of the two bishops
thus consecrated it is easy enough to identify the first.
Richard Welton (1671-1726) was son of a druggist at
EICHAKD WELTON 347
Woodbridge, and was educated at Woodbridge School,
from which he was elected to a scholarship at Caius
College, Cambridge. He graduated from Caius College
in 1691-2, was ordained in 1695, and within two years of
his ordination (1697) received the rectory of St. Mary,
Whitechapel, to which was added in 1710 the vicarage of
East Ham. Thus before he was thirty years of age he
had received two good pieces of preferment in the * Re-
volution Church ' ; but like many clergymen of that date,
his heart was not with that Church ; he was a Jacobite
before he was a Nonjuror. Hence it cannot be laid
to the charge of the Nonjurors that they had anything
to do with a discreditable incident which took place
in 1713. In that year an altar-piece was set up by the
rector's directions in Whitechapel Church, representing
'The Last Supper.' The artist, James Fellowes, was
instructed to take the Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Burnet)
as his model for Judas Iscariot, but was afraid of the
consequences of such a scandalum magnatum. A less
exalted personage, therefore, but one hardly less obnoxious
to the Nonjurors, Dr. White Kennett, then Dean of
Peterborough, was substituted ; and that there might be
no mistake about the person intended, Judas was painted
with a black patch over his eye, just like that which Dr.
Kennett was always obliged to wear in consequence of a
shooting accident he had met with in his youth. Among
the crowds who came to see the picture was Mrs. White
Kennett, who indignantly recognised her husband. The
dean brought the case before the Bishop of London's
Court, and the picture was removed. It did not help the
Nonjurors' cause, when one who was chiefly known as the
perpetrator of this outrage was made one of their bishops ;
but it is only in a very modified sense that Dr. Welton can
be called a Nonjuring bishop ; in spite of his Jacobitism,
348 THE NONJUEOES
he held on to his livings until the Abjuration Oath
was forced upon him, with a distinct intimation that if
he did not take it within twenty-four hours he would be
dispossessed and punished. Then he became a Nonjuror,
and ministered to a Nonjuring congregation in Good-
man's Fields. His later history merges in that of Talbot,
the popular account of whom is as follows :
John Talbot was ship's chaplain of the ' Centurion/
the vessel which took out the first two travelling mis-
sionaries of the S.P.G., George Keith and Patrick Gordon,
to America in 17.02. Keith and Gordon fired Talbot with
a zeal for mission work ; and, at his desire, they asked
and obtained leave from the S.P.G. for him to join them.
Gordon died within a few weeks of their landing, so
Keith and Talbot set forth on their missionary journey
like a second Paul and Barnabas. They were both most
devoted and successful missionaries ; and, being also strong
Churchmen, they of course found their work impeded by
the fact that there were no bishops in America. They
made a deep and wide impression wherever they went ;
but any priest who has been a successful missioner will
at once realise that their work would necessarily be
stopped everywhere in its mid-course because it would
require to be supplemented by offices which a bishop
alone could perform. No wonder, then, that Talbot 's
letters to the Society at home, still extant, are full of hints
about the pressing need. 1 In 1704 Keith returned to
England ; and in 1705 Talbot settled at Burlington, the
capital of New Jersey. As resident minister in the midst
of a large population he felt all the more strongly the
need of episcopal supervision ; and it is said that he
went over to England on purpose to present in person a
1 See Anderson's History of tJie Colonial Church, vol. iii. ch. xxiL
p. 72, et se%.
JOHN TALBOT 349
memorial to Queen Anne praying for the appointment of
a bishop. He returned to Burlington early in 1708 and
found the work growing upon his hands. He could not
devote himself exclusively to his own congregation. ' I
am forced/ he says, ' to turn itinerant again, for the care
of all the churches from East to West Jersey is upon
me,' and he again pressed upon the Society the need of a
bishop. 1 Years went on, and he was still disappointed in
his hopes. He again visited England, and rumours began
to spread that he had become tainted with Jacobite prin-
ciples ; he associated himself with Welton, and in 1722
the two were consecrated to the Nonjuring episcopate as
already described. Welton accompanied Talbot back to
America, and went to Philadelphia, where he is said to
have exercised his episcopal functions ; Talbot returned
to his flock in New Jersey. There is no evidence of his
having performed any episcopal acts ; but he was charged
with having refused to pray for King George a point on
which American Churchmen, who prided themselves on
their loyalty, were very sensitive ; and the S.P.G. was
constrained to remove him from his post. It is said that
he afterwards withdrew from the Non jurors ; but he was
too much broken down with age and disappointment to
resume his work, and he died on November 29, 1727.
Welton was summoned to return to England by a writ
of privy seal ; he embarked for Lisbon, where he died in
August 1726. Hearne inserts an account of his death
(evidently sent from Lisbon) from the Beading Post ; and
adds as a sort of postscript : * N.B. This is the famous
Dr. Welton, minister of White-Chappel, who suffered
much for his honesty, and was, it seems, made a bishop,
and is now above the malice of all his enemies.' 2
This is the story about Welton and Talbot which has
1 Anderson, iii. 237. 2 Eeligiiia Hearniana, ii. 258.
350 THE NONJUEORS
found its way into the popular histories ; it hangs so
neatly together, and there is such an air of verisimilitude
about it all that it seems almost like sacrilege to cast even
the shadow of a doubt upon any part of it. And, indeed,
the Welton part may be accepted without any misgiving,
and the Talbot part also, until we come to the identifica-
tion of John Talbot, one of the first travelling missionaries
of the S.P.G., with * x x x Talbot consecrated by Dr.
Taylor in 1722. ' On this point it is, at any rate, only fair
to quote the words of one of the latest and best informed
historians of the American Episcopal Church.
It has been positively asserted that Talbot, when an old
man, upon a visit to England, was consecrated to the Episco-
pate by the English Nonjuring Bishops. Anderson, Hawks,
Wilberforce, and Caswall all say so, apparently all following
the same original authority, whatever that may be. The Rev.
Dr. Hills, in his ' History of the Church in Burlington,' dis-
cusses the subject exhaustively, and maintains the same asser-
tion. In vol. i. of Bishop Perry's ' History of the American
Episcopal Church ' is a Monograph by Rev. John Fulton in
which he re-examines the whole case, and arrives at the con-
clusion, which seems without doubt to be the truth, that
Talbot never received such consecration ; and that the tradition
itself arose from confounding his name with that of another
man. 1
There was only one other bishop consecrated in this
first irregular succession, Timothy Newmarsh. The evi-
dence of his consecration is a manuscript notice in a
copy of Hickes * On Schism,' once belonging to Bishop
Newmarsh, and later to his descendant, Dr. F. G. Lee.
It runs : " Ye Dr. Timothy Newmarsh was raised to ye
Apostolic Order in Mr. Blackbourne's Chappie situate
within Graye's Inn uppon Sundaye, ye twenty-ninth day
of May, 1726, by Mr. Henry Hall and Dr. Eichard Welton
1 History of the American Episcopal Churcli, by S. D. McConnell, D.D.,
7th edit., p. 103, note.
SECOND IBREGULAB SUCCESSION 351
in the presence of Mr. Thomas Martyn, Mr. Lee, Mr,
Calvert, Mr. Burrows from Thame, and divers others.'
Thus ends the story of the first irregular succession,,
which certainly seems to me to be more excusable in its
origin than the second. The cruel disadvantage at which
the Church in America was placed through the lack of
episcopal supervision might palliate almost any attempt
to supply a remedy. But the second succession arose
from what one cannot but call the wilfulness of one man,
who, strictly speaking, had no right to interfere in English
affairs at all, for he was a Scotch Churchman, and he was-
clearly travelling outside his province when he took a
most important and quite uncanonical step on his own
responsibility. Bishop Archibald Campbell had always
been a ' Usager,' and surely, when the Usagers were suc-
cessful all along the line, he might have been satisfied.
But no; they did not go far enough for him in the
direction of restoring primitive usages, so he took upon
himself to consecrate a bishop who would go farther, and
then another immediately followed ; and it is to this line
that the latest Nonjurors who lingered on in England
belonged. Dr. Eawlinson's curt account is : ' Roger
Laurence, M.A., consecrated by Mr. Arch. Campbell.
Thos. Deacon consecrated by the same person at the
same time.' He gives no date, but we know from other
sources that it was in 1733. Whether Campbell conse-
crated both solus, or whether, as some say, he first conse-
crated Laurence, and then the two consecrated Deacon,
is not a point of importance, and need not detain us.
Roger Laurence (1670-1736) had been an eminent
man before he joined the Nonjurors, and when he joined
them he held so conspicuous a place in their community
-352 THE NONJUEOES
that it is a wonder he was not chosen to be one of their
bishops in the regular line. His mental history is a
peculiar one. He was the son of a London ' cittizen and
armourer,' who was probably a dissenter, for Koger ' re-
ceived baptism among the dissenters,' and was engaged in
mercantile pursuits at home and abroad for many years.
But he took to the study of divinity, and that study made
him doubtful about the validity of his baptism ; and so
at the mature age of thirty-eight he was ' informally
baptised at Christ Church, Newgate Street, on March 31,
1708, by John Bates, reader of the Church.' The matter
was taken up warmly, among others by the Bishop of
London, Dr. Compton, in whose diocese the baptism took
place ; and the case became a sort of test case to try that
question which has always been a moot question in the
Church of England, viz. the validity of lay baptism.
Laurence was quite ready to defend himself, and before
the year 1708 was ended had written and published
anonymously a treatise entitled ' Lay Baptism Invalid, or
an Essay to prove that sucli Baptism is Null and Void
when administer 'd in opposition to the Divine Eight of
the Apostolical Succession.' The book passed through
several editions, and a warm controversy arose. A sort
of episcopal conference was held in April 1712 at a
dinner-party of thirteen bishops at Lambeth Palace (an
arrangement thoroughly characteristic of the eighteenth
-century), and a declaration was drawn up in favour of the
validity of baptism performed by non-episcopally ordained
ministers. This declaration was then brought before
Convocation, but after some debate rejected by the Lower
House. Laurence had a host of antagonists, including
four bishops Burnet, Fleetwood, Talbot (of Durham),
and White Kennett and also one who was more for-
midable than any bishop, Joseph Bingham, who published
EOGEE LAUEENCE 353
his ' Scholastical History of the Practice of the Church
in reference to Administration of Baptism by Laymen '
(Part I. in 1712, Part II. in 1714). It was originally in-
tended to be only a single chapter in the ' Antiquities,' but
grew on his hands, and appeared as a separate treatise to
meet the arguments of Mr. Laurence. Hickes and Brett
came to Laurence's aid, and as their knowledge of the
Church was perhaps equal even to that of Bingham, they
were most powerful auxiliaries. This brought Laurence
into communication with the Nonjurors, and especially
with Hickes, their head, who soon won him over ; for we
find among the Nonjuring ordinations, ' 1714, Nov. 30,
Koger Laurence, or. d. by Dr. Hickes.' Very soon after
his ordination he must have become minister of the Non-
jurors' oratory on College Hill in the City of London, for
within a year and a half an ordination took place ' in Mr.
Laurence's Chapel ' there. Laurence joined the Usagers,
and was probably the writer of the tract already noticed,
'Mr. Leslie's Defence, &c.' l Charles Wheatley, the well-
known author of the ' Rational Illustration of the Book
of Common Prayer,' was a friend of Laurence, and the
fact that the one became a Nonjuror and the other did
not in no way interfered with their friendship ; so on
Laurence's death Rawlinson wrote to Wheatley to inquire
about his effects, to which Wheatley replied : ' I believe
most of the books in Mr. Laurence's catalogue were in
his library. Most of his chapel furniture I had seen ; but
his pix and his cruet, his box for unguent and oil, I sup-
pose you do not enquire after.' 2 It must be remem-
bered in reference to the last item that although the
anointing with oil was not one of the four points insisted
1 See supra, p. 299.
2 Quoted in Notes and Queries, No. 52, October 26, 1850, above the
signature, 'J. Yeowell, Hoxton,' an excellent authority on all Nonjuring
subjects.
A A
354 THE NONJURORS
upon by the ' Essentialists,' yet the l Offices for Confir-
mation and the Visitation of the Sick,' attached to the
' Communion Office ' of 1718 which was generally adopted
by the Usagers, included the use of the chrism in con-
firmation, and anointing in the visitation of the sick ;
and, of course, after Laurence's consecration in 1733, and
still more after the appearance of Dr. Deacon's Prayer
Book in 1734, the ' box for unguent and oil ' would be
essential. Laurence, however, only survived his conse-
cration for three years, dying at Beckenham on March 6,
1736. The other bishop consecrated with him survived
much longer and came more to the front.
Thomas Deacon (1697-1753) was probably, like Lau-
rence, a Londoner. He was certainly in London in 1715,
when, it is said, he 'was a prime agent in the rising/
As he was then little more than a boy, this seems impos-
sible ; but nothing is more striking in Deacon than his
extraordinary precocity. This may have been the reason
why Collier ordained him before the canonical age.
* 1715[-6]. Mar. 1. Thos. Deacon, ord. d. in Mr. Gandy's
Chapel in Scrope Court, against St. Andrew's Church,
Holbourne, by Mr. Collier in presence of Mr. Peck, Mr.
Laurence, and Mr. Wignall, preist by the same Bishop,
Mar. 19, 1715-6.' Hardly was he ordained priest when
he was charged with exercising his priestly functions in a
way which brought him into trouble. He tells us him-
self that he was ' accused of having absolved Justice Hall
and Parson Paul at the Gallows, Tyburn, after the Kebel-
lion in '15, and having declared that the act for which
they dyed was meritorious.' But he absolutely denies
the charge.
I can not only affirm that I did not officiate with those
unfortunate gentlemen in their dying moments, but also inform
the Publick that the clergyman who did was the Rev. Francis
THOMAS DEACON 355
Peck, M.A., formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and can
venture to assert that neither he nor any other person did then
and there absolve them. I never said to them that the act was
meritorious. 1
But he owned to John Byrom that he composed the
dying speeches of Hall and Paul, 2 and these, which may
still be read, were remarkable productions for one so
young. He denies, however, 3 that he was driven from
England in consequence of his connection with these
unfortunate men, and, in doing so, gives us a piece of
autobiography :
I staid in London, and appeared publicly there every day,
for above three months after the execution of the Eev. Mr. Paul
and John Hall, Esq. And when I went to Holland, it was not
at all on account of my behaviour with regard to them. There
I resided upon my own fortune. And so far was I from study-
ing Physic, that I had not at that time the least intention of
engaging in that profession ; but entered upon, and prosecuted
it afterwards in London, under the particular direction, and
with the kind assistance of my best of friends, Dr. Mead. 4
He does not mention the date of his return to London,
but he was probably not long away, for we hear of him
vaguely as ' once a Nonjuring minister in Aldersgate
Street, London,' * and this must have been before 1719 ;
moreover, his first publication (1718) does not appear to
have been written abroad. That publication was a con-
tribution to the Usages controversy, entitled ' The Doctrine
of the Church of Rome concerning Purgatory, &c.,' 6 and
1 See Manchester Vindicated [from Jacobitism], being a compleat Collec-
tion of the Papers lately published in defence of that Town, in the ' Chester
Courant ' (1749).
2 See Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, vol. i.
part i. p. 178.
s See Manchester Vindicated, No. 10.
4 For an account of Dr. Eichard Mead, see Hearne's Collections, iii. 124
and Nichols's Literary Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, v. 149.
See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. for 1746, p. 390.
6 See supra, p. 305-6.
A A 2
356 THE NONJUROES
is another striking instance of his precocity, for he was
only just of age. The fact of so youthful a combatant
rushing into the fray caused great offence. In the next
year, 1719, a thinly veiled attack upon him appeared in
4 A Dialogue in Vindication of our present Liturgy and
Service: between Timothy, a Churchman, and Thomas,
an Essentialist,' Thomas being obviously Thomas Deacon,
whom Timothy taunts with his youth and with having
been ordained at an uncanonical age, and pleasantly
remarks, * I see two things very ill coupled, Boy and
Confidence ' ; and in 1720 Matthias Earbery, having at-
tacked Brett in a rather rough fashion, turns to Deacon :
' Mr. Deacon's Hypothesis comes on the stage next, a
very pretty one and worthy of his years.' l Deacon hardly
seems to have deserved these mortifying imputations of
youthful presumption. He owns modestly in the Dedi-
cation of his really remarkable book to Brett : * I have
followed your Precepts in producing the Kecords of the
Primitive Church; I have appealed to Tradition which
you have so learnedly defended ; I have made your example
my Pattern, though I am sensible I come very far short
of imitation.' In short, he was content to be a humble
follower of Dr. Brett, whom he very probably helped in
the compilation of the Nonjuring Liturgy of 1717. He
wisely took no notice of the attacks made upon him, and
about the time when they were being made (1719-20)
migrated from London to Manchester, where he remained
for the rest of his life, thirty-three years, practising
medicine with great success and ministering to a Non-
juring congregation. His oratory was in Fennel Street,
but whether in his own house or in a room hard by is not
certain. His ' use ' up to the time of his consecration
would probably be that of the book of 1718 ; but in 1734
1 Reflections upon Modern Fanaticism, by M. E.
DEACON'S PEAYEE BOOK OF 1734 357
he brought out a remarkable work, the first part of which
became the general service-book of this section of the
Nonjurors. Deacon does not put his name to it, but there
is not the slightest doubt that it is his. Its title is,
A Compleat Collection of Devotions, Taken from the Apo-
stolical Constitutions, the Ancient Liturgies, and the Common
Prayer-Book of the Church of England. Part I. comprehend-
ing the Public Offices of the Church. Humbly offered to the
Consideration of the present Churches of Christendom, Greek,
Eoman, English, and all others. 1734.
Part II. contains Devotions for Private Use. The com-
piler explains his object in the Preface thus :
The following collection is founded upon two Principles.
(1) That the best method for all Churches and Christians to
follow is to submit to all doctrines, practices, worship and
discipline of the Ancient, Universal Church of Christ from the
beginning, to the end of the Fourth Century; (2) That the
Liturgy in the Apostolic Constitutions is the most ancient
Christian Liturgy extant ; perfectly pure and free from inter-
polation ; and that the book itself contains at large the doctrines,
laws and settlements, which the three first and purest ages of
the Gospel did with one consent believe and submit to.
.The epithet 'compleat' is fully justified by its con-
tents ; for it contains, after General Kubrics, Calendar, and
Tables, ' an Order for Morning and for Evening Prayer,
Prayers for Catechumens, Energumens, Candidates for
Baptism, and Penitents, with Forms of Admission, The
Penitential Office (for Wednesdays and Fridays), The
Holy Liturgy, Ministrations of Baptism (Infants and
Adults), The Forms for consecrating the oil and milk
and honey for Baptism, The Order of Confirmation, The
Form of consecrating the Chrism for Confirmation,
Private Baptism, Matrimony, Churching of Women, The
Visitation of the Sick, The Form of consecrating the oil
for the Sick, The Communion of the Sick, The Burial of
358 THE NONJUEOES
the Dead, The Form of celebrating the Holy Eucharist
at the Burial of the Dead, The Consecration and Ordina-
tion of Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and Deaconesses ' ; and
Part II. is quite as ' compleat ' in its way, containing
* Devotions for Morning and Evening and the Ancient
Hours of Prayer, The Hymn (the Sanctus) with the
Proper Prefaces, Acts of glorification of God, Collects for
Wednesdays and Fridays, Prayers for Fasting Days,
Penitential Prayers, Thanksgiving for the Sabbath,
Devotions to be used in Church, Devotions for the Altar,
and an Office for the use of those who communicate daily
in private, by reason that the Holy Eucharist is not
publickly celebrated in the Church, Commemoration of
the Dead, Grace before and after meat.'
There is also an Appendix containing extracts from a
large number of English divines, and ' a Supplement,
being an Essay to procure Catholick Communion upon
Catholick Principles.' 1
Deacon's Prayer Book of 1734 affords a curious in-
stance of the way in which extremes sometimes meet.
As the title shows, one of the sources, the first-named, from
which it was taken was the Apostolical Constitutions, the
genuineness and antiquity of which were matters of hot
controversy. But there was one man at least who ' was
satisfied that they were of equal value with the four
Gospels ' ; nay, ' that they were the most sacred of the
Canonical books of the New Testament.' 2 That man was
William Whiston, the Arian, or, as he preferred to call
himself, the Eusebian. He advocated as strongly as
Deacon the practice of trine immersion and of anointing
the sick, not, as both declare, for extreme unction like the
1 A very full and interesting account of this book will be found over the
signature ' H. J.' in The Royalist for April 1898, pp. 7-16.
2 See Memoirs of William Whiston, by himself, pp. 179, 195, 389, &c.
DEACON AND WHISTON 359
Eoman Church, but for recovery, according to the text
of St. James, like the Greek. Whiston also professed
like Deacon to go back to primitive times, as the title
of the book in which his views are most fully stated,
' Primitive Christianity Revived,' shows. Deacon and
Whiston were brought into a sort of connection through
their common friend John Byrom, and there is a letter
(April 1731) from Deacon to Byrom who had been can-
vassing for subscriptions to Deacon's proposed translation
of Tillemont's * Ecclesiastical Memoirs of the First Six
Centuries,' and, among others, had canvassed Whiston ;
it ends : ' You may tell Whiston it is done by one who
has the restoration of Primitive Christianity at heart as
much as himself, and is a friend to the Constitutions, 1
though he cannot go all his lengths, being not quite so
hasty in his judgment, but agrees with him in his
wishes, foundations, and designs.' 2
Dr. Deacon (he seems to have been called ' doctor ' on
the principle on which the poor always speak of their
medical attendant as ' doctor,' for there is no evidence of
his having taken a doctor's degree in either divinity or
medicine) continued to act as physician of both body and
soul at Manchester, where he was very highly respected.
He was undoubtedly a staunch Jacobite, but he did not
make Jacobitism part of his religion :
I adopt pie says] no political Principles into my Religion,
but what are expressed in our Common Prayer-Book, entitled
* A Compleat Collection of Devotions ' which is entirely free
from all objections of this nature ; the Form of admitting a
member into our church has not one word in it relating to
State-matters ; and I have told new converts that I hoped they
did not apply to me on the account of National Affairs and
Government Prayers, for we went on quite a different scheme. 3
1 That is, the Apostolical Constitutions.
2 Byrom's Remains, vol. i. part ii. p. 499.
3 See Manchester Vindicated, &c., No. 7, December 9, 1746.
360 THE NONJUKORS
But poor Dr. Deacon suffered cruelly in his own family
for the Jacobite cause. In the rising of '45 his three sons
all enlisted in the ' Manchester Regiment ' under Colonel
Towneley, and the sad result was that he lost them all :
one was imprisoned, and then transported for life ; another
died while he was being taken from Manchester to London
for trial ; and another, Thomas Theodoras, was tried and
executed on Kennington Common in July 1746. His head,
together with that of his companion-in-arms, Thomas
Syddall, was sent to Manchester, and fixed, according to
the barbarous custom of the age, on the top of the public
Exchange. When the bereaved father first gazed at the
horrible sight he naturally took off his hat and uttered a
prayer ; and some had actually the brutality to complain
in print of his so doing. 1 Deacon probably found solace
for his troubles in congenial literary work, for in the same
year (1746) he published a book entitled ' The Form of
admitting a Convert into the Communion of the Church.'
The book contained other matter which was only too
suitable to the state of a party which was then being
persecuted even to the death, viz. :
1 A Litany for the use of those who mourn for the iniquities
of the present times and tremble at the prospect of impending
judgments, Prayers for the Church, Prayers to be used upon
the Death of the members of the Church as soon after their
departure as conveniently may be/ and ' An office for the use
of those who by unavoidable necessity are deprived of the
advantage of joining in offering the Sacrifice and of receiving
the Sacrament of the Eucharist.'
In the next year (1747) he published another work, the
magnitude of which is really not exaggerated in the fol-
lowing portentous title :
1 See Manchester Magazine, for September 23, 1746, and Manchester
Vindicated, &c., No. 1, October 21, 1746.
DEACON'S ' COMPEEHENSIVE VIEW 361
A Full, True, and Comprehensive View of Christianity:
Containing a short Historical Account of Eeligion from the
Creation of the World to the Fourth Century after our Lord
Jesus Christ : as also the complete duty of a Christian in
relation to Faith, Practice, Worship and Eituals, set forth sin-
cerely without regard to any Modern Church, Sect or Party, as
it is taught in the Holy Scriptures, was delivered by the
Apostles, and received by the Universal Church of Christ during
the first Four Centuries. The whole succinctly and fully laid
down in Two Catechisms, a shorter and a longer, each divided
into two Parts ; The Shorter being suited to the meanest
capacity and calculated for the use of Children ; and the longer
for that of the more knowing Christian (1747).
The ' two Parts ' are : (1) Sacred History ; (2) Christian
Doctrine. The book is divided into ' Lessons/ nearly two
hundred in number, and embraces in the most exhaustive
way all the views of the ' Orthodox British Church/
Canon Parkinson refers to this work in a very apprecia-
tive notice of Deacon in a note to his admirable edition
of Byrom's * Remains ' : x
It is much to be regretted that this admirable scholar did
not receive encouragement according to his merits. His letters,
in this work show him to have been a complete master of the
English language, of a ready wit and indomitable spirit ; one
who ought to have been engaged in a more congenial task than
elaborating his learned yet somewhat arid catechism, and carry-
ing on controversies with men incapable of appreciating his
merits and their own immeasurable inferiority.
But it may be doubted whether Deacon could have
found ' a more congenial task ' than commending his.
system, in which he^believed heart and soul, in what he
thought to be the most effective way, though it was the
way of an 'arid catechism/ Deacon was a strong man,
and, though he was much opposed, exercised a strong
influence at Manchester, not only over laymen like John
1 Vol. i. p. 500.
362 THE NONJUEOES
Byrom, but even over the whole staff of clergy connected
with the Collegiate Church. We have a curious picture
of the man drawn by an unknown hand, probably his
friend Byrom, 1 which is worth inserting: 'As the dis-
affection of the Town of Manchester has of late been the
chief subject both of public and private conversation,
I had the curiosity some time ago to pay a visit to that
celebrated place.' After declaring that he saw no signs
of disaffection, he goes on :
My curiosity being now pretty well satisfied with regard to
the mobbing, I had nothing to do the next day but to make
some enquiry after the Nonjuring Bishop and his Congregation
which have made such an eminent Figure in History. The title
of Bishop, and a Bishop, as I was told, of pretty near the same
complexion with the Eoman ones, gave me an Idea of some
most venerable Personage, who never stirr'd out without his
Equipage and proper Habiliments, with a posse of inferior
olergy to attend him ; but this Prelate I had an opportunity of
seeing entirely unattended. He was dressed just like other men
and proved to be nothing more than a Physician in the Town,
of great repute for his Learning and Practice ; who (having a
Head turned a little more to religion than most of his Fraternity)
had, by an industrious search into the writings of antiquity,
discover'd, or thought so at least, a more pure form of worship
than his neighbours. This he followed himself, and admitted
others, dissatisfyd with other forms, to practise with him. As
to his congregation it consisted, according to the account I
received, of about a score of persons, the greatest Part of them
women. Such is the man, who, one would think, from the rout
which has been made about him, threatens the destruction of
Three Kingdoms, the Toleration of whom, in the language of
some people, is intolerable. . . .
The Doctor, I own, is respected by most of the clergy, and
I will add by most of the Laity too. 2
It is sad to learn from a letter of John Byrom to
1 He writes, it will be seen, as a stranger to Manchester, but that was
probably a ruse, to put people off the scent.
2 Manchester Vindicated, No. 11, February 24, Tuesday, 1746-7. The
last sentence is from the same work, No. 3, November 11, 1746.
BISHOPS BEOWN AND PEICE 363
William Law that Deacon's mind failed, and that he
was consequently in straitened circumstances in his last
days. 1 In 1753 he died, and was buried in St. Anne's
Churchyard, Manchester, where the following character-
istic inscription was placed on his tomb :
El fJLTJ V OTaVjOW
HERE LIE INTERRED THE REMAINS (WHICH THROUGH
MORTALITY IS AT PRESENT CORRUPT, BUT WHICH
SHALL ONE DAY MOST SURELY BE RAISED AGAIN
TO IMMORTALITY AND PUT ON INCORRUPTION) OF
THOMAS DEACON, THE GREATEST OF SINNERS
AND THE MOST UNWORTHY OF PRIMITIVE BISHOPS,
WHO DIED 16TH FEB. 1753, IN THE 56TH YEAR OF
HIS AGE; AND OF SARAH HIS WIFE, WHO DIED
JULY 4, 1745 IN THE 54TH YEAR OF HER AGE. THE
LORD GRANT THE FAITHFUL, HERE UNDERLYING, THE
MERCY OF THE LORD IN THAT DAY. II. TIM. I. 18.
Of the remaining five bishops in this line we have con-
flicting, and, with one exception, very scanty accounts.
The first is Bishop Brown, who is said to have been Lord
John Johnstone, younger son of the Marquis of Annan-
dale, but I can find no trustworthy evidence of this ; while
two responsible writers, one of whom was a contemporary,
give quite a different account. In Byrom's 'Journal,'
which is generally to be relied on, we read : * P. J. Brown,
M.D. of Manchester (a disciple of Dr. Deacon), succeeded
the Non juror, Mr. Kenrick Price, and like him had the
title of Bishop.' The information is given in a note to a
long, modest, and singularly able letter, headed ' P. Brown
to John Byrom, Manchester, December 29th, 1760,' and
signed ' P. Brown.' It was written in answer to a request
1 See Byrom's Remains, ii. 545.
364 THE NONJUROES
from Byrom that ' P. Brown ' would send him ' one
or two of the strongest reasons upon which the general
opinion of the Apostles' writing the New Testament in
Greek is founded.' Both the style and the matter of the
reply are admirable, and the whole gives one a most
favourable impression of the writer. If this was the
bishop, it is most provoking that so little is known about
him. 1 Mr. Aston tells us in his ' Manchester Guide ' (note
to p. 144) : ' Dr. Deacon was succeeded by a Mr. Kenrick
Price, a grocer, and the late P. J. Browne, M.D., who,
as well as Dr. Deacon, had the nominal title of Bishops.'
One thing seems quite clear, that Bishop Brown pre-
deceased by many years Bishop Kenrick Price (1722-90),
who from the above notices seems to have been the first
consecrated. It is not quite accurate to say that Mr.
Price succeeded Dr. Deacon, because he was actually
consecrated by Deacon on March 8, 1751-2, and Deacon
survived until the following year; but as Deacon was
liors de combat in his later days, Kenrick Price might be
virtually regarded as his successor. Bishop Price lived
on until September 15, 1790, and was evidently during
that time the ruling spirit in this line of Nonjurors. His
epitaph, which is quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine for
September 1792, says that
for more than thirty seven years, without the least worldly
profit, he presided over the orthodox remnant of the ancient
British Church in Manchester, with truly primitive Catholic
piety, fervent devotion, integrity and simplicity of manners, and
every trait of character which could adorn the life of an un-
beneficed primitive bishop. He died, Sep. 15, 1790, in the 69th
year of his age, and 39th of his episcopate.
William Cartwriglit (1730-99), the next bishop, was
a man about whom we have some really interesting in-
formation, which has been kindly corrected for me by
1 See Byrom's Remains, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 617-23.
WILLIAM CAETWEIGHT 365
W. Phillips, Esq., of Shrewsbury, who has long been
trying to gather correct information about Bishop Cart-
wright. He was the son of a William Cartwright, of
Newcastle-under-Lyne, and was brought up as an apothe-
cary. He received Holy Orders, probably from Bishop
Deacon, some time before 1764, for we find him in that
year described as ' one of Dr. Deacon's clergy,' ' living in
his own house in London/ and ' married upon one of Dr.
Deacon's daughters.' Our informant is Bishop Forbes,
who on the occasion of his visit to London had several
interviews with him, * where free and open conversations
passed between us without any manner of reserve. He
appears to be a Person who has at heart to promote the
interest of Eeligion upon true, genuine Catholic principles,
and as one that asketh for the old paths.' l Cartwright
himself tells us that he lived in London until 1769 or
thereabouts. He then settled in Shrewsbury where he
practised medicine, and was known as par excellence ' the
Apothecary.' When he was in practice he resided in a
house in the Mardol, but when he retired from business
he went to live in the Abbey Foregate, where he died.
Details about his ministerial life which otherwise might
be considered trifling become interesting when we re-
member that he was virtually the last of his clan about
whom anything really definite is known. We learn, then,
from ' Salopian Shreds and Patches ' (August 27, 1879)
that he was consecrated bishop, ' after being examined
by a superior, in 1780, by Bishop Price of Manchester,
who came over to Shrewsbury for that purpose ; ' and
his daughter gives us or rather gave * W. H. W.,' who
imparted it to ' Shropshire Notes and Queries 'the
following information about him :
1 See Journals of Episcopal Visitations of Robert Forbes, Bp. of Boss
and Caithness, p. 35.
366 THE NONJUEOES
Mr. Harley recollects being at my father's house the even-
ing before my youngest sister, Sarah Alicia, was buried ; that
he accompanied the family to prayers (in an upper room) where
my father read the Burial Service, and then desired all to dry
up their tears, for she was happy. She died Oct. 3, 1797.
My father had a room at the top of the house for the prayer-
room, which was never used for any other purpose. My mother
had a chamber-organ in the dining-room, on which she played ;
but I never knew her performing in the church service ; though
I think I have heard she had done so probably when the
congregation was larger.
There is elsewhere a fuller account, which, however,
quite tallies, as will be seen, with what is stated in the
last sentence :
The Bishop's appearance was dignified and venerable, his
person handsome, and his manners those of a perfect gentle-
man. He appears by the benevolence of his disposition, and
respect entertained for his virtues and learning, to have acquired
the general esteem and regard of his contemporaries. The con-
gregation, as far as the recollection of his daughter serves,
was very limited ; indeed, after the death of Dean [sic] Pod-
more, was confined to his own family. The service was per^
formed by the Bishop in his dining-room, at the upper end of
Which was an organ, which his wife played. Over the fire-place
was a painting of the Bishop in his Episcopal robes which is in
the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas, of Monmouth.
This congregation went to Church, and he allowed his family
to go there ; he did not wish to be considered a dissenter. He
wished to have the wine at Communion mixed with water.
He administered the Sacrament standing on the Lord's Day,
kneeling on Week-days. He confirmed at the time of baptism.
Then, after some details which need not be inserted, there
is an interesting account of a baptism :
Elizabeth Helen, daughter of William and Elizabeth
Thomas, was born, Friday, June 3, 1796, and was baptised
with triune immersion on Sunday, May 7, 1797, being the 3rd
Sunday after Easter ; was confirmed with Holy Chrism, and
communicated of the Eucharist the same day by her grand-
CAETWEIGHT NOT A JACOBITE 367
father, William Cartwright, Bishop of the Orthodox remnant of
the Ancient British Church. Sponsor, the said Eliz: Thomas. 1
Bishop Cartwright is a notable illustration of the fact
that as the years rolled on the Nonjurors became less and
less a political body. "We learn this not only negatively
by the complete absence of anything political in con-
nection with him, but also positively from his own direct
words, which are well worth quoting. In the * Salopian
Shreds and Patches ' we are told that there is
a Letter of his dated Shrewsbury, 27 Sep. 1793 extant,
addressed to Benjamin Booth, then a prisoner in Lancaster
Castle for alleged treasonable conspiracy and sedition. Booth
appears to have lived in Shrewsbury but removed to Man-
chester. Walker, a merchant in Manchester, with one gentle-
man, one surgeon, and several persons of lower rank, including
Booth, were charged with treasonable conspiracy, and it
happened that Booth was tried alone before the others, con-
victed, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. But at
Lancaster Assizes, April 2, 1794, the other persons were tried,
and Booth, though then a prisoner, was included in the indict-
ment. The whole were honourably acquitted, and the principal
and only material witness against them, Thomas Dunn, was at
once committed for perjury, and on April 25, 1794, a pardon
from the Crown was granted to Benjamin Booth. The letter
of Mr. Cartwright was written in belief of Booth's conviction
on true evidence, and he says :
'When you wrote to me soon after the death of Bishop
Price I little expected that ever I should have seen your name
in the public papers on such an occasion as that which has
rendered you so conspicuous, and reduced you to that situation
which your criminal conduct has so justly deserved. . . . You
well know, or once did know, that unfeigned allegiance, in all
civil matters, to your rightful and lawful sovereign, is an
essential doctrine and duty of Christianity. . . . Possibly you
may deceive yourself with a notion that you were doing right
in endeavouring to overturn the present established system of
1 From Salopian Shreds and Patches, August 27, 1879. It is added in
brackets : [' This narrative is copied from an unpublished MS. formerly in
possession of the late Mr. H. Pidgeon, of Shrewsbury.']
368 THE NONJUEOES
government, because some of our religious predecessors attempted
in the years 1715 and 1745 to dethrone the then reigning family.
And give me leave to tell you that those attempts, whether
right or wrong, whether justifiable or not, were undertaken on
entire different and opposite principles to those on which you
must have engaged with the new disturbers of the public
peace. The former attempts were not undertaken to overturn
or alter the constitution of the government of this country.
No ! it was a competition between a claimant to the throne ,
who was thought to have been unjustly and illegally dis-
possessed of his right, and him who withheld that supposed
right from him. That competition, you well know, is now at
an end. The one family being as good as entirely extinct, and
the other having been so long time in uninterrupted possession,
surely we need not now hesitate which of these God has chosen
to reign over us. He has declared " by Me Kings reign "
and I believe there is not now one person of our Communion
who does not recognise King George as the only rightful King
of Great Britain.'
The bishop then exhorts Booth to * repentance and the
sincere contrition described in the CXLth lesson, p. 400
of our Catechism ' that is, the Catechism put forth by
Bishop Deacon, ' A Full, True and Comprehensive View
of Christianity,' in 1747 and concludes : ' Your faithful
but afflicted pastor and friend. [Signed] William Cart-
wright.' l It will be observed that Cartwright addresses
Booth not as one who had once been under his charge
when both lived at Shrewsbury, but as being actually so
now after his removal to Manchester ; lie seems to have
exercised a sort of episcopal supervision over his late
father-in-law's flock in Lancashire. 2
In accordance with the sentiments expressed in his
admirable letter to Mr. Booth, Bishop Cartwright was
1 Salopian Shreds and Patches, July 5, 1876.
2 See Notes and Queries,-vo\. for January-June 1856, on this point.
This Booth is sometimes spoken of as if he were the last Nonjuring bishop.
But the bishop's Christian name was Charles, and he was clearly a different
person.
CAETWEIGHT AND THE AMEEICAN CHUECH 369
never hostile to the Church established under ' King
George, the only rightful king ' ; and in his last illness, at
his special request, he received the last viaticum at the
hands of the Kev. W. G. Kowland, vicar of St. Giles's,
Shrewsbury, and was buried by the vicar in St. Giles's
Churchyard. Mr. Rowland has left some interesting
reminiscences of Cartwright, telling us, among other
things, that Bishop Horsley, when on a visit to Shrews-
bury, startled some of the good people by maintaining
that Mr. Cartwright was as much a bishop as himself.
Bishop Horsley was just the man to make such a remark ;
he was far in advance of his day in realising the true,
spiritual nature of the Church, of which ' Establishment '
was only, in logical terms, ' a separable accident.'
But perhaps the most interesting point in connec-
tion with Cartwright is his relations with the American
Church. It is well known that Seabury, after having been
disappointed in his hopes of receiving consecration from
the English bishops, ' turned his eyes to Scotland for the
desired boon ' ; but it is not so well known that a similar
application ' was made at the same time to the represen-
tatives of the Nonjuring Bishops in England.' Cartwright
maintained a constant correspondence with Jonathan
Boucher, a clergyman who, after the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, had been driven out of America for his loyalty ;
another clergyman in the same predicament was Thomas
Bradbury Chandler, and a letter addressed to him by
William Cartwright fully explains the whole transaction
in regard to the consecration of a bishop for America,
and also gives an insight into the mind and position of
Cartwright and the later Non jurors of the time :
Shrewsbury : August 30, 1784.
Eev. Sir, Yesterday I received a letter from Bp. Price of
Manchester, enclosing a paper written by the Eev. Mr. Jonathan
B B
370 THE NONJUBOKS
Boucher of which the following is an abridged copy : ' Mr. Price
is requested to consult Mr. Cartwright whether the Eev. Dr.
Seabury can be consecrated by any Nonjuring bishop. With
respect to temporals Dr. Seabury is, and expects to remain,
independent of any control from any State. But if there be any
requisitions of a spiritual nature which Dr. Seabury, as a con-
scientious member of the Church of England cannot comply
with, Mr. C. is requested to inform his friend whether he knows
of any Nonjuring bishop or bishops, of the late Bp. Gordon's
principles, and where they reside. From a review of the
Liturgy at Mr. Price's, it does not appear that anything will be
required which Dr. S. may not very safely assent to.' The
answer to these queries I am requested to forward to you.
I will therefore begin with the first of them.
When I resided in London, which I left near 15 years ago,
I personally knew Bp. Gordon, but had no particular intimacy
with him, as he was a gentleman of great reserve ; but I was
upon the most intimate footing with one of his presbyters, the
Eev. James Falconer, 1 brother of the Most Eev. Wm. Falconer,
many years primate of Scotland, now lately deceased. From
him I was well informed of Bp. Gordon's principles and prac-
tices in Church affairs. I also at that time corresponded with
some of the Scotch clergy, and from them learned that most of
their principles were consonant with those of the Primitive
Catholick Church. Since I left London I have often inquired
after the State of the Church in Scotland, but can only learn of
a few licensed chapels served by clergy commonly ordained by
the Bp. of Carlisle. So my answer to the first query must be,
That I do not know whether there be one orthodox Bishop left
in Scotland or England besides Bp. Price and my unworthy self.
To (2) ' whether Dr. S. can be consecrated by any Nonjuring
bishop,' I reply : We do not assume the character of non-juring
Bishops, though undoubtedly our predecessors had it, and we
derive our succession from the hands of those who acknow-
ledged it. But we assume and acknowledge only the character
or title of Bishops of the Orthodox British Church, or of the
Primitive Catholick Church in Britain, which is now reduced to
a small remnant ; but yet such as I trust in God will so pre-
serve the depositum, that it will again revive and flourish when
1 Mr. Falconer is also referred to by Bishop Forbes, ' I read prayers for
Mr. James Falconar at his chapel in Westminster,' &c. Journals, &c.
p. 35.
*BP. SEABUKY AND THE NONJUEING BISHOPS' 371
men have sufficiently wearied themselves in the labyrinths of
error and innovation.
(3) ' The Dr. is independent, in temporals, of any control
from State.' Had he said that he was independent of any Civil
State in Spirituals, it would have spoken our sentiments, and
there would have been great probability of a perfect union with
us. I may submit to the Civil State under which I live, in
temporals', but in spirituals I acknowledge no allegiance or
obedience to any State, but according to the laws of the Church
Catholick in the three first centuries, and such as are consonant
thereto, which I am persuaded the Established Church (and
that I call the Church of England) in a great variety of articles
most notoriously violates, and obliges her clergy to violate.
(4) ' From a review of the Liturgy at Mr. P.'s, Dr. S. may
safely assent to it.' If Dr. S. can conscientiously officiate by
that Liturgy at present, he would, when consecrated, be fully
authorized to frame his own liturgy, if he chose to do so, and
cannot be lawfully subject to any control, but that of the laws,
customs and usages of the primitive Catholic Church. And
provided he will so do, nothing more ought to be required of
him by any consecrator &C. 1
(Signed) WILLIAM CARTWBIGHT.
1 In the churchyard attached to S. Giles's Church,
Shrewsbury/ writes Archdeacon Allen in 1861, 'lie the
remains of the last Nonjuring bishop in England, under a
gravestone bearing the following inscription :
UNDERNEATH
LIE THE REMAINS OF
WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT,
APOTHECARY
WHO DIED 14TH OCT. 1799
AGED 69.
ALSO THE REMAINS OF
SARAH SOPHIA CART WRIGHT,
WIFE OF THE ABOVE
WHO DIED 6TH OCT. 1801
AGED 70.
1 See ' Bishop Seabury and the Nonjuring Bishops.' From a Letter in
the Colonial Church Chronicle, for December 1849. The letter was procured
through the kindness of the Rev. H. H. Norris.
B B 2
372 THE NONJUEOES
It will be observed that there is a slight inaccuracy in
this statement. Cartwright was not ' the last Nonjuring
bishop in England ; ' there were two after him.
I am not aware that Bishop Cartwright published any-
thing original except a lengthy Preface, dated ' Shrews-
bury, 1797,' to a reprint of his father-in-law's ' Litany for
the Use of those that Mourn,' &c., of 1746, from which
we gather that he still adhered in toto to the theological
views of Dr. Deacon.
There is also another Nonjuring Prayer Book con-
nected with the name of Bishop Cartwright, the existence
of which has quite lately been discovered by Mr. Henry
Jenner. It is entitled ' The Divine Office, containing
Devotions for the Canonical Hours of Prayer at Lauds,
Tierce, Sext, None and Compline, to be used by all religious
Societies where is a Priest and in the Houses of all the
Clergy. Part I. Printed in the year 1761.' One of the
two copies in the British Museum has a number of MS.
notes in a handwriting which has been clearly identified
as Bishop Cartwright's, and the name of ' W. G. Kowland,
1800,' who, as has been seen, was his parish priest. These
notes draw a distinction between this and ' The Public
Office Book,' that is Deacon's ' Compleat Collection,' and
are written with an air of authority which Cartwright's
position as a quasi-metropolitan of the little community
clearly justifies. But, as Mr. Jenner points out, the most
interesting point is that the title suggests the foundation,
or at any rate the conception, of religious societies among
the Nonjurors, not of the type of the * Eeligious Societies '
which had once been so useful, still less of the type of
Wesley's ' United Societies,' but rather of that of Little
Gidding. Whether any such 'communities ' or ' societies *
were ever attempted is not known.
The last two bishops of this line were Thomas Garnett,.
BISHOPS GAENETT AND BOOTH 373
consecrated by Bishop Cartwright in 1795, and Charles
Booth, consecrated probably by Bishop Garnett some
time later. Garnett is said to have been ' keeper of the
communion-plate ' ; and his .name occurs again in an in-
teresting note in the ' Manchester Guide ' : ' The present
bishop is a Mr. Thos. Garnet, who, it seems, does not
exercise the Episcopal office, and the congregation, now
reduced to about thirty persons, is under the guidance of
Mr. Charles Booth, watchmaker, in Long Millgate, who
in his own house performs the functions of a priest.' 1 It
seems reasonable to presume that this Charles Booth was
the future bishop. He died in Ireland in 1805.
One curious personage belonging to this line of Non-
jurors deserves notice.
Thomas Podmore (1704-85) was one of those men who,
without any advantages of education, manage by the
sheer force of industry and intellect to attain to a con-
siderable amount of learning. He was brought up as a
barber and peruke-maker at Manchester, and became an
early member of Dr. Deacon's congregation and an enthu-
siastic convert to his views, both theological and political.
He was ' out in '45 ' in the Manchester Regiment, and
then joined Cartwright at Shrewsbury and became master
of Millington's School in that town, an office which he is
said to have held for ' nearly forty years.' 2 As he died in
1785, this shows that he could not have left Manchester
much later than 1745. When he received deacon's orders
is not known, but he certainly did receive them, probably
from Bishop Deacon, and helped Cartwright in his minis-
terial work at Shrewsbury, having previously helped
Deacon at Manchester. He was buried, by his own desire,
1 Aston's Manchester Guide, p. 144, note.
2 A full account of Podmore will be found in Byrom's Remains, vol. ii.
part ii. He is also noticed in Notes and Queries, vol. for January-June, 1856
and in Salopian Shreds and Patches, for May 24, 1876, and August 17, 1879
374 THE NONJUEOES
in the consecrated ground where Cadogan Chapel once
stood, and where a Hospital for twelve decayed House-
keepers and Charity Schools, which still exist, were built
under the will, dated 8 Feb. 1734 of James Millington,
Draper and Nonjuror. 1 His tomb on the terrace at
Millington Hospital bears this inscription :
M. S.
EEV D - THOS. PODMOEE
ECC, OETH. BEIT. DIAC.
OB; 10 APE. 1785 J3T. 81
MAY HE FIND MEECY OF THE LOED IN THAT DAY.
And a more touching elegy was found among Cartwright's
papers in the bishop's own handwriting :
On Sunday evening last died in the 81 year of his age, the
Eev. Thomas Podmore, for some years Master of Millington's
Hospital in this Town, and many years a Deacon of the Ancient
Orthodox British Church, of whom in few words it may be
gently said, ' He was a pious and faithful, and a peaceable,
honest man, an Israelite indeed.'
He wrote a very remarkable work, to which, after the
fashion of the day, he gave the following lengthy title :
The Layman's Apology for returning to Primitive Christianity.
Shewing from the Testimonies of Ancient, and the Concessions
of Modern Writers, that the Greek, Eoman and English
Churches, as well as the Pretended Churches of the Anti-
Episcopal Eeformers have each, in some degree, departed from
the Doctrine and Practice of the Catholic Church : and pointing
out a Pure Episcopal Church in England which teaches and
practises All the Ordinances of Christ and His Church in their
Evangelical Perfection. Written in the year 1745 by Tho.
Podmore, at that time Barber and Peruke Maker in Manchester
[1747].
1 Newbery House Magazine, vol. ix. July 1893. Article on * The Non-
jurors,' by the Hon. Mrs. Bulkeley Owen. Also further private information
kindly given me by Mrs. Bulkeley Owen.
THOMAS PODMORE 375
It fills two hundred very closely printed pages, and its
curious conclusion is worth quoting as a compendium of
the tenets held by this latest development of the Non-
juring separation :
And now, having found that the Greek Church is chargeable
with having departed from the Doctrine and Practice of the
Catholick Church in (1) Transubstantiation and Adoration of
the Host, (2) Praying to Saints and Angels, (3) Worship of
Images, and imposing these on all who communicate with her ;
the Eoman Church the same, and further (4) Maintaining and
imposing the doctrine of the Bishop of Rome's supremacy,
(5) Purgatory Fire between death and resurrection without its
sequence, (6) taking the Apocrypha into the Canon of Scripture,
(7) withholding the Eucharistic Cup, or Communion in one
kind, (8) rejecting Infant Communion, (9) Making Consecration
to consist in the words of Institution, (10) imposing the
Filioque, (11) not using Trine Immersion in Baptism, (12) dis-
regarding the ancient practice of praying standing on Sundays
between Easter and Whitsuntide, (13) and the Apostolical pre-
cept of abstaining from eating blood, (14) and the Saturday
Festival, and (15) the Saturday Fast ; the Church of England
also chargeable with the last eight deviations, and also (9) main-
taining the King's Ecclesiastical Supremacy, (10) rejecting the
Mixture, (11) denying the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, and
therefore wanting Oblatory Prayer, and (12) Invocatory Prayer,
(13) No Prayer for the Faithful Departed, (14) No Chrism in
Confirmation, (15) No Unction of the Sick. And the Anti-
Episcopalians, worse than any, having rejected almost every,
thing, especially Episcopacy without which there can be no
church.
He then points out that * there is a Church which
hath all these things,' and refers the reader to Deacon's
works. ' And,' he concludes, ' if the pious Reader would
know where such a pure, perfect Church as I am recom-
mending is to be found, I will tell him in one word, at
MANCHESTER.'
Bishop Cartwright's was the last Nonjuring congre-
gation of which we have any authentic record; the
376 THE NONJUKOES
Nonjurors, therefore, may be said to have become extinct,
or rather to have been reabsorbed coterminously with
the eighteenth century. The two bishops who survived
Cartwright are shadows, and the rumours of Nonjuring
congregations lingering on in the West of England as late
as 1815 are very vague. There were still, no doubt,
individuals who sympathised with Nonjuring principles ;
but they showed their sympathy, not by forming congre-
gations of their own, nor by standing aloof from public
worship in the parish churches, but by the simple device
of only using Prayer Books which were printed before
the Revolution a plan which was adopted very early in
the Nonjuring controversy.
377
CHAPTEE IX
THE NONJURORS AND GENERAL LITERATURE
IT has been thought, on the whole, desirable to devote a
separate chapter to the general literary work of the Non-
jurors, apart from the sketches of the individuals who
produced it, and apart from that special literary work
which their Nonjuring position and their internal disputes
entailed upon them. There is, of course, this obvious
objection to the plan that it is a putting asunder of
what the fitness of things would naturally join together.
But having frankly admitted the awkwardness of the
arrangement, I adopt it for two reasons which more than
counterbalance the advantages of the more natural plan
of treating the writers and all their writings, whether they
bear on the Nonjuring question or not, together. These
reasons are : (1) The great importance of emphasising
the fact that the Nonjurors could look beyond their own
little community, and take an intelligent interest not only
in Christianity generally, but in other subjects which
engage the attention of cultivated men ; (2) the desirable-
ness of not drawing away the reader's attention from the
real points at issue in the Nonjuring question, as might
have been the case if, in the preceding chapters, space
had been devoted to work done by Nonjurors, not qua
Nonjurors, but qua Christians and qua men of culture.
The dislocation will not, perhaps, be quite so glaring
if the works treated of in this chapter be grouped, not
according to their writers, but according to their subject-
378 THE NONJUEOES
matter. On this principle they may be divided into five
classes viz. (1) Practical and Devotional Works ; (2) Con-
troversial Works ; (3) Historical and Biographical Works ;
(4) Poetical Works ; (5) Miscellaneous Works.
(1) Practical and Devotional Works.
The sanctity of an oath, as a religious act, was the
first guiding principle of the Nonjurors ; the practical
duty of patient submission to the powers ordained of
God their second ; the spiritual authority and indepen-
dence of the Church as a spiritual society their third.
These three principles are, in the last resort, not political,
nor ecclesiastical, but simply religious. One would
naturally, therefore, expect that ' works of piety ' (a good
old phrase now almost gone out of fashion) would take a
prominent place among the compositions of Nonjurors.
And so we find they do. Their practical and devotional
works have lived, while many of their other works have
died. Some who know little and care less about the
whole Nonjuring question, and others who regard it as
an entirely obsolete phase of thought, still know and
admire the ' works of piety ' written by Thomas Ken,
John Kettlewell, Kobert Nelson, Nathanael Spinckes, and
William Law.
Bishop Ken's practical and devotional compositions
in prose were all connected with his parochial or diocesan
work, and were therefore written before he became a
Nonjuror ; but after he became one he stamped them all
with his approval by putting forth later editions. They
are few in number and slight in bulk, and one cannot
help regretting that they were not more numerous and
more bulky, for they are gems. In 1674, when he was
working as a parish priest at Winchester, he published
his 'Manual for Winchester Scholars/ to which an
DEVOTIONAL WOEKS KEN'S 379
adventitious interest is attached, because in a later edition
of it (1695) first appeared the three immortal hymns
which come under our fourth class. In 1685, being
anxious for the good of the people of his new diocese, he
published expressly for their instruction ' The Practice
of Divine Love, being an Exposition of the Church
Catechism.' ' The characteristic feature,' writes Dean
Plump tre, ' of the " Exposition " throughout is, that the
Catechism is turned in all its parts into a Manual of
Devotion.' l It might seem as if it would require some
ingenuity to do this, and that the result would be some-
what far-fetched; but Ken was so spiritually minded a
man that it all appears to come quite naturally from him.
In the same year (1685), and for the same reason, appeared
his ' Directions for Prayer for the Diocese of Bath and
Wells,' of which Dean Plumptre says : ' It can hardly be
doubted that it was the direct outcome of Ken's ministra-
tions to the prisoners whom he visited at Wells, and in
whom he had found a " lamentable ignorance and forget-
fulness of God." ' 2 And so for this class he composed
the simplest of simple directions and prayers ; but for
family prayers he commended those of the Prayer Book
' as being most familiar and of greatest authority withal.'
A very different class of people, who frequented the other
city from which Bishop Ken received his title, also claimed
his sympathy. From the prisoners at Wells to the
health-seekers and pleasure-seekers at Bath seems a far
cry, but the good bishop had a heart for both, and so there
immediately followed another manual from ' Thomas,
unworthy Bishop of Bath and Wells, to all Persons who
come to the Baths for cure, wishing for them from God
the Blessings of this life and the next.' It is entitled
1 Life of BisJwp Ken, i. 231.
2 Ibid. i. 237.
380 THE NONJUROBS
* Prayers for the use of all resorting to the Baths at Bath.'
There are several other works of a devotional character
which are attributed to Ken, some on strong grounds ;
but the limits of this work allow me to specify only those
which are undoubtedly his.
John Kettlewell was a more voluminous writer on
practical and devotional subjects than Bishop Ken. Like
Ken, he wrote in the first instance for the benefit of his
own flock ; but, unlike Ken, he did not cease to write for
them after he became a Non juror, because he considered
that he was still their shepherd de jure, though not de
facto. His first work which properly comes under the
present head was ' The Measures of^Christian Obedience/
published in 1681, and this was followed by 'An Help
and Exhortation to Worthy Communicating,' in 1683.
The former anticipates some of the reasons which led
Kettlewell eight years later to become a Nonjuror ; but
it is essentially a practical, not a controversial, work ; as
also is the second, which is simply a summary of the
preparation sermons which he was in the habit of
preaching at Coleshill before the Sundays on which he
administered the Holy Communion. Both were popular,
and passed through several editions, but not so popular
as the next, which appeared, in February 1687-8, under
the title of ' The Practical Believer ; or the Articles of
the Apostles' Creed drawn out to form a true Christian's
Heart and Practice/ which was a sort of supplement to
his ' Measures of Christian Obedience/ but more elabo-
rate. Almost everything that Kettlewell wrote was, more
or less, of a practical and devotional character, and it is
much more difficult to disentangle the Nonjuring from
the practical element in his case than in that of Bishop
Ken ; because many of his works were written when he
was actually a Nonjuror, while none of Ken's were, and
DEVOTIONAL WORKS KETTLEWELL'S 381
also because Kettlewell took more distinctly and less
hesitatingly than Ken did the Nonjuring position. But
most of these semi-controversial, semi-devotional works
have already been noticed in the preceding pages, so I
pass on to one which is exclusively devotional, and might
have been written for any Churchman, Juring or Non-
juring. It is entitled * A Companion for the Penitent and
for Persons troubled in Mind,' and was first published in
1694 ; it was addressed to his late parishioners, and
copies of it were sent by the writer for distribution at
Coleshill. But one cannot but feel that this, too, was
intended to be a supplement to a work published in
the same year, or the year before, with a similar title,
1 A Companion for the Persecuted, or an Office for those
who suffer for Kighteousness,' which is a distinctly Non-
juring work. There is a touching interest about his next
work, ' Death made comfortable, or the way to die well '
(1695), because it was written by one who was virtually
a dying man. Several other works of the same type
were published after the saintly writer's death under the
auspices of his friend, Robert Nelson, but these hardly
call for special notice ; and finally, in 1749, a judicious
selection from his works was published as a manual of
devotion under the title of ' The True Church of England
Man's Companion.'
Eobert Nelson's practical writings follow by a natural
sequence those of his friend Kettlewell, for it was
Kettlewell who stimulated him 'especially to write for
the honour of religion, which he thought might do much
more good as coming from a lay gentleman than it would
from a professed clergyman.' * Nelson's works were a
reflex of his life ; as he lived, so he wrote, simply to do
good. The first was ' The Practice of True Devotion, in
1 Lee's ' Life of Kettlewell,' prefixed to Compleat Works, i. 170.
382 THE NONJ URGES
Relation to the End as well as the Means of Eeligion,
with an Office for the Holy Communion/ which was
published anonymously in 1698. It was written, as he
himself tells us, because he thought that ' the prevalence
of religious controversies drew men away from the solid
and substantial part of religion, the spirit and life of
devotion,' and he wished to lead them back to it. Next
came ' An Earnest Exhortation to Householders to set
up the Worship of God in their Families,' also published
anonymously, 1702. This was perhaps seasonable for the
same reason as it would be now, because the great increase
in the number of week-day services, which was a marked
feature of that day, as it is of the present, has a tendency
to make people put family prayer in the background.
Then came by far the most popular of all his works, one
which to this day has not been superseded ; at least I know
no other work which treats of the same subject in the same
compass and in the same way. Its full title is ' A Com-
panion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of
England, with Collects and Prayers for each Solemnity.'
It was not published until 1704, but it had been projected,
and, indeed, commenced, at least ten years before ; for
Kettlewell, who died in 1695, was not only the original
suggester of it, but helped in the beginning of its com-
position. Francis Brokesby also, whom Nelson often met
at Shottesbrooke, is said to have had a hand in the work ;
but Nelson derived his most valuable assistance from his
friend, Dr. William Cave ; and, as Mr. Secretan points
out, 1 a comparison between it and Cave's ' Lives of the
Apostles and Evangelists ' shows many verbal agreements
between the two works. Honour to whom honour is
-due ; Nelson's ' Festivals and Fasts ' (to give it its familiar
title) could never have been what it is without Dr. Cave's
1 Life of tlie pious Robert Nelson, p. 164.
DEVOTIONAL WOEKS NELSON'S 383
help, and its reader may have the satisfaction of knowing
that he is reading a book which reflects the learning of
one of the most learned theologians of the English
Church. It is surely unnecessary to describe this really
classical work ; if any Churchman is not already familiar
with it, the sooner he makes himself so the better. It
had an unexampled career of prosperity for so grave a
work. Ten thousand copies were sold within five years
of its publication ; it had reached a thirty-sixth edition in
1826, and it has been reprinted since.
In the same year, 1704, appeared another work in the
catechetical form, like the ' Festivals and Fasts,' which,
though anonymous, was certainly Nelson's, ' The Whole
Duty of a Christian, by way of Question and Answer,
exactly pursuant to the Method of the Whole Duty of
Man, for the use of Charity Schools about London ; ' and
in 1706 yet another, ' Instructions for those that come to
be Confirmed, by way of Question and Answer ' ; but
these have not lived, as their predecessor has done. The
last-named was afterwards prefixed to another practical
work by Nelson, 'The Great Duty of frequenting the
Christian Sacrifice/ published in 1707. This, viewed in
one light, would belong to our next section, for its very
title shows that it committed the writer to one side on a
subject which was being hotly controverted at the time
viz. whether the Holy Eucharist was a Sacrifice as well
as a Sacrament. But Nelson, though very reasonable
and moderate, was not colourless, and was not at all
afraid to show his colours ; he strongly contended for the
sacrificial character of the Eucharist, being well backed
up by his friend Hickes and by Johnson of Cranbrook,
author of ' The Unbloody Sacrifice,' with whom, though a
stranger, he interchanged some interesting letters on the
subject. But the book was devotional far more than
384 THE NONJUKOES
controversial, and therefore belongs to the present head.
The next work touched no burning question, except the
question of selfishness. It was a most stirring appeal,
entitled ' An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate/
pointing out to them the many ways and means of doing
good. It may be regarded as Nelson's dying protest
against the luxury and selfishness of the age, for it
appeared in 1715, and in that year the author died.
Nelson was a man of many friends, but there were
none for whom he had a greater respect than Nathanael
Spinckes, who, like himself, was a devotional writer,
though, considering the saintliness and ability of the man,
not nearly to the extent that one could have wished. We
could well have spared some of his tracts on the ' Usages '
controversy for the sake of more writings of a devotional
type. The first of this kind was entitled ' The Sick Man
Visited and furnished with Instructions, Meditations,
and Prayers, by Nath, Spinckes/ which was first pub-
lished in 1712, and reached a fourth edition in 1731. It
is, in the first instance, addressed more ad clerum than
ad populum. It is in the form of a dialogue, and describes
six visits from the minister to his sick parishioner, fol-
lowed by some meditations and no less than sixty-three
prayers, ' proper for the use of the sick on different occa-
sions ' ; it is written in a very pleasant and homely style,
and is well adapted for the purpose for which it was
intended. Still more popular was a compilation com-
monly called ' Spinckes's Devotions/ but properly ' The
True Church of England Man's Companion to the Closet,
with a Preface by N. Spinckes ' (1721). The prayers and
meditations were collected, probably by Spinckes himself,
from the writings of Laud, Andrewes, Ken, Hickes,
Kettlewell, Spinckes, and others ; and the collection
became so popular that it reached a fifteenth edition in
PEACTICAL WOEKS SPINCKES'S AND LAW'S 385
1772. It was republished with an Introduction by the
Rev. F. Paget in 1841, and has probably been used by
many who were influenced by the Oxford Movement.
* Spinckes's Devotions ' is a book frequently mentioned in
eighteenth century literature.
William Laiv was, like Ken and Kettle well, so satu-
rated with the spirit of piety that, in one sense, all his
works are devotional, while, in another sense, none of
them is ; that is, none of them can be exactly used as
a manual of devotion. Practical, however, they are, and
here it might be difficult to know what to include in the
present section ; but, happily, we are guided by Mr. Law
himself, who calls the 'Christian Perfection' and the
' Serious Call ' ' my two practical treatises.'
In fact, the proper title of the first is ' A Practical
Treatise upon Christian Perfection.' This was published
in 1726, and has passed through innumerable editions.
It is a wonderfully powerful book, and had it not been
eclipsed by the still more powerful one which quickly
followed would have been even more highly appreciated
than it has been. Its drawback, perhaps, is that it sets
an impossibly high standard ; it is practical,' but hardly
* practicable.' It should, however, be read in the light of
the answer which Law himself gave to John Wesley when
the latter, with his strong common sense, demurred to
Law's view of Christian duty as too elevated to be attain-
able : * We shall do well to aim at the highest degree of
perfection, if we may thereby, at least, attain to medio-
crity.' It should also be remembered that, when it
appeared, religion in England was about at its nadir, and
this may to some extent account for the rather gloomy
view of life which Law takes; but the gloom is often
lighted up by flashes of that racy, though somewhat
grim, humour which is a striking characteristic of this
c c
386 THE NONJUEORS
remarkable man. In the ' Christian Perfection ' he
begins the plan, which he elaborated more carefully
and in greater fulness in the ' Serious Call/ of illus-
trating his meaning by imaginary characters. Pliilo,
Patronus, Eusebius, Lucia, Publius, Siccus, are brilliant
sketches all the more brilliant from the sombreness of
their setting.
In 1728 appeared ' A Serious Call to a Devout and
Holy Life, adapted to the State and Condition of all
Orders of Christians,' the work by which, of all others,
Law's name is known. It would have been well if
objectors had attended more to the title of the book. It
is not, and does not profess to be, a devotional book, still
less a complete body of divinity. It is simply, as its name
indicates, a * Call.' Regarded in this its proper light, it
must be admitted to have been wonderfully effective.
The ' Call ' reached the ears of thousands, and appealed
to them not in vain. It is less depressing, more brilliant,
and more persuasive than its predecessor ; but both are in
their way unique, and produced an impression which no
other books in the eighteenth century did. The odd part
of it is that while they roused men's spiritual conscious-
ness, and made them no longer content to lead a selfish,
worldly life, they led them in a direction in which Law
was by no means prepared to follow. It should never be
forgotten that the ' Christian Perfection ' and the ' Serious
Call ' were written by a Nonjuror that is, not only by
one whose conscience forbade him to swear allegiance to
the House of Hanover, but by one who held the same
Church principles, and was of the same tone of mind as
the Nonjurors. In one sense, both the writer and his
books were the exact antipodes of the Puritans, and yet
they were the primum mobile of what has been, not very
accurately, termed modern Puritanism. There was no
PRACTICAL WORKS LAW'S 387
inconsistency whatever in Law's position ; a man might
perfectly well combine the Church principles, say, of Laud
with the puritanical severity of Laud's arch-enemy,
Prynne; but it had not been a usual combination, and
the general public, which is not given to making nice
distinctions, identified Law with a party to which in
reality he never belonged. ' William Law begat Method-
ism ' was Warburton's dictum, and it is a dictum which
cannot be gainsaid. 'I prophesied,' writes a sapient
gentleman, Dr. Trapp, * that the two books would do harm,
and so it happened, for shortly afterwards up sprung the
Methodists.' ! One point in common with the Methodists
Law certainly had : he was ' an enthusiast,' and to call
a man an enthusiast in the eighteenth century was like
calling him a leper a man to be carefully shunned. But
in other respects Law was never a Methodist, not even
in the wide and vague sense in which the word was used
in the eighteenth century. He was always a High
Churchman, tinged in his later years with a vein of
mysticism which estranged him still farther from Me-
thodism. Through no fault of his own, he was placed in
a somewhat false position by his two practical treatises.
He was judged by one standard, while he himself took
another. John Wesley, Charles Wesley, George White-
field, Henry Venn, Thomas Scott in short, almost all
the Evangelical leaders express their obligations to the
two books ; but they were never really in sympathy with
the author. They appreciated and admired his piety, his
earnestness, and his intellectual power; but they com-
plained, and from their point of view not without reason,
that there was too little of the Gospel in the books.
Law took no notice of the complaints ; he came down
1 Dr. Trapp's Discourse on the Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of being
Eigliteous Overmuch.
cc 2
383 THE NONJUEOES
like a sledge-hammer upon Deists, Latitudinarians, and
worldlings ; but against men whom he believed to be
earnest Christians he never lifted up his hand. But
Christians of the type of Bishop Wilson and Bishop
Home that is, the general body of consistent English
Churchmen were those who really appreciated, heart and
soul, the ' Christian Perfection ' and the * Serious Call.'
One of the chief among their merits was that they
tended to dispel the mischievous but very prevalent
notion that piety was generally accompanied by intel-
lectual weakness. We see traces of this even in the
great and good Dr. Johnson.
I became [he says] a sort of lax talker against religion, for
I did not much think against it ; and this lasted till I went to
Oxford, when I took up Law's ' Serious Call to a Holy Life,'
expecting to find it a dull book, as such books generally are.
But I found Law quite an over-match for me ; and this was
the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after
I became capable of rational inquiry. 1
In the same spirit the first Lord Lyttelton, the poet
and historian, took up Law's ' Serious Call ' at a friend's
house, and, having been so fascinated that he could not
go to rest until he had finished it, expressed himself as
' not a little astonished to find that one of the finest
books that ever were written had been penned by a
crack-brained enthusiast.' 2 Gibbon, the historian, was
perhaps predisposed to regard with a favourable eye the
work of a man who had been his father's tutor, the
honoured inmate of his grandfather's house, and * had left
in the Gibbon family the reputation of a worthy and
pious man, who believed all that he professed, and
practised all that he enjoined.' 3 Still, there is a ring
1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. i. ch. i.
Byrom's Remains, vol. ii. part ii. p. 634.
1 Memoir of My Life and Writings, Gibbon's ' Miscellaneous Works,' i. 14.
PEACTICAL WOEKS LAW'S 389
of sincere and honest admiration in the tone in which he
writes of the ' Serious Call,' for which family partiality is
not sufficient to account :
Mr. Law's masterwork, the ' Serious Call,' is still read as a
popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid ;
but they are founded on the Gospel. His satire is sharp ; but
it is drawn from the knowledge of human life, and many of his
portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he
finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind, he will soon kindle
it to a flame ; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes,
with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction between
the faith and practice of the Christian world. 1
And, to come to our own day, one of the ablest living
critics, though he differs very widely from Law's views,
evidently admires and appreciates the ' Serious Call,'
'a book which palpitates throughout with the deepest
emotions of its author.' 2
It is with some misgiving that I omit to notice in
this connection Law's later, mystical works, which were
intensely ' devotional ' in tone, and were certainly intended
to be ' practical,' though that is the last epithet that some
would apply to them. But they are not what is commonly
understood by * practical and devotional works ; ' they
teem with controversial matter in every page ; people who
greatly admired the two books which we have been con-
sidering Bishop Home, William Jones, John Wesley,
and Henry Venn among others were repelled by his
later writings ; full of beautiful and suggestive thoughts
as they are, the consideration of them here might intro-
duce a note of discord into a subject where all should
be harmony; so it will be better to accept Law's own
description of the ' Christian Perfection ' and the * Serious
1 Memoir of My Life and Writings, p. 15.
2 See Sir Leslie Stephen's English Tliought in tlie Eighteenth Century,
ii. 395-6.
390 THE NONJUEORS
Call ' as ' his two practical treatises,' * and limit ourselves
to these two for the present.
Another devotional work written by a Nonjuror, which
had a considerable reputation in its day, but is now, like
its author, forgotten, was Abednego Seller's * Devout
Communicant, assisted with Rules, together with Medita-
tions, Prayers and Anthems for every Day of the Holy
Week.' It was first published in 1686, and became so
popular that it reached a sixth edition in 1695. Then in
1704 it was republished, 'with many alterations, addi-
tions, and amendments,' under the following title :
The good man's preparation for the happy receiving of the
blessed sacrament;. Together with an account of the Holy-
Passion Week ; and the great festival of Easter. With rules
and directions how to fast acceptably ; and how to communicate
worthily. To which are annext, particular lessons, prayers,
meditations, and anthems, for the several days of those times of
strict mortification and holy joy. In two parts.
Mr. Seller also published two other practical works, ' An
Infallible Way to Contentment in the midst of Publick
or Personal Calamities' (1679 and 1688), which has been
reproduced in our own day as part of * Companions for a
Quiet Hour,' by the Eeligious Tract Society, and 'An
Exposition of the Church Catechism from our Modern
Authors and the Holy Scriptures ' (1695).
Besides the practical and devotional works actually
written by Nonjurors, there were others which they either
edited afresh, or stamped with their approval by writing a
Preface or Introduction to them. Thus, George Hickes
edited in 1701 a compilation made by Susanna Hopton,
entitled ' Devotions in the Antient Way of Offices,' having
revised it and prefixed an interesting Preface. This book
is often referred to in Nonjuring writings, and it has been
1 See William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic, p. 80.
CONTROVERSIAL WORKS 391
said that it was sometimes used as part of the Office in
Nonjuring oratories, but the evidence for this is not strong.
Nathanael Spinckes also published another work of the
same lady in 1717, eight years after her death, under the
title of * A Collection of Meditations and Devotions, in
Three Parts.' Henry Dodwell published an edition of the
work of his tutor, Dr. Stearne, 'De Obstinatione ; or,
Concerning Firmness and not Sinking under Adversities,'
and also an edition, with a Preface, of St. Francis de
Sales's * Introduction to a Devout Life ' ; and Francis
Lee, an edition of ' The Christian Exercise,' by Thomas a
Kempis.
(2) Controversial Works.
The age of the Nonjurors that is, roughly speaking,
the first half of the eighteenth century has been rightly
described as * an age of a thousand controversies.' 1 There
was the Bangorian controversy, the Convocation con-
troversy (nearly, but not quite, the same thing), the
Trinitarian controversy, the Deistical controversy, the
never-ending Eoman controversy, the controversy with
the Quakers at the beginning of the period, and the
controversy with the Methodists at the end, and num-
berless minor ones.
In these controversies the Nonjurors took their full
share, and always on the side of the Church of England.
From their writings on them one would never gather that
they were in any way different as, indeed, except on
their own peculiar stumbling-block they were not from
plain English Churchmen who took the recognised formu-
laries of the English Church, and none other, as their
standard. This is a feature in their history which has
1 Bishop Fitzgerald in Aids to Faith, p. 48. Essay II. ' Evidences of
Christianity.'
392 THE NONJUEOES
scarcely been brought out into sufficient prominence.
Against the opponents, not only of Christianity generally,
but of the Church of England in particular, Leslie and
Hickes, Spinckes and Law, stood shoulder to shoulder
with Stillingfleet and Waterland, Bull and Butler. There
is assuredly reason in the sorrowful reproach of one of
their number :
It seems, Sir, the writing of Nonjurors is grievous to you.
. . . You might have remembered the zeal they have shown
for our common mother, the Church of England, and how they
have been her constant champions against her adversaries of
all sorts since the Eevolution. . . . They have all along shew'd
this zeal and affection for her, tho' since the Eevolution they
have neither eat of her bread, nor enjoy'd her possessions. 1
Let us begin with that stout champion of the Christian
faith, Charles Leslie. Leslie's deliberate purpose was
to furnish English Church people with a full system of
defence against all adversaries ; and it was this purpose,
rather than his love of fighting (though he was a born
fighter), which led him to do battle with Deists, Jews,
Socinians, Quakers, Eomanists, in fact, with all whom he
considered enemies of Church principles, from whatever
quarter they might come. He made several known con-
verts, and many, doubtless, unknown, by his writings, but,
as his biographer truly points out : * It was not to the
Nonjurors as such, in opposition to the Establishment,
but to the Church of England that he reconciled his
converts ; not attempting to impose upon them, or even
recommend, the political obligations which he felt bind-
ing on his own conscience.' 2 Family circumstances seem
to have led him first to direct his artillery against the
1 A Seasonable and Modest Apology in belutlf of the Rev* Dr. George
Hickes and oilier Nonjurors, in a Letter to T. Wise, D.D., on occasion of his
Visitation at Canterbury, June 1, 1710.
2 Charles Leslie's Life and Writings, by E. J. Leslie, p. 178.
CONTROVERSIAL WORKS LESLIE'S 39$
Deists. About 1686 Lady Frances Keightley, sister of his>
ever-constant friend the Earl of Clarendon, became an
inmate of Charles Leslie's house. She had become un-
settled in her faith by the arguments of the Deists, and
Leslie tried to argue with her ; but ' I found,' he says,
* discoursing with her had but little effect, for in that
violent discomposure she could not give attention. ... I
then wrote this letter, free from all intricacies and suited
to her capacity. . . . And by the blessing of God this had
the desired effect.' l Though really addressed to a lady,
the letter appears as ' A Letter to a Gentleman ' for
obvious reasons. It afterwards appeared, enlarged and
revised, as * A Short and Easy Method with the Deists/
It was followed by ' A Short and Easy Method with the
Jews,' dated very appropriately ' Good Friday 1689.' In
1694 he published his first work on the Socinian con-
troversy in * A Letter to a Friend,' which was followed in
1697 by * A Second Letter to a Friend ' on the same sub-
ject, and in 1708 * The Socinian Controversy discussed
in Six Dialogues,' in reply to Biddle's ' History of the
Unitarians.' The Quakers were a far more numerous and
thriving sect than they are now, and Leslie was brought
much into contact with them. Partly for that reason and
partly because their disregard of the Sacraments would be
particularly offensive to a Churchman of advanced views,,
he wrote more numerous and lengthy works against
them than against any others. To this group belong his
1 Snake in the Grass,' with its sequels and supplements,
his * Satan Disrobed,' &c., 'An Answer to the Switch,'
and ' A Treatise on Water Baptism.' It was also in
connection with the Quakers that he wrote against
the Muggletonians, considering the two sects as 'twin
1 Vindication of ' Slwrt and Easy Method,' quoted in Life, by B. J.
Leslie, p. 22.
394 THE NONJUEOES
enthusiasts, which, though like Samson's foxes drawing
two ways, their tails were joined with firebrands to set the
Church in a flame.' * And, finally, he measured swords
with the Roman Catholics, first in a public letter addressed
to the Bishop of Meaux, the famous Bossuet, justifying
Bishop Bull's use of the term * Catholic Church ' as
embracing the English Church ; this was taken up in
consequence of Bossuet's letter to Eobert Nelson on the
subject in 1694 ; and then, after he had been brought into
closer communication with Koman Catholics at Bar-le-
Duc, in a work in the form of dialogue entitled ' The Case
stated between the Church of Kome and the Church of
England' (1713). When to these are added his Answer
to Burnet, his reflections on Tillotson, his reply to
Higden's ' View of the English Constitution,' and other
writings against those whom he considered unfaithful
members of the Church of England, it will be seen that
Leslie pretty nearly boxed the compass of controversial
divinity so far as England was concerned during his
lifetime.
George Hickes was as keen a combatant as Charles
Leslie ; but he does not occupy so large a space under the
present heading, partly because, as recognised leader of
the Nonjurors, he, perhaps, felt in honour bound to defend
with his pen Nonjurors qua Nonjurors, and his works on
this point do not come within our purview, and partly
because he was more engrossed with non-controversial
subjects, as will appear in a later section. But his con-
tributions to one controversy are peculiarly valuable, not
so much from their intrinsic merits (though these were
not slight) as from the position which he held. He was
supposed to be the captain, as it were, of the advanced
guard of the Nonjurors that is, of that section of them
1 See Life, p. 174.
CONTEOVEESIAL WOEKS HICKES'S & BEETT'S 395
which was thought to approach most nearly to Rome ;
but his writings prove, if proof be needed, that he had
not in reality the slightest tendency in that direction.
He published in 1687 * An Apologetical Vindication of
the Church of England,' which Bishop Gibson afterwards
thought so good a defence of the English as against the
Roman Church that he included it in his ' Preservatives
against Popery ' ; in 1704 ' Several Letters which passed
between Dr. Hickes and a Roman Priest,' in which he
defended the Anglican position with great learning and
ability ; and in 1710 * A Second Collection of Contro-
versial Letters relating to the Church of England and
Church of Rome and an Honourable Lady' that is,
the Lady Gratiana Carew. Innumerable sermons and
pamphlets were also published by Hickes on controversial
subjects, but these need not be specified in a general
sketch like the present. 1
What has been said about George Hickes applies also
to his convert, Thomas Brett, whose chief writings hardly
come under the present head; and those which do are
quite as much historical as controversial. Nevertheless,
his ' Account of Church Government ' (1707), his ' Review
of Lutheran Principles' (1714), his 'Necessity of dis-
covering Christ's Body in the Holy Communion ' (1720),
his * Discourses concerning the ever Blessed Trinity '
(1720), his ' Answer to the " Plain Account of the
Sacrament " [by Hoadly] ' (1735), his * Remarks on Dr.
Waterland's Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist '
(1741), his 'Four Letters on the Necessity of Epi-
scopal Communion ' (1743) are all controversial works,
and are written not only with great ability, but in
a courteous, gentlemanly in fact, Christian spirit
1 A full list will be found in the article on ' Hickes, George,' in the
Dictionary of National Biography.
396 THE NONJUEOES
which it would have been well if many others had
imitated.
Another friend of Hickes, Nathanael Spinckes, though
he is generally regarded as a saint rather than a disputant,
took a considerable part in the religious controversies of
the day, writing in the same spirit in which Brett wrote.
In 1705 he put forth a work entitled ' The Essay towards
a Proposal for Catholic Communion answered Chapter
by Chapter.' This was a reply to a Mr. Bissett, who
proposed a reconciliation of the Church of England with
the Church of Rome, and has a special interest as show-
ing that a trusted leader of the Nonjurors whom many
followed had no hope of a concordat between the two
Churches. In 1714 he returned to the charge in a work
entitled 'The Case fully stated,' &c. that is, the case
between the Church of England and the Church of
Eome ; and yet again, in 1718, in ' The Case farther stated
between the Church of Kome and the Church of England,
wherein the Chief Point about the Supremacy is fully
discussed in a Dialogue between a Koman Catholic and a
member of the Church of England.' He also entered the
lists in 1705 against the ' French Prophets,' a set of
enthusiasts claiming the spirit of prophecy, who had been
driven from their home in the Cevennes, and found a
refuge in England, where they anticipated some of those
physical phenomena which marked the early Methodist
movement. Spinckes 's work was entitled ' The New
Pretenders to Prophecy re-examined, and their Pretences
shown to be Groundless and False.' In this crusade
against the Camisard refugees, as they were called,
Spinckes found himself in strange company ; for not
only did his friend Hickes write against them (' Enthu-
siasm Exorcised '), but also Hoadly, Whiston, Shaftesbury,
and Calamy a medley set.
CONTEOVERSIAL WORKS LAW'S 397
Henry Dodwell also brought his vast stores of learning
to bear upon subjects on which the Church of England
was at variance with the Church of Borne on the one
side and the various Protestant sects on the other ; but
most, if not all, of his writings on these subjects were
earlier than the Nonjuring separation ; after which he
devoted himself either to questions connected with that
separation or to general subjects.
It is not necessary, therefore, to dwell upon him, nor
yet to do more than mention an able work by that
learned man, Laurence Howell, on the Roman con-
troversy, the title of which tells its own tale :
A View of the Pontificate : From its supposed Beginning
to the End of the Council of Trent, A.D. 1563. In which the
Corruptions of the Scriptures and Sacred Antiquity, Forgeries in
the Councils, and Incroachments of the Court of Eome on the
Church and State, to support their Infallibility, Supremacy, and
other Modern Doctrines, are set in a true Light [1712].
Another edition appeared in 1716 under the less por-
tentous title of ' The History of the Pontificate.'
But there is another controversial writer who cannot
be dismissed so summarily. William Law, while yet a
young and unknown man, only just turned thirty, leapt
with a bound into fame by his ' Three Letters to the
Bishop of Bangor,' the ablest of the voluminous writings
on the Bangorian controversy. The Letters were pub-
lished in 1717, and their reputation has gone on increas-
ing rather than diminishing until the present day. But
they have always been appreciated. Jones of Nay land
described them as ' incomparable for truth of argument,
brightness of wit, and purity of English.' Mr. F. D.
Maurice thought that the ' Letters shewed the powers
and temptations of a singularly able controversialist.' 1
The ' temptations ' referred to were probably a tendency
1 Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Tlieology.
398 THE NONJUROES
to run riot in sarcasm and to indulge in extreme severity.
Law is, no doubt, severe, and when he grew older he
toned down considerably. But to a man of his opinions
the provocation was strong, for the bishop glaringly set
at defiance the most obvious principles of the Church in
which he bore high office. Not less severe, and hardly
less brilliant, is Law's next controversial work, which
appeared in 1723. In 1714 Dr. Bernard Mandeville had
published a poem entitled ' The Grumbling Hive, or
Knaves turned Honest/ the gist of which was that when
the bees turned honest they lost thereby their greatness
and their wealth ; and in 1723 he re-edited it, with notes,
lest any one should miss the point. It was probably in-
tended as a sort of satire on those who taught the rather
grovelling doctrine of the morality of consequences, instead
of the nobler one of the morality of principle. But the
moral, at least on the surface, was that it answered better
to be dishonest than honest, and Law was not the man
to allow so dangerous a theory to pass without protest.
Law generally singled out strong antagonists; and
as he chose the ablest of the Latitudinarians when he
attacked Hoadly, so he chose the ablest of the Deists
when he attacked Tindal, whose ' Christianity as old as
the Creation ' is the most powerful work Deism produced.
Of course, in one sense, Law held as strongly as Tindal
that Christianity was as old as the Creation ; but what
Tindal really meant was that natural religion rendered
revealed religion unnecessary ; in other words, he exalted
reason at the expense of revelation. Against this theory
Law published, in 1731-2, 'The Case of Eeason, or
Natural Keligion fairly and fully stated in Answer to
Christianity as Old as the Creation,' in which he antici-
pated some of the arguments in Bishop Butler's master-
piece of four years later.
CONTROVERSIAL WOKKS LAW'S 399
Law's sacramental views were always high, and, so
far from being lowered when he hecame a mystic, his
mysticism only gave a fresh significance to them. Hence
the first work which he wrote in his mystic stage was ' A
Demonstration of the Gross and Fundamental Errors of
a late Book called " A Plain Account of the Nature and
End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper"' (1737).
The * Plain Account ' was published anonymously, but its
writer was unquestionably Law's old foe, Bishop Hoadly,
who practically reduced the Sacrament to a bare com-
memorative act. The author of the ' Plain Account '
contended that ' the bare words of Christ in the institu-
tion of the Sacrament, interpreted according to the
common rules of speaking in like cases, tell us all that
can be known about the nature and effects of that Sacra-
ment ; ' so that, argues Law, * they would signify no
more to him [a Christian] than they would to a heathen
who had by chance found a bit of paper in the fields
with the same words writ upon it.' He thinks that ' this
author's contrivance is as unfit for the purpose as an
iron key would be to open the gate of the kingdom of
heaven.' Law was not wanting in raciness.
Two more controversial works of Law must be noticed :
* An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp's Discourse
of the Folly, Sin and Danger of being Eighteous Over-
much ' (1740), and 'A Short but Sufficient Confutation of
the Rev. Dr. Warburton's projected Defence (as he calls
it) of Christianity ' that is, in * The Divine Legation
of Moses ' (1757). Both are written in sorrow rather
than in anger ; it shocked Law as ' an enthusiast ' that a
brother clergyman who had been in a high position at
Oxford, and was now a prominent divine in London, 1
1 Dr. Trapp was the first Professor of Poetry at Oxford, holding that
office from 1708 to 1718 ; a fine portrait of him may be seen in the picture
400 THE NONJUKORS
should even seem to lower the high standard of morality
which the literal interpretation of the Gospel, and espe-
cially of the Sermon on the Mount, obviously suggested ;
and it equally shocked him as ' a mystic,' who held that
man was an emanation of the Deity, to think that another
clergyman, who was on the high road to a bishopric,
should believe that such a being was ever left in doubt
about his eternal destiny.
It may appear strange that Law published nothing
on the Koman controversy, for his * Letters to a Lady
Inclined to Enter the Church of Borne,' which were
printed by an enthusiastic admirer nearly twenty years
after his death, were never intended by him for publica-
tion ; but the fact is that, though he had never the
faintest inclination to join the Church of Korne, he was
not so distinctly anti-Koman as most of the Nonjurors
were. It may also appear strange that, though the
Methodists were perpetually pointing out the deficiencies
t)f Law, he never wrote one word in self-defence ; for the
slight tract ' Of Justification by Faith and Works : a
Dialogue between a Methodist and a Churchman,' was
really directed against Calvinism, not Methodism ; but
Law never wrote against men whom he regarded as
spiritually-minded and earnest; they might say and write
what they pleased about him ; but he never took up his
pen to write anything for publication against them ' lest
haply he should be found to be fighting against God.'
(3) Historical and Biographical Works.
Taking the word ' history ' in its proper sense of
inquiry or investigation, and especially investigation into
the past, it includes the most valuable part of all the
.gallery of the Bodleian, and a copy of it in the hall of Wadham College, of
which he was a member.
PATRISTIC LEARNING OF NONJURORS 401
literary work done by the Nonjurors, viz. that which
related to the early Church and the primitive Fathers.
Professor J. J. Blunt, after having spoken of the dis-
couraging effect of the Puritanism of the seventeenth
century upon the study of such subjects, adds : * But after
awhile came the Be volution ; an event which shed a
much more disastrous influence on the taste for patristical
learning, because a more enduring and insidious one than
the Rebellion.' And then he expresses his opinion that
* the Nonjurors carried away with them that regard for
primitive times which with them was destined by degrees
almost to expire.' l Curiously enough, a Non juror, who
took a very prominent part in the attempt to revive
these studies, writing about thirty years after the Revolu-
tion, takes quite an opposite view. ' There seems,' writes
Dr. Brett, ' at this time [1720], to be a general Inclination
in Divines of the Church of England to enquire into Anti-
quities of the Christian Church, more than I am persuaded
has been at any time since the Reformation ' ; and he ex-
pressly intimates that he is speaking ' not of Nonjurors only
(who are now reduced to a very inconsiderable number),
but those also who are of the publick communion of the
Church of England.' 2 Which was right, Professor Blunt
or Dr. Brett ? The answer is a remarkable illustration
of the difficulty a contemporary finds in judging the signs
of his own times. Brett judged by what was going on
when he wrote. He mentions especially ' Mr. Bingham
and Mr. Johnson ' of Cranbrook, and he probably thought
also of Cave, Bull, Waterland, and others who were deeply
interested in, and conversant with, antiquity. But Blunt
could take a general survey and review the result from
the vantage ground of a century ; and experience shows
1 Lectures on the Right Use of the Fathers, Lecture i. p. 18, et sey.
2 Brett's Collection of Liturgies, p. 364.
D D
402 THE NONJUROES
that his view was correct, and that the hopeful antici-
pations of Brett were not fulfilled. The tone of mind
introduced at the Revolution was quite antagonistic to
any sympathetic study of antiquity. Men cannot throw
themselves heart and soul into the study of phases of
thought with which they are not in sympathy, and it was
because Nonjurors were more in sympathy with the spirit
of the early Church, not because they were more intelligent
or more industrious, that patristic learning was found
among them more than anywhere else in the eighteenth
century. Dr. Hickes, their recognised leader, ' was a great
master of ecclesiastical antiquities,' and did much to create
an interest in the subject among his followers. His own
contributions consist rather in the general spirit which
pervades all his work, than in any great composition of
his own on the subject, though, of course, his * Constitu-
tion of the Catholick Church,' and Preface to ' Devotions
in the Antient Way of Offices ' bear directly upon it.
But Hickes's convert, Thomas Brett, really did produce
a great work, which at the time was unique in its way,
viz. 'A Collection of Liturgies used by the Primitive
Church' (1720). It embraces eight Liturgies, 1 the Cle-
mentine, St. James's, St. Mark's, St. John Chrysostom's,
St. Basil's, the Ethiopian, Nestorius', and Severius'. In
his previous ' Account of Church Government ' (1707),
the subject is treated at large, and, in fact, in all his
books he shows a deep interest in, and makes frequent
references to, primitive antiquity.
Dr. Hickes also stamped with his approval, and pro-
bably suggested the writing of another very valuable and
interesting book which is based upon primitive antiquity.
The author, Archibald Campbell, was not, strictly speaking,
1 It is perhaps needless to remark that ' Liturgy ' is used in its ancient
sense, as the Office of the Holy Eucharist.
CAMPBELL'S ' MIDDLE STATE ' 403
an English Nonjuror, but he thoroughly identified him-
self with them, lived almost entirely among them, and
brought out his book under the auspices of their head.
It is commonly called ' Campbell's Middle State,' but
its full title is :
Some Primitive Doctrines Eevived : or, The Intermediate or
Middle State of Departed Souls (as to Happiness or Misery)
Before the Day of Judgment, plainly prov'd by Holy Scripture
and the Concurrent Testimony of the Fathers of the Church.
To which is prefixed the Judgment of Dr. Hickes concerning
the book and subject [1713].
Never perhaps was there a time when men's minds
more required to be settled on the momentous but mys-
terious question of the Future State. It had been the
subject of a most unsatisfactory discussion at the close
of the seventeenth century in consequence of a sermon
on 'The Eternity of Hell Torments,' by Archbishop
Tillotson ; and the result had been disastrous in every
way to morals and religion. It was highly character-
istic of the age that in that discussion no one appears to
have gone back to primitive times ; and the primitive doc-
trine of an Intermediate State seems to have fallen entirely
into abeyance. It was revived by Bishop Campbell ; but
as he was a Nonjuror his book did not catch hold of the
public mind. It was a sad 'pity that it did not ; for I
verily believe that the eschatology of the eighteenth
century, combining as it did the utmost severity in theory
with the utmost laxity in practice necessarily resulting
from an only half belief, was one of the chief causes of
the low estate into which morals and religion fell during
that period. Campbell's tone, style, and method are all
admirable, and there is a calmness and modesty about
his work which make it very attractive. It is a book
that might have done a world of good at the time, and its
D D 2
404 THE NONJUEOES
republication would not be useless now. Dr. Hickes
truly points out in his ' Judgment ' that, * so far from
being Popish, there cannot be a more effectual Defensa-
tion against the Roman Heresy than a free and impartial
Revival of Primitive Principles. To restore these, and
consequently to foreclose the way among us against all
Papal Innovations and Corruptions is the design of this
book ; ' and the execution was equal to the design, but it
was not the kind of work to appeal to the general public in
the eighteenth century. In a fine passage Hickes describes
what Campbell means by that middle state of which the
vast majority of the public had probably never heard.
His Middle State for the righteous is but as the Borders or
Suburbs of Heaven or as the Bay and Entrance into that
Blessed Kingdom, wherein they are very happy, but cannot yet
attain their full happiness in the Presence or the Beatific
Vision of God, till all their Brethren be perfected with them,
and they can all receive their Crowns of Glory in that day.
By * the righteous ' he means ' all souls departed with the
sign of faith.'
Another Nonjuror brought his knowledge of primitive
antiquity to bear upon a question which much needed to
be cleared up. It was this : In 1691 Peter King, after-
wards Lord Chancellor, then a young man of twentj^-
two, who had been bred a Presbyterian, published
anonymously the first part of a book with this ambitious
title : ' An Enquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity,
and Worship of the Primitive Church that flourished
within the first three hundred years of Christ. Faithfully
collected out of the extant writings of those days.'
The work was a remarkable performance, considering
that the writer was a mere boy, who had had no par-
ticular advantages of education. It attracted the atten-
tion of John Locke, who was King's first cousin once
SCLATEE ON THE PRIMITIVE CHUECH 405
removed, and who virtually adopted him as his son. A
sort of halo was shed over a book which was thus
patronised by the most famous philosopher of the day ;
and this may have been one reason why it was not
answered, for it clearly required answering. It was
kindly and temperately written, but the impression it
leaves is that Presbyterianism was the original form of
Church government, or that no settled form could be
gathered from Holy Scripture and primitive practice.
But, strange to say, it remained unanswered for more
than twenty years ; and in 1713 King published another
edition with a * Second Part ' added, treating of cere-
monies and worship. Then at last the Nonjuring clergy-
man, William Sclater, with much diffidence and many
apologies for his presumption (which were quite unneces-
sary), published anonymously, in 1717, a very able and
exhaustive answer under the title of ' The Original
Draught of the Primitive Church by a Presbyter of the
Church of England.' In his very modest Preface Sclater
gives us his reason for undertaking the task :
In his Preface he [King] shews an humble diffidence of his
youthful performance, and desires another sense might be given
of his several quotations, if need required, for the better informa-
tion of himself and others. I confess I saw need enough of that
at my first perusal of the book, and not a little wondered that
no friendly hand had done him that kindness long before.
So Sclater did it himself, and did it very well ; his book
quite bears out what we are told of the character of the
writer, viz. that he was ' a man of singular modesty, of
unaffected piety, and of uncommon learning.' 1 There is
a pleasant story, which one fondly hopes may be true,
but for which it must be owned that the evidence is not
strong. It is said that Sclater's manuscript was seized
1 See Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors, p. 302.
406 THE NONJUEOES
among other papers in the house of Spinckes, and was
submitted to King, who returned it, confessing that it
w r as a sufficient answer to that part of the book with which
it dealt, and desiring that it might be published. At any
rate, it is certain that King himself became a Churchman,
and it is said that he then offered Sclater a living ; but he
did not become Lord Chancellor until after Sclater 's
death, and before then what living had he to offer ? And
if lie did make the offer, Sclater, as a Nonjuror, could
not have accepted it. ' The Original Draught ' was
republished at Oxford in 1840.
Laurence Howell's ' Synopsis Canonum ' was another
monumental illustration of the patient industry with
which the Nonjurors investigated the history of the early
Church. It appeared in three separate instalments, the
first in 1708, * A Synopsis of the Canons of the Holy
Apostles and of the Councils, Ecumenical and Provincial,
received by the Greek Church; also of the Councils,
Decrees, and Laws of the British and Anglo-Saxon
Churches; together with the Constitutions, as well
Provincial (namely from Stephen Langton to Henry
Chichele), as Legatine, &c., brought into a Compendium;'
the second in 1710, ' A Synopsis of the Canons of the
Latin Church and its Decrees; in which the spurious
canons, forged Epistles, and supposititious decrees of that
Church are brought to light and distinguished from the
genuine.' l The third part did not appear until 1715, the
reason of the long delay being that the manuscript was
burnt in the fire at Bowyer's printing office in 1712; 2
and there is something plaintive in the author's announce-
ment of it as ' being once more finished in 1715.' 3
1 These are literal translations of the Latin titles.
2 See supra, p. 262.
3 Howell had also another disappointment in regard to the Dedication.
See Hearne's Collections, ii. 125.
COLLIEK'S ' ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY ' 407
The same year (1708) which saw the first instalment
of Howell's ' Synopsis ' saw also the first instalment of a
still more important and popular work, ' Collier's Eccle-
siastical History of Great Britain,' When it appeared
it was unique ; there was positively no other book in
the English language which traversed the same ground,
though of course many other authors had gone over parts
of it ; and to this day it is frequently quoted as an
authority. Of course the writer, with his strong con-
victions, shows his colours ; but, from his own point of
view, he is wonderfully fair and trustworthy. The second
volume appeared in 1714. Both were folios, and have
been more than once reprinted in nine volumes, 8vo.,
with a life of the author prefixed. The best life is that
written by Mr. Lathbury, the historian of the N on jurors,
who prefixed it to the edition of 1852. Strange to say,
Mr. Collier's friends do not appear to have anticipated
any great success for the work, although the writer had
already shown his powers and won his reputation in
several previous writings. But these writings were,
with one exception, not strictly speaking historical. That
exception was ' The Great Historical, Geographical,
Genealogical, and Poetical Dictionary ' (1701-5), which
was not one of Collier's literary successes ; and his friends
seem to have argued from it that the Ecclesiastical His-
tory would also be a failure. Hearne speaks very dis-
paragingly of the Dictionary, and augurs badly for the
History. 1 But when the book came out, he is agreeably
disappointed ; so he adds a note to his first entry (i. 316) :
' The work is since published, and is good ; ' and is quite
enthusiastic about vol. ii., which gives him the additional
satisfaction of anticipating that Collier will cut out the
Whig Church historian, John Inett. 2 Curiously enough,
1 See Hearne's Collections, i. 38, 316 ; ii. 35, 38. 2 Ibid. iii. 45-6.
408 THE NONJUEOKS
Collier must have done just what Hearne prophesied
he would not do, viz. ' search Records, &c. ; ' one of the
great merits of his History is that it is based upon
original authorities.
From Collier the historian to Carte the historian is a
natural transition. It is a remarkable fact that the stan-
dard works, from the Church point of view, on the ec-
clesiastical and civil history of England should both have
been written by Nonjurors ; and the same merits charac-
terise both. Carte, like Collier, strove his utmost to be
fair all round ; like Collier, he undertook original research
before he presumed to write ; and, like Collier, he was
not ashamed to show his colours, and therefore, of
course, provoked criticism. The project of his His-
tory was certainly formed as early as 1736 probably
earlier and the first volume did not appear until 1747 ;
so he took time over his work, and spared no pains in
investigation, searching, among other sources, the royal
archives in Paris where much of the History was written.
The encouragement, and, indeed, substantial aid, which
he received in the execution of his task are very remark-
able, considering that he was a known Jacobite, and was
actually arrested and confined for a short time while the
work was going on, owing to an alarm of a French
invasion in support of a Jacobite rising in 1744. How
little real matter of offence there was to the * powers that
be ' in his first volume is shown by the fact that objection
was taken merely to a note in which he expressed his
faith in < a cure for the king's evil wrought by the lineal
descendant of a race of kings who had, indeed for a long
succession of ages, cured that disease by the royal touch.'
That note was sufficient to withdraw from his History
the patronage of the English public, which was then in a
most nervous alarm about the ' lineal descendant.' It was
CAKTE'S ' HISTOEY OF ENGLAND ' 409
a pity his friends did not persuade him to abstain from
throwing down this apple of discord, as the cure took place
at Avignon ; and therefore the note was quite gratuitous,
and might have been spared without at all affecting the
History of England. Carte, however, was not discouraged,
but went bravely on with and completed his book, the
fourth and last volume appearing after his death. The
work was better appreciated when the writer was no
longer living, and therefore no longer dangerous, and
when Jacobite alarms had become a thing of the past.
It deserved to be welcomed warmly at least by one poli-
tical party ; for the Tory history of Carte is beyond all
question the result of more diligent and original research
than the rival Whig history of Bapin, which previously
held the field ; it was a nearer approach to the standard
history of England, until Hume's work superseded both.
Among other Nonjurors who furnished contributions
to our knowledge of Church history were Francis.
Brokesby, who wrote ' An History of the Government of
the Primitive Church,' &c. (1712) ; Thomas Bedford, who
edited the chronicler Simeon of Durham's ' History of the
Church of Durham ' ; and George Smith, who, when only
twenty-two years of age, took up his father's unfinished
edition of ' Bede's Ecclesiastical History,' and completed
it so successfully that it superseded all others, and was
for a long time the standard edition ; Mr. Plummer, the
highest authority on the subject, speaks of it in terms of
warm admiration. Nor must we forget the services ren-
dered by Thomas Baker, who lavishly imparted informa-
tion to Church historians, among others, out of his own
ample stores ; nor Thomas Hearne and Richard Eawlin-
son, who were ever collecting knowledge on this and
kindred subjects with indefatigable labour.
The department of biography is in some respects
410 THE NONJUEOES
rather disappointing. Nelson's * Life of Bishop Bull '
seems to rne the most satisfactory work of the kind
written by a Nonjuror, unless it be the ' Life of Am-
brose Bonwicke,' about which enough has been said.
It looks like black ingratitude not to add Lee's 'Life
of Kettlewell,' for there is no single work which gives
more information about the earlier Nonjurors, and
which has therefore been more largely drawn upon
in the earlier part of the present work. But that
is the very reason why it is not so satisfactory as a
biography. It rambles too far afield, and does not con-
centrate attention sufficiently on Kettlewell. In fact,
there is no good contemporary life of a Nonjuror by a
Nonjuror, to our great loss. Brokesby's ' Life of Dodwell '
is a very slight and unsatisfactory performance. Hickes's
' Life ' was commenced by his friend, Hilkiah Bedford, to
whom he left all his letters and papers, but it remained
in an unfinished state in manuscript, having only reached
the year 1689 just the time when the subject became
most interesting. Collier also began to write an auto-
biography for the benefit of the ' Biographia Britannica,'
but he again provokingly left off at the Revolution, just
when his life also became most interesting. Hearne's auto-
biography, in spite of his friend Rawlinson's mean opinion
of ' Tom's Life of Himself,' is about the best we possess,
and his ' Diary ' is, of course, invaluable. Byrom's
' Remains ' are delightful, and so are Denis Granville's,
but these are rather materials for biography than bio-
graphies; and the same may be said of Rawlinson's
very valuable collections for his continuation of Wood's
' Athenae Oxonienses.' Of complete biographies we have
Brett's 'Life of John Johnson, of Cranbrook,' but this is
merely a brief sketch, and Carte's Life of James, Duke
of Ormonde' (1736), which certainly does not err on the
POETBY KEN'S 411
side of brevity, but rather lays itself open to Dr. Johnson's
criticism : < The matter is diffused in too many pages ;
there is no animation, no compression, no vigour. Two
good volumes in duodecimo might be made out of two in
folio.' l Thomas Smith's ' Vitae quorundam eruditis-
simorum et illustrium virorum ' was hardly for the general
reader, and Hilkiah Bedford's ' Life of John Barwick '
was only a translation. But Roger North's 'Lives of
the Norths ' and * Examen ' of White Kennett's History
come under the present head, and are works of great
interest and value, especially the former in its latest form
under the able editorship of Dr. Jessopp.
(4) Poetical Works.
The age of the Nonjurors was not a poetical age, and
the Nonjurors themselves did not sacrifice much to the
Muses. The first who claims our attention in this con-
nection is good Bishop Ken, who seems to have found it a
relief to disburthen himself of his thoughts in verse ; for
though he wrote much he published nothing, with one
exception ; but then that exception is his one title to fame
as a poet. Some may think that the posthumous publica-
tion of his epic, ' Edmund ' (' Saint Edmund ' would have
been a more attractive and appropriate title), of his Dedi-
cations, his 'Anodynes,' his ' Hymnotheo,' and his ' Hymns
for the Festivals of the Church ' was a cruel kindness on
the part of his friends ; for if we had not seen what he
did, we might have let fancy run riot in imagining what
the man who published no verse except the three im-
mortal hymns might have done. Even with regard to the
three hymns themselves, his fame, as a matter of fact,
rests only upon a few verses culled out of two of them.
1 See BoswelPs Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, p. 236, in vol. v. of
edition of National Illustrated Library.
412 THE NONJUEORS
Thousands who are perfectly familiar with about six
stanzas of the Morning and the same number of the
Evening Hymn are quite strangers to the rest, and know T
nothing at all about the Midnight Hymn. But the two
hymns in common use (the verses omitted are unsuitable
for psalmody) are, and always will be, the morning and
evening hymns par excellence. Perhaps their extraor-
dinary and well-deserved popularity has led to the undue
depreciation of Ken's other poetry, in which depreciation
the earlier biographers, not at all after the manner of
biographers, lead the way. At all events, some very
touching passages occur in these much-decried poems,
among which the following may be quoted as having a
biographical as well as a poetical interest :
Give me the Priest these Graces shall possess :
Of an Ambassador the just Address,
A Father's Tenderness, a Shepherd's Care,
A Leader's Courage, which the Cross can bear,
A Euler's Arm, a Watchman's wakeful Eye,
A Pilot's Skill the Helm in Storms to ply,
A Fisher's Patience and a Lab'rer's Toil,
A Guide's Dexterity to disembroil,
A Prophet's Inspiration from Above,
A Teacher's Knowledge and a Saviour's Love.
And the ' Hymns for the Festivals of the Church ' have
at least one claim to our gratitude, if the story be true
that they suggested to John Keble the idea of ' The
Christian Year.'
Elijah Fenton was a Nonjuror who wrote poetry, just
as his friend and patron, Alexander Pope, was a Eoman
Catholic who wrote poetry, but his poetry was no more
connected with his mode of faith than Pope's was with
his, so he only requires to be noticed just to show why he
is not noticed.
The same cannot quite be said of that quasi-Non juror,
POETRY FENTON'S, BYKOM'S, ETC. 413
John Byrom, much of whose poetry was the reflection of
his religion ; it was, in fact, William Law in verse. And
some who can read between the lines will find in such
pieces as ' Christians, awake, salute the happy morn/
' My Spirit longeth for Thee, or, The Christian's Address
to his Soul,' ' Stones towards the earth descend,' traces
of that refined mysticism which he had imbibed from
Law.
The * Divine Poems ' of Walter Harte cannot, strictly
speaking, be reckoned among Nonjuring literature, for
the simple reason that the writer was not a Nonjuror ;
but they reflected the spirit of one who was. ' He had/
as Mr. Abbey says, 'been brought up among the best
traditions of the Nonjurors/ and 'was a student and
theologian of much the same type as his father/ l the
Nonjuror already noticed.
The ' Devotions in the Antient Way of Offices/ edited
by Dr. Hickes, contain a number of hymns, some of them
of considerable merit. But so many had a hand in this
work that it is impossible to say who was the composer
of these hymns probably not Dr. Hickes.
It will be seen that poetry formed a very small part of
Nonjuring literature, and it is somewhat strange that this
should be so, for the Nonjurors were, to a certain extent,
identified with the Jacobites ; and Jacobite songs and
ballads, many of them of extreme beauty and pathos,
abounded. But these formed no part of Nonjuring
literature, and to touch upon them ever so slightly in this
connection would be to foster a false notion, already too
prevalent, that the Nonjurors were a political rather
than a religious party ; so I pass on at once to the next
section.
1 English Church in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 294-5. First Edition.
414 THE NONJUEOES
(5) Miscellaneous Works.
The literary work of the Nonjurors was so varied that
a considerable part of it can only be grouped under this
vague title. The most important book which comes
under this head was what is commonly called ' Hickes'
Thesaurus/ the proper title of which is 'Linguarum
Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus, grammatico-
criticus et archseologicus.' This ' stupendous monument
of learning and industry,' as it has been called, was
printed at Oxford by the University Press in 1703-5, and
has been universally recognised as a monumental work.
It was preceded in 1689 by a less ambitious but useful
work on a kindred subject, 'An Anglo-Saxon and Moeso-
Gothic Grammar/
Those who think the Nonjurors were narrow-minded
bigots, who had no interests beyond their own community,
could not do better than read Jeremy Collier's ' Essays
upon Moral Subjects ' (1697) and his ' Short View of the
Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage ' (1698),
with the ' Defences,' ' Vindications,' &c., of it which fol-
lowed. He will find that throughout them all, though
Collier is always the priest, jealous for the privileges of
his order which he rated very highly, he is priest of the
Catholic Church, not of the Nonjuring body. It is
dangerous to assert a negative, but I can remember no
single passage in any of these writings which betrays the
Nonjuror. They are simply the works of a religious,
moral man, written in the general interests of religion
and morality. It is a striking instance of the way in
which a man can detach himself from his surroundings ;
for they were written just when Collier was in the very
thick of the troubles into which his absolution of Sir
John Perkins on the scaffold had not unnaturally brought
COLLIEE'S ' SHOET VIEW OF THE STAGE ' 415
him. The * Essays ' were published in a collected form
in 1697 (though some of them had appeared separately
before then), and were on such general subjects as ' Pride,'
' Clothes,' ' Duelling,' &c. The most striking, perhaps,
is that ' Upon the Office of a Chaplain,' which is a noble
vindication of that much-abused office, and acquires an
additional significance from the fact that Collier had
himself acted in that capacity.
In the next year (1698) appeared his first attack on the
drama, * A Short View of the Immorality and Prof aneness
of the English Stage,' followed by numerous pamphlets
in defence of his views. In writing these Collier showed
an amount of moral courage which one cannot sufficiently
admire. It was not so much that he must have known
he would bring down to bear upon him, as he did, the
batteries of all the wits ; but he must also have known
that he would be thought to be going against his own
party ; and it requires far greater moral courage to offend
friends than enemies. For a Puritan like Prynne to
attack the stage was natural enough ; but for a Eoyalist
of Eoyalists, a man who had pinned all his fortunes on
the Stuart cause, to do so seemed like a Quixotic going
out of the way to make enemies. But it was not so ;
public opinion went with him, simply because ' truth was
great and prevailed.' Collier was by far the most effective
assailant of the stage, but two other Nonjurors, Law and
Bedford, followed in his wake. Dr. Johnson, who was
for some reason rather prejudiced against the Nonjurors,
does full justice to this crusade of Collier :
I believe with no other motive than religious zeal and
honest indignation . . . and with all his powers exalted and
invigorated by just confidence in his cause ... he walked out
to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from
Dryden to D'Urfey. . . . The dispute was protracted through
416 THE NONJURORS
ten years ; but at last Comedy grew more modest : and Collier
lived to see the reward of his labour in the reformation of the
theatre. 1
Under the head of * Miscellaneous Works ' must be
placed Hearne's edition of ' The Itinerary of John Leland,
the Antiquary,' published in nine volumes in 1710, and
of the ' Collectanea ' in six volumes in 1715, and it must
be remembered that but for Hearne these works of the
earliest of modern English antiquaries would probably
never have seen the press ; also Thomas Baker's ' Ee-
flections on Learning/ the work by which the name of
Baker is now best known, though it is certainly not the
most valuable of his contributions to literature ; his
' History of St. John's College,' which lay in manuscript
for many years, is, even without the later additions of
Cole, and the invaluable annotations of Professor J. E. B.
Mayor, much more useful ; also Edward Holdsworth's
Latin poem, ' Muscipula,' written, as it was neatly re-
marked, ' with the purity of Virgil and the pleasantry of
Lucian,' and his ' Eemarks and Dissertations on Virgil,'
published in 1768 by Joseph Spence ; also Samuel Jebb's
edition of Eoger Bacon's ' Opus Majus,' and various
classical, historical, and biographical works, though in
these last three departments he has not attained a per-
manent fame ; and the medical works of Paman and Sir
Bichard Jebb.
But it is impossible to describe in detail all the work
done by Nonjurors as classical scholars, antiquaries,
bibliophiles, numismatists, virtuosos, and cultivators of
the fine arts. Henry Dodwell, Thomas Hearne, Thomas
Smith, Thomas Baker, Kichard Bawlinson, Thomas
Bawlinson, Francis Cherry, Edward Holdsworth, Francis
Brokesby, not to mention many others, were all men of
1 Johnson's Lives of the Poets: ' Congreve,' ii. 191-2.
CULTURED TASTES OF NONJUEORS 417
refined and cultivated tastes, and these tastes were not
wholly unconnected with their position as Nonjurors.
The same reverence for antiquity which made them relish
such studies led them, in their religion, to prefer the old
order of things to the new, and also helped to attach
them to the old dynasty rather than the new. The early
Hanoverians had no tastes of the sort themselves, and
discouraged them in others. The Stuarts, with all their
faults, were not wanting in this respect. They may have
been hopeless as rulers, but they had the capacity for
appreciating culture of various kinds which their successful
rivals never had. Hence the age of the Stuarts, of which
the Nonjurors were survivals, was an age of less grossness
than that which is rather vaguely called the Georgian
era ; and among the incidental disasters resulting from
the Nonjuring separation must be reckoned the loss
thereby of an element which that coarse age could ill
afford to dispense with.
E E
418 THE NONJUROES
CHAPTEK X
THE NONJUEOES IN SCOTLAND
THE history of the Nonjurors in Scotland is almost co-
extensive with the history of the Scotch Episcopal Church
for about a hundred years. Happily, however, in the
present chapter it will not be necessary to undertake the
ambitious task of writing a history of that Church from
1689 to 1789 in all its aspects ; that has been done, and
well done, by various Scotch Churchmen at various dates. 1
It will suffice for the present purpose to notice the Scotch
Nonjurors qud Nonjurors, ignoring the many other
phases in which they may be regarded.
Both the Jacobite and the Nonjuring causes appealed
much more strongly to Scottish than to English Church
people for several reasons. The Stuarts were Scotchmen,
and always looked upon Scotland as their native country.
It was only natural that both the Old and the Young
Chevalier should make Scotland, not England, the base
of their operations for the recovery of their rights; for
they knew that they had heartier and more numerous
supporters among their own kith and kin than among
the Southrons, and their supporters were, with very few
1 See, inter alia, An Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by John Skinner
(1788) ; History of the Scottish Episcopal Church, &c., by John Parker
Lawson (1843) ; History of tlie Church of Scotland, &c., by Thomas Stephen
(1843-5) ; Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by George Grub (1861), the
ablest and fullest of all. See also Dean Luckock's The Church in Scotland
pp. 236-92.
WHY SCOTCHMEN BECAME NONJUEOES 419
exceptions, Episcopalians. Not only were they Episcopa-
lians, as distinguished from Presbyterians, but they were
Churchmen of a rather advanced type. When a small
body, holding one set of opinions, is settled in the midst
of a larger body, holding a different set, there is always
a tendency in the smaller to emphasise their differences
from the larger. Thus * the Protestant Church ' in
Ireland, and the Huguenots in France, being in the
midst of a Roman Catholic population, naturally became
' Low,' and the Scotch Episcopalians, being in the midst
of a Presbyterian population, naturally became * High, '
and would on that account sympathise with the English
Nonjurors, who were very distinctly High Churchmen.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Nonjurors in
England and the Nonjurors in Scotland were one body, for
they were quite distinct communities ; and when members
of the one took part in the affairs of the other, as they
frequently did on both sides, they were, strictly speaking,
travelling outside their own province, and were acting
ultra vires. And, once more, Scotland being farther
removed from the chief scene of action did not feel so
keenly nor anticipate so speedily the dangers from King
James's government as those who were nearer its centre.
William's invasion was projected and talked over in
England some time before it was heard of in Scotland.
It was not until a week or two before it took place that
the rumour of it reached the Scotch; and the result was
consternation on one side, elation on the other, but
surprise on both. The tidings arrived in October 1688,
and the Scotch Episcopalians seem to have committed
themselves at once. The University of St. Andrews
immediately prepared a loyal address to King James,
which was signed by the archbishop (Dr. Arthur Ross) as
Chancellor, all the Heads of colleges, and all the Professors,
E E 2
420 THE NONJUEOES
testifying ' their adherence to the Christian principles
of loyalty and obedience to their lawful sovereign, and
dwelling gratefully on the constant liberality which the
Stuarts had shown to their Church and University.' l The
archbishop, having signed the address, hurried off to
Edinburgh, where he found the bishops assembled ; and
on November 3 (two days before William's landing)
* a loyal and affectionate address ' 2 was signed by twelve
bishops, in which, having declared that they had been
' amazed to hear of an invasion from Holland,' they
promised the King : * As by the grace of God we shall
preserve in ourselves a firm and unshaken loyalty, so we
shall be zealous to promote in all your subjects an in-
temerable and steadfast allegiance to your Majesty, as an
essential part of their religion, and of the glory of our
holy profession.' 3 Thus, at a very early stage in the
crisis, the Scotch bishops drew the sword and threw away
the scabbard.
On the other side the extreme left of the Presbyterian
party, the Cameronians, or ' hill-men/ who had mainly
concentrated themselves in the western and south-western
counties, without waiting to see what form of ecclesiastical
government was to be established, took the law into their
own hands, and commenced that course of armed inter-
ference commonly known as ' rabbling the curates.' The
rabbled clergy in the diocese of Glasgow deputed their
dean to go to London with a petition for protection to
William, who issued a proclamation for keeping the peace
in Scotland, but the rabblings went on worse than ever.
Meanwhile a more important deputation was being
sent to London, the account of which sets before us most
vividly the attitude which the majority of Scotch Episco-
palians assumed in regard to the Nonjuring question.
* Stephen, iii. 341. ? Ibid. iii. 342. 3 Skinner, ii. 513-4.
BISHOP KOSE'S MISSION TO LONDON 421
When they heard of the Prince's landing they determined
to send two of their bishops to London ' with a renewal
of their allegiance to King James, and to wait on the
English bishops for advice and assistance in case that
any unlucky thing might possibly happen to occur with
respect to the Church.' l The two selected were the
Bishop of Edinburgh (Dr. Alexander Eose) and the
Bishop of Orkney (Dr. Andrew Bruce), but the latter fell
ill, and Bishop Rose set forth alone. What befell him in
that eventful expedition has been recorded by his own pen
in a letter written at Bishop Archibald Campbell's request
twenty-four years later (1713). He left Edinburgh under
the impression that there would be no change of Govern-
ment, and it was under that impression that his brother
bishops commissioned him to act for them. So he found
himself in a most awkward predicament, for, when he
reached Northallerton, on his way southward, he heard
that the Prince of Orange had assumed the government,
and that James had fled. This altered the whole aspect
of affairs, and he hesitated for some time as to what he
should do.
But [he writes], considering the various contradictory accounts
I had all along the road, and that in case of the King's retire-
ment matters would be much more dark and perplexed, I
resolved to go on, that I might be able to send just accounts to
my brethren from time to time, and have the advice of the
English bishops whom I never doubted to find unalterably firm
to their master's interest.
His first application was to Archbishop Sancroft, whom
he had known before. He presented his commission, and
the archbishop was sympathetic, but not encouraging.
1 Matters,' he said, ' were very dark, and the cloud so
thick or gross that they could not see through it ; the
1 Lawson, p. 39, quoted from Bishop Rose's Letter to Bishop A. Campbell.
422 THE NONJURORS
English bishops knew not well what to do for themselves,
far less what advice to give to others.' He then applied
to the Bishop of St. Asaph (Dr. Lloyd), another acquaint-
ance ; but that, of course, was of no avail, for Lloyd's
own sympathies were with the Revolution. Then he had
recourse to the Bishop of London (Dr. Compton), begging
him to * use his influence with the Prince of Orange to
protect the Episcopal clergy in Scotland ' ; and also to his
own countryman, Bishop Burnet, for the same purpose.
The latter at once cut him short, saying that ' he did not
meddle in Scots' affairs ' a somewhat audacious assertion
on the part of one who was the most meddlesome of
men. But Bishop Compton was much more kind and
considerate, and advised him ' to wait on the Prince and
present him with an address respecting the treatment of
the clergy in Scotland.' Several Scottish peers also gave
him the same advice.
I asked [proceeds Bishop Rose] whether I or my address
would meet with acceptance or success if it did not compliment
the Prince upon his descent to deliver us from Popery and
slavery? They said that it was absolutely necessary. I
told them that I neither was instructed by my constituents to
do so, neither had I myself clearness to do it, and that in
these terms I neither could nor would visit or address his
Highness.
Matters seemed now to be at a deadlock. The bishop
had several interviews with Archbishop Sancroft and
Bishop Turner, who, of course, thoroughly sympathised
with him, but could give him no help ; and so, finding
that nothing more could be done, he prepared to return
to Scotland, but found that he could not safely do so
without a pass from the Prince. He once more applied
to Bishop Compton, who, though he had no sympathy
with Nonjuring principles, seems to have been most kind
DELICATE POSITION OF BISHOP EOSE 423
throughout ; and Compton strove to procure an interview
with William for Bishop Kose, Sir George Mackenzie,
and other friends of the Scotch Episcopate on the subject
of the persecuted clergy. William replied that he could
not admit either Episcopalians or Presbyterians in a body,
because to do so would be sure to give offence to the other
party ; he could not allow more than two of either party
at a time to speak to him of Scotch ecclesiastical affairs.
Upon this Bishop Compton said to Bishop Hose :
You see, my Lord, that the king having thrown himself
upon the water must keep himself a swimming with one hand.
The Presbyterians have joined him closely and offer to support
him, and therefore he cannot cast them off, unless he could see
how otherwise he can be served. And he bids me tell you, that
he now knows the state of Scotland much better than he did
when he was in Holland : For while there, he was made to
believe that Scotland generally all over was Presbyterian ; but
now he sees that the great body of nobility and gentry are for
Episcopacy, and it is the trading and inferior sort that are for
Presbytery ; therefore he bids me tell you that if you will
undertake to serve him, to the purpose that he is served here in
England, he will take you by the hand, support the Church and
order, and throw off the Presbyterians.
Bishop Rose replied :
My Lord, I cannot but humbly thank the Prince for this
frankness and offer ; but withal I must tell your Lordship that
when I came from Scotland neither my brethren nor I appre-
hended any such revolution as I have now seen in England ;
and therefore I neither was nor could be instructed by them
what answer to make to the Prince's offer : And therefore what
I say is not in their name, but only my own private opinion,
which is, that I truly think they will not serve the Prince so as
he is served in England ; that is, as I take it, to make him
their king, or give their suffrages for his being king. And
though as to this matter I can say nothing in their name, and
as from them, yet for myself I must say, that rather than do so
I will abandon all the interest that either I have, or may expect
to have in Britain.
424 THE NONJUEORS
As Bishop Coinpton was replying William passed through
the room, and took no notice of the bishops; but
Compton procured for Eose an audience on the next
day, at which William said, ' My Lord, are you going for
Scotland?' 'Yes, sir,' replied the bishop, 'if you have
any commands for me.' ' I hope,' said the King, ' you
will be kind to me, and follow the example of England.'
' Sir/ replied the bishop, ' I will serve you so far as law,
reason, or conscience shall allow me.' William instantly
turned in silence from the bishop, who retired and re-
turned to Scotland re infecta.
This memorable incident has been described at some
length because on it the fate of the Church appears to
have hung. Bishop Eose has been severely blamed for
having mismanaged the matter. Episcopacy might have
been established in Scotland if he had been the man to
cope with the crisis ; he himself thinks ' the king would
probably have protected them if they had come into
his interest,' and the Presbyterian historian, Dr. Cook,
admits that
William wished to continue the Episcopal Church as the
National Establishment ; he thought it desirable that the same
form of Church government should be established through the
whole of Britain ; and if the Episcopal party had now cordially
joined him, and consented to admit modifications of Episcopacy,
to include within the pale of the Establishment those who
otherwise would not have entered it, there is little doubt that
he would have earnestly contended for the continuance of the
Hierarchy. 1
But it must be remembered that those whom Bishop
Eose represented were all uncompromising Jacobites, and
he would have utterly betrayed them if he had acted
otherwise than he did.
John Skinner, who lived not very far from the time
1 Quoted by Lawson, p. 98.
FAILUBE OF BISHOP EOSE'S MISSION 425
of the events and had seen both sides, having been
brought up as a Presbyterian and then become an
Episcopalian and a sufferer in the cause of the Church,
was perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the bishops in
general and of Bishop Rose in particular.
The case [he writes] of the Church of England at this
period of confusion (1691) was fully as disagreeable as our
own, if not more so. In Scotland the established Episcopacy
was struck down at one blow, and its rival Presbytery set up in
its room, without offering members of the old constitution any
conditions, or giving them time to deliberate what side of the
political question to espouse. So that the Scottish bishops,
being all involved in one general catastrophe, and not being
divided by any insnaring alternatives, had no difficulty to main-
tain the Episcopal cause, and to support the interest of the
Church by purely ecclesiastical arguments, and upon her own
original and independent bottom. In England the face of the
old constitution was preserved, and by the appointment of the
new legislature Episcopacy was made to fight against itself.
This was an intricate and unwelcome combat, and the Bishops
who had the injured side to defend, being reduced to the neces-
sity of defending one form of Protestant Episcopacy against
another, were many times obliged to fly off to foreign assistance
and bring forward arguments which were in good measure
extraneous to the main cause ; while the Bishops in Scotland
had nothing to do but combat their adversaries with weapons
which every Episcopal Church had taken out of the storehouse
of pure and uncorrupted antiquity, before political discussions
had come to be blended with Church censures. The truth of
this observation will appear from all the controversial disputes
of those days, where it is easy to see that many of the weightiest
objections against the English separations do not affect the
Episcopacy of Scotland ; while, on the other hand, every
defence that the ejected succession in England could make for
themselves is applicable to the Scottish cause with equal pro-
priety and force. 1
1 An Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by John Skinner, ii. 580-1.
John Skinner was minister of Longside, in Aberdeenshire, for no less than
sixty-five years (1742-1807), and was father of the Bishop of Aberdeen,
who published his father's Theological Works, with a biography prefixed.
426 THE NONJUEOES
The writer of these weighty words evidently thought
that Establishment might be purchased at too dear a rate,
and by no means regretted that Bishop Bose's visit to
England had been a failure. And one can well see what
his point of view was. The complications to which he
referred in England would have been ten times greater
in Scotland. The gulf between the Presbyterians and
Episcopalians was far too wide to be bridged over by any
such ' modifications ' as Dr. Cook suggests. It was not
only the oaths that blocked the way, though these were
to many an insuperable obstacle ; but the general spirit
and tone of mind of the Presbyterians, who formed
the majority, though by no means so large a majority as
was represented, made any sort of compromise at that
time an impossibility. 1 A comprehension, indeed, was
attempted for a short time, but it was a melancholy
failure. Those clergy who were willing to take the oaths
were allowed to retain their livings and to bear a part in
Church government, 2 and for a while there was the
strange sight of a Protestant National Church which could
strictly be called neither Presbyterian nor Episcopalian, but a
heterogeneous compound of two jarring denominations, both of
them publicly acknowledged to be Ministers of the Gospel,
invested with the pastoral charge, and formally confirmed by
the then legal authority, but neither of them in full terms of
communion, nor agreeing in many points of worship. 3
But all the bishops and a great majority of the
clergy held aloof, suffered quietly, and were content to
exercise their ministry so far as they were allowed to do
1 See Lawson, p. 105 et seq., and Skinner, ii. 559-60. As one reads of
what was said and done in the Scotch Parliament and the General Assembly,
it really seems as if the clock were put back fifty years, and we were at the
close of the first, not of the second half of the seventeenth century.
2 But much to the disgust of the Assembly, which soon got rid of them.
See Skinner, ii. 583 ei seg_.
3 Skinner, ii. 591.
SCOTCH NONJUEOKS UNDER QUEEN ANNE 427
so. These and their congregations were the Scottish
Nonjurors, and it is with them, and them alone, that the
present work has to do. Of course the oracle was worked
against them in regard to the oaths, and one privilege
after another was taken away from them ; but, like their
brethren in England, they submitted patiently, and gave
little or no trouble to the Government.
The accession of Queen Anne afforded the Nonjurors,
at least indirectly, some relief. The new Queen, being
herself a Churchwoman by conviction, naturally viewed
them with more favourable eyes ; and they, on their part,
were ready to accept her as a sort of regent for her brother.
In 1703 the clergy presented to her an address beseech-
ing her to allow ' such parishes where Episcopalians
were in the majority to be held by Episcopally ordained
ministers ; ' they reminded her that ' the petitioners had
been violently and unjustly turned out of their charges
at the Ee volution,' and entreated ' her Majesty to com-
passionate them and their numerous families, who were
reduced to a starving condition for their adhering to the
true primitive and apostolic Church of which her Majesty
was a member.' The appeal was not without effect. No
actual grant of toleration was made as yet ; but the
clergy took heart of grace ; some now acknowledged the
Government who had not acknowledged it before ; more
numerous and regular services were held in the larger
places, at which the Queen was prayed for by name ; and
though the Nonjurors among whom were all the sur-
viving bishops could not do this, they tacitly assumed
that they might with safety conduct their services more
openly than before ; and the Queen was so far from
being offended that she allowed a pension out of the
bishop's rents to Bishop Eose, the head of the Nonjurors,
which was paid to him regularly until 1716.
428 THE NONJUEOES
Matters ran smoothly so far as outward opposition
went until 1707, when the Nonjurors received another
check. 1707 was the year of the Union, 1 a project which
was unpopular among all classes in Scotland ; and in
order to conciliate the Presbyterians to the hated measure,
orders were issued to shut up ' all Episcopal meeting-
houses without distinction.' It was a cruel order, for
those who suffered from it were not in the least to blame ;
but, true to their principles, they quietly submitted ; the
' meeting-houses ' were closed, and the clergy retired with-
out a murmur into domestic life, confining their ministry
to private offices.
The invasion from France in favour of the Stuarts in
1708 increased the suspicions against the Nonjurors in
Scotland as elsewhere ; and hence it was not until 1712
that a Toleration Act was passed in the now United
Parliament, which gave the Episcopalians in Scotland
legal protection, and not merely connivance. But
even this Act did not cover the Nonjurors, who formed
the large majority of the Church ; for, though it was
described generally as ' An Act to prevent the disturbing
those- of the Episcopal Communion in the exercise of
their religious worship, and in the use of the Liturgy of
the Church of England ; and for repealing the Act of the
Parliament of Scotland against irregular Baptisms and
Marriages' (that is, the Act of 1695), it was carefully
provided that before any clergyman could enjoy the benefit
of it he should produce his Letters of Orders before a
Justice of Peace at Quarter Sessions, and subscribe, not
only the oath of Allegiance, but also those of Assurance 2
1 The Act was passed in 1706, and is dated from that year ; but it did
not come into effect until 1707.
2 The Assurance ran : ' I do assent, acknowledge and declare that her
Majesty is the only lawful and undoubted Sovereign as well de jure as
de facto ; ' it thus -went beyond the simple oath of Allegiance.
SCOTCH NONJUEOES UNDEE GEOEGE I. 429
and Abjuration, and that every time he officiated in a
protected place of worship he must pray for the Queen,
the Princess Sophia, and the rest of the Royal Family
conditions with which of course no conscientious Non-
jurors could comply. It afforded them, therefore, no
direct relief; on the contrary, it supplied subsequently
the most convenient means of proceeding against them.
Indirectly, however, the general spirit of leniency towards
the Church shown in this Act, and in the Patronage Act l
which followed, encouraged the Nonjuring as well as the
complying clergy to resume their public functions ; and
they were tacitly permitted to do so during the remainder
of Queen Anne's reign.
The accession of George I. in 1714 produced a change
of feeling even before the rising in 1715. The Scottish
Nonjurors had always abhorred the thought of the
Hanoverian Succession from the time of the Act of
Settlement in 1700; and the proclamation that was
issued, as soon as that succession became an accom-
plished fact, for putting the laws into execution against
4 all Papists, Nonjurors, and disaffected persons ' confirmed
their abhorrence. They had fondly hoped that, after the
' regency ' of Queen Anne, her brother would succeed a
hope which was shared by many Englishmen. But when
this hope was rudely shattered by the unopposed accession
of King George, the disappointment was more bitter in
Scotland than it was in England, partly because the
Stuart claimant was himself a Scotchman and connected
with Scotland by many ties, partly because the Scotch
Episcopal Church suffered more severely by the change
than her English sister ; for in the former a large majority,
in the latter only a small minority, were Nonjurors. It
1 That is the Act to restore to the patrons their ancient rights of
presenting ministers to the churches vacant in Scotland.
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
430 THE NONJUEOES
is not surprising, therefore, that a number of Scotch
Non jurors showed a warm and active sympathy with the
insurgents in 1715 :
Previously [writes Mr. Grub] it cannot be said that the
Church, as a body, had openly supported the House of Stuart.
A considerable number of clergy and laity had taken the oaths,
and remained firm in their allegiance to William and Anne.
And though the opinions of the Nonjurors necessarily implied
a belief in the unlawfulness of the Eevolution Settlement, it
did not follow that they held active opposition to it allowable.
Now it was different. The disappointment of their hopes,
ecclesiastical and political, on the accession of George I., and
the certainty that a peaceful restoration of the ancient line was
no longer possible, united almost all friends of the hierarchy in
attachment to James. 1
Some Nonjuring clergy, including bishops, openly iden-
tified themselves with the rising, and when the catastrophe
came the victors were not disposed to temper justice with
mercy in their treatment of those who had so manifestly
aided the vanquished party. In 1716 the oaths were
everywhere put to the clergy, and the strictest orders
were given to them to pray for the reigning sovereign.
The result was a great increase in the number of avowed
Nonjurors, who were certainly treated with great severity.
There was no need of new laws to proceed against them ;
for, oddly enough, the very Act which had been passed
for the relief of the Episcopalians in 1712 was quite
sufficient to cover the ejection of many of them in 1716,
requiring, as it did, the oaths to be taken and the ruling
powers to be prayed for by name. All that had to be
done was to enforce it rigorously, and not to wink at the
evasions of it which had been frequent in the reign of
Queen Anne. Accordingly, on May 21 the King wrote
to the Lords Justiciary that he heard there were meeting-
1 An Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by George Grub, iii. 373.
LAWS AGAINST SCOTCH NONJUEOES 431
houses in Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland where
divine service was performed without praying for himself
and the Royal Family, and requiring them to give strict
orders for shutting up such meeting-houses and proceed-
ing against the offenders. 1 The judges replied that they
would order prosecutions against such offenders, but
were * humbly of opinion that they could not shut up
meeting-houses till after trial and conviction by due
course of law/ 2 It was, however, easy enough to make
out a case against the clergy. The Indemnity Act of
1717-8 gave them a little relief, and they were again
permitted to carry on their functions publicly. But in
1719 a severe law was enacted which seemed likely to
render their case more hopeless than ever. Its avowed
object was ' to make more effectual the laws appointing
oaths for the security of the government to be taken by
ministers of churches and meeting-houses within Scotland/
It provided that
every episcopal minister performing any divine service without
having taken the oaths in the terms of Queen Anne's Tolera-
tion, and praying for the King and royal family, is to suffer six
months' imprisonment, and have his meeting-house shut up
for six months ; and every house where nine or more persons,
besides the family, are present at divine service is declared to
be a meeting-house within the meaning of the Act. 3
But, strange to say, the very year of the passing of this
rigorous Act is also the year from which is dated the
commencement of much quieter times for the Church.
For the next twenty-seven years that is, from 1719 to
1746 she enjoyed an outward peace and prosperity such
as she had never enjoyed since the Revolution, and which
1 History of the Scottish Episcopal Church, by John Parker Lawson^
pp. 218-9.
* History of the Church of Scotland, by Thomas Stephen, iii. 127.
8 Skinner, ii. 620.
432 THE NONJUEOES
she was not to enjoy again until nearly half a century
after the last Jacobite rising of 1745. The explanation
may be found partly in the fact that the alarm about
' the Pretender ' gradually subsided, and partly in the
quiet and inoffensive behaviour of the Church itself,
which showed that it was more interested in ecclesiastical
than in political affairs, and that it was not likely to be
seriously dangerous to the ruling powers. Hence, though
the Act of 1719 remained on the Statute Book, it was not
severely enforced, and no future measures were taken
which need here be noticed until we come to the famous
' '45.' We may now, therefore, turn to the internal
history of the Scotch Nonjurors.
From 1689 to 1720 A.D., amidst all the troubles they
suffered from without, the Scotch Nonjurors enjoyed
perfect peace and harmony among themselves. Perhaps
the very fact that they had so many and so strong
enemies outside the fold drew them closer together ; they
could not afford the luxury of internal disputes under
such circumstances. But they were also largely indebted
for their internal peace to the good judgment, reasonable-
ness, and administrative ability of Alexander Rose (1647-
1720), Bishop of Edinburgh, whose futile mission to
London in 1689 has been already described. His conduct
on that occasion has been blamed, and so also has his
general administration of the Church ; but, on the other
hand, it has been most enthusiastically praised. It is not
difficult to see the reason of the differences in the estimates
of this very prominent man : what some would call wise
caution and prudence in him others would call timidity ;
and, on the other hand, what some would call firmness
BISHOP EOSE AS A LEADEE 433
others would term obstinacy. But let us turn to facts,
from which the reader may form his own estimate.
In 1704 Arthur Boss, ' Archbishop of St. Andrews and
Primate of the Church in Scotland,' died ; the arch-
bishopric was not filled up, but his position as primate
was more than filled by his nephew Alexander, the son
of his elder brother. Ross and Rose are the same name ;
and the latter was always called Bishop Rose, not Bishop
Ross. Perhaps this was in order to distinguish him from
his uncle ; but the change has rather tended to produce
confusion. He was known to the end as Bishop of
Edinburgh ; but he also describes himself in an official
document as ' Vicar-General of St. Andrews/ l In the
language of Mr. Grub,
he was not only Primate and Metropolitan, but, so far as juris-
diction was concerned, Bishop of the whole Church Episcopus
Scotoram. The influence which his station gave him was
increased by his ability and virtues ; and in his later years, he
had an ecclesiastical authority in his own communion, unlike
anything that had been known in Scotland since the time of
the first successors of S. Columba. 2
His personal qualifications were those which were most
needed in a leader of men who were in the position of the
Scotch Nonjurors. Such men would be sorely tempted
to sink the ecclesiastic in the politician, to adopt wild
and extravagant notions in sheer reaction from their
surroundings, and to become bigoted and narrow-minded.
But their leader, though an uncompromising Jacobite,
never forgot that he was the clergyman first and foremost,
and the politician only in quite the second place. Bishop
Rose's name never occurs in connection with any of the
1 ' Sedis Sancti Andreas nunc vacantis vicarii,' is his description of him-
self in the deed of Bishop Sage's consecration.
2 Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, by George Grub, iii. 352.
F F
434 THE NONJUEOES
risings, actual or projected, in favour of the Stuarts ;
he was always calm and collected, cautious and sober in
his judgments, and very conciliatory, without being in the
least degree a trimmer. In 1710, when there appeared
likely to be a rapprochement between the Churches of
England and Scotland under the fostering care of Queen
Anne, he received a letter from Oxford asking * whether
he and the rest of the Scotch bishops were in communion,
as matters now stood, with the Established Church of
England and her bishops ? ' Now, this was a very deli-
cate question, and an injudicious answer to it might easily
have dashed the vessel of which Bishop Kose was the
helmsman against either Scylla or Charybdis. On the
one hand, it would certainly not be wise for the weak and
suffering Church in Scotland to reject any overtures which
she could conscientiously accept from her more powerful
sister across the border. On the other hand, it would be
worse than unwise to commit her to principles and courses
of action which she would be quite sure, sooner or later,
to repudiate ; for, though she was not quite in the same
position as the Nonjuring * remnant ' in England, still
less was she in full sympathy with what was called ' the
^Revolution Church.' Bishop Eose, however, steered safely
between the two rocks ; his answer is a model of courtesy
and caution. Having touched gently the political question,
I know [he wrote] there has been a division among members
of the Church of England on that head. The controversy is
great and national, and our circumstances among ourselves not
affording such difficulties, the most of us, perchance, have not
so carefully examined that matter, and want needful help to be
instructed fully in it ;
he cannot give his own sense without consulting his
brethren. 1
1 See Stephen's History of the Church of Scotland, iv. 57.
BISHOP ROSE'S CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND 435
Again, when the ' Usages controversy ' broke out in
England, some of the English Nonjurors strove to involve
the Scotch Nonjurors in it ; but Bishop Eose kept them
out of the snare, into which they fell immediately after
his death. He himself had strong opinions on the subject,
and they were, more or less, on the side of the Usagers ;
but he saw that for his own Church the question must be
settled on its own merits, and must not be complicated by
English difficulties which had no existence on the Scotch
side of the border.
On the other hand, Bishop Kose was more in touch
than his brethren with eminent Churchmen, who were
not Nonjurors, on the English side. He kept up a cor-
respondence with John Sharp, Archbishop of York, and
Henry Compton, Bishop of London, both of them his old
friends. The former was a firm and powerful friend at
Court of the Scotch Episcopal Church ; l the latter had,
as we have seen, backed Eose up in his attempt in 1689,
and ' always retained a particular esteem for him ; ' 2 and it
was through Eose's influence that the English Liturgy
began to be used in Aberdeen, St. Andrews, and other
places. 3 This connection with men in England, who did
not agree with him on all points, enabled him to realise
that most questions might be viewed from another stand-
point than his own, and served to dispel any narrowness
which the peculiar position of the Scotch Nonjurors might
have a tendency to foster.
On the other hand, his great influence naturally
created alarm in the minds of those Englishmen who were
most hostile to Nonjuring principles. There is a curious
letter from Bishop Nicolson, of Carlisle, to Archbishop
Wake which illustrates this. Bishop Nicolson' s alarm at
1 See Life of Archbishop John Sharp, by his Son, ii. 63, and passim.
2 Stephen, iv. 57. 3 Skinner, ii. 605.
FF2
436 THE NONJUEOES
the spread of Nonjuring principles in London has been
already noticed. 1 But as bishop of a border diocese he
would naturally be still more alarmed at their spread in
the Lowlands of Scotland. So he appears to have sent
his chaplain on a sort of reconnoitring expedition, and
on his return wrote to the English Primate in 1710 :
* The greatest number of the Episcopalians are under the
direction and influence of the exauctorate Bishop of
Edinburgh, who is entirely in the interest of the Pre-
tender, and will allow none of his followers to pray for
the Queen, though himself owns her title in the receipts
he gives for his pension,' &c.
Bishop Rose was in a peculiar position. On the death
of the last Archbishop of Glasgow, Dr. Arthur Boss, in
1704, there were only five bishops surviving, and it was
thought desirable to consecrate others in order to prevent
the possibility of the succession dying out. But here a
difficulty occurred. The Scotch Nonjurors, like their
brethren in England, were most anxious to do everything
in so important a matter in a constitutional way, and they
thought that a bishop with full powers could not be
constitutionally appointed without a nomination from the
sovereign, and a conge d'ttire issued by him to the dean
and chapter of the diocese to elect the nominee. But
then there was neither sovereign, nor dean, nor chapter
available. Hence arose that curious and unchurchlike
plan of appointing ' bishops at large,' which afterwards
caused great confusion and dissension in the Church. It
was agreed that ' during the life of any of the old bishops
the government of the Church should remain entirely in
their hands, and that the newly consecrated should be
vested with no diocesan power, but merely keep up the
order, and give their counsel and concurrence when called
1 See supra, p. 282.
'BISHOPS AT LARGE' JOHN SAGE 437
for.' 1 This arrangement contributed greatly to the
dominant position of Bishop Eose, for he was the last
survivor of the old bishops, and was therefore associated
with bishops who had no episcopal jurisdiction. The
first two who were selected for this shadowy honour, and
were co-opted by the bishops themselves into their body,
were John Fullarton and John Sage, who, on St. Paul's
Day 1705, were consecrated privately at Edinburgh by the
Archbishop of Glasgow (John Paterson), the Bishop of
Edinburgh (Alexander Eose), and the Bishop of Dunblane
(Eobert Douglas).
Of Bishop Fullarton it is not necessary to say more
than that he was an eminently respectable prelate, and
that he became, in 1720, a not unworthy successor, even
of Eose, as Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus, though he
was not granted the vicarious powers which Eose had
exercised as vicar-general in the province of St.
Andrews ; 2 but the bishop consecrated with him requires
a more detailed notice.
John Sage (1652-1711) may be regarded as a sort of
protege of Bishop Eose, though he far surpassed his
patron in literary eminence. He was of an old Eoyalist
stock, his father having been a captain in the Eoyal army
during the Civil War, and he was faithful to the family
traditions. Having graduated at St. Andrews, he acted
for some time as a parish schoolmaster, and then became
tutor and chaplain in the family of James Drummond, in
Perthshire. While residing with his pupils at Perth he
made the acquaintance of Alexander Eose, who was at
that time a minister in the Old Church of that city. In
1683 Eose removed to Glasgow, where Sage visited him
in 1684. Eose introduced him to his uncle, then Arch-
bishop of Glasgow, who ordained him in 1685, and insti-
1 Skinner, ii. 602^3. 2 Lawson, p. 224.
438 THE NONJUEOES
tuted him to a charge in Glasgow, where, it is said,
he ' was universally respected.' l This was, perhaps, the
reason why he was less severely treated than most of the
' rabbled ' clergy in that city and diocese. He suffered,
however, quite enough for conscience' sake ; he was
driven from the city by the Cameronians, and had to
retire to Edinburgh. He was also prevented from
accepting another favour from his kind friend, the arch-
bishop, who in 1688 nominated him to the divinity chair
at St. Andrews, a post for which he was eminently
qualified. He remained quietly at Edinburgh for some
years, but not in idleness, for he was very busy with his
pen, and appears also to have taken part in Nonjuring
services, for in 1693 he was * banished from Edinburgh
by the Privy Council for officiating as a Nonjuror.' He
then found refuge in the houses of several Jacobite gentry
until his consecration in 1705. He was not allowed,
however, to do much work as a bishop, for in 1706 he
was stricken with paralysis, from which he never fully
recovered. He spent a year in London and then returned
to Edinburgh, where he died, June 7, 1711. Sage
rendered great service to his Church in a direction in
which it was needed. Although the Scotch Nonjurors
were, as a body, men of culture, and some of them of
intellectual eminence, they were not so productive of
literary work as their English brethren. But Sage was
an exception. To his powerful pen we owe some of the
most racy and vivid sketches of the sufferings of the
Scotch clergy, and some of the most weighty vindications
of their Church principles which we possess. Indeed,
almost all his writings, which are fairly numerous, are,
directly or indirectly, concerned with the Scotch Episcopal
Church. Perhaps the best known and most valuable is
1 Lawson, p. 181.
JOHN FALCONEE 439
' The Principles of the Cyprianic Age ' (1695), for it has
more general interest than his writings on the contro-
versies of his own day in Scotland have. Without being
abusive, he is certainly a severe writer, and one can well
understand how he would die ' lamented by his friends
and feared by his adversaries.' l His biography has been
written by another Scotch bishop, John Gillan, of Dun-
blane, himself a man of great learning, and his works
have been published in three volumes, with a memoir
prefixed, by the Spottiswoode Society.
The course of appointing bishops without sees was
continued, and in 1709 John Falconer and Henry Christie
were consecrated by Bishops Rose, Douglas, and Sage on
those terms. The latter does not require any particular
notice, but the former does.
John Falconer (d. 1723) has been well described as
' not only a man of great piety and prudence, but likewise
a consummate divine, and deeply versed in the doctrines
and rites of the Primitive Church, which, both by example
and argument, he studied to revive and bring again into
practice in the softest and most inoffensive manner
possible.' 2 All his conduct answers to this description.
The trusted friend of Bishop Bose, who pressed him ' to
take the burden of the Episcopate,' he was more dis-
tinctly, or perhaps, one should say, more exclusively, the
Churchman than Bose was. Though the most modest
and gentle of men, he knew exactly what he meant, and
pressed his point, generally with success; perhaps his
social influence, for he was connected by both birth and
marriage with the highest families, helped him. It was
Bishop Falconer who, more than any other, was instru-
mental in restoring the apostolic rite of confirmation,
which, strange to say, had fallen into abeyance in the
1 Lawson, p. 185. 2 Quoted by Lawson, p. 189.
440 THE NONJUEOES
Scotch Church; Bishop Falconer, who was foremost in
opposing the novel plan of consecrating bishops merely
to keep up the succession, without any diocesan juris-
diction. Though a Nonjuror and a Jacobite, he resisted
the too successful attempts which were made to use the
Church merely as an instrument for restoring the exiled
family; and he protested against his brother clergy's
opposition to the revival of ' obsolete usages ' : he thought
they were sanctioned by the Primitive Church, and that
their restoration was ' most desirable.' He carried all
these points, and that without giving offence to any. 1
In 1711 another consecration of a bishop at large took
place viz. that of Archibald Campbell, whose magnum
opus has been already noticed in the chapter on the
general literature of the Nonjurors. 2 In fact, one scarcely
knows whether to place Campbell among the English or
the Scotch Nonjurors. On the one hand, he was a Scotch-
man by birth and education ; he received Holy Orders in
the Scotch Church, and was consecrated a bishop in it
at Dundee on the Feast of St. Bartholomew, 1711, by
Bishops Rose, Douglas, and Falconer. But, on the other
hand, he lived almost entirely in London, not only before,
but after, his consecration, and even after he was elected
in 1721 a diocesan bishop by the clergy of Aberdeen.
Indeed, it is said that he never once visited his diocese,
except vicariously, through his friend and ' vicar/
Gadderar ; 3 and he died in London in 1744. He was
1 A most interesting series of articles entitled ' Bishop John Falconer
and his Friends ' appeared in the Scottish Ecclesiastical Journal, vols. ii.
and iii. (1855). It is an open secret that these articles were written by the
late Canon William Bright. I am indebted to the present Bishop of
Edinburgh (Dr. Dowden) for directing my attention to them. Bishop
Falconer's Christian name is inserted to distinguish him from William
Falconer, who ' held the highest office in the Episcopal Church of Scotland
for forty-three years ' that is, from 1741 to 1784.
2 See supra, p. 402-4. 3 Stephen, iv. 165.
AECHIBALD CAMPBELL JAMES GADDEEAB 441
far more intimately associated with the English than
with the Scotch Nonjurors ; he helped to consecrate four
of their regular bishops, and started, as we have seen, an
irregular line of his own still in England. But he did
not forget his nationality, and it is said that one of the
reasons why he made England his permanent home was
that in that richer country he could better obtain pecu-
niary help for his own poor, distressed Church, in which
charitable work he was not a little aided by the fact that
he was the scion of a noble family on both sides. And
this leads one to ask, ' What was he doing in that Galley,
full of Jacobites and Nonjurors, at all ? ' For his father
was Lord Niel Campbell, a son of that Marquis of Argyll
who was executed under a Stuart in 1661 ; and his mother
(nee Lady Vere Ker) was sister of that Earl of Lothian
who held high office under William III. after the Revolu-
tion. Dr. Johnson tells us that he learnt abroad to ' keep
better company' than the Whigs, with whom he had
been brought up, referring to the fact that he made his
escape to Surinam after the failure of the Monmouth
rebellion, in which he had taken part. It is a question
into which it would be foreign to this work to enter in
detail ; it is enough to say that for the greater part of his
long life he was a strong Jacobite and Nonjuror. 1
With the name of Archibald Campbell one naturally
associates that of James Gadder ar (1655-1733), for, if
such an expression may be used about dignified prelates,
the two ran in couples, and both formed a sort of
connecting link between the English and the Scotch
Nonjurors. Gadderar was one of the ' rabbled ' clergy
in 1688. Then he settled in London, and resided there
for many years. In 1703 he published a translation of
the Latin work of the famous lawyer, Sir Thomas Craig,
1 See Lockhart Papers, ii. 99-102.
442 THE NONJUKORS
' Treatise on the Bight of James VI. to the Succession to
the English Crown,' written about a hundred years before,
but not published. This formed a convenient peg on
which he might hang his Jacobite opinions, which he
accordingly did in the Preface to his translation, besides
leaving his readers to draw the obvious inference in
reference to James's great-grandson from the work itself.
It was by the express desire of Bishop Bose that he was
consecrated a bishop at large in 1712. The consecration
took place in London, and the consecrators were Bishops
Hickes, Campbell, and Falconer. This was the only
instance of an English Nonjuror helping to consecrate
a Scotch bishop, the exception being probably made on
account of the intimacy which subsisted between Hickes
and Gadderar. On the other side Scotch Nonjurors con-
stantly helped to consecrate English Nonjuring bishops,
and Gadderar himself took part in three such consecra-
tions in 1716. Gadderar, like Campbell, took a leading
part in the correspondence between the Nonjurors and
the Eastern Church, an account of which will be given in
the next chapter ; in this correspondence he signs himself
* Jacobus, Scoto-Britanniae Episcopus.' When Campbell
was elected diocesan bishop of Aberdeen in 1721 he com-
missioned Gadderar to act as his ' vicar,' and in 1725 he
resigned his see by a formal deed in favour of Gadderar,
who was also elected in the same year by the clergy of
the diocese- of Moray to be their ordinary. Gadderar
ruled both dioceses, which were well within the compass
of one man's work, with great vigour and success. He
was a strong man, and left a permanent mark upon the
Church. John Skinner, who was a working clergyman
in Aberdeenshire for sixty-five years, wrote in 1788 (that
is, fifty-five years after Gadderar's death) : ' Of him I
need say nothing, as he has left such a precious memory
USAGES CONTEOVEESY IN SCOTLAND 443
behind him in our Church, especially in the diocese of
Aberdeen, of which he long had the inspection.' l Another
writer describes him as ' the stern and fearless Bishop of
Aberdeen ' ; 2 and well it was for the Church that he was
stern and fearless, as the general history of the Scotch
Nonjurors will show.
That history is unfortunately for some years a history
of internal disputes. The apple of discord was thrown
among the Scotch Nonjurors by their English brethren
in 1718. It will be remembered that that was the year
in which the English Nonjurors were divided into two
separate Communions (for a time) on the subject of the
Usages. It was agreed on both sides to consult the Scotch
bishops and to abide by their decision. Accordingly on
the part of the Usagers a Mr. Peak 3 made personal
application to Bishops Rose and Falconer for a synodical
determination ; while on the part of the Non-Usagers
Bishop Spinckes wrote to them to the same effect. Eose
and Falconer acted, as one would have expected them to
act, with great wisdom and courtesy. They very properly
declined to make any synodical determination, which was
quite beyond their province, seeing that the English Non-
jurors were not under their jurisdiction, but they offered
to act as friendly mediators ; and they employed as com-
petent a man as could have been found anywhere on
either side of the Tweed, Dr. Eattray of Craighall, to draw
up proposals of accommodation. Eattray, 'a man of
singular knowledge in ecclesiastical literature/ 4 drew up
proposals ' with much judgment, full of Christian temper,
and making for peace ; ' 5 but neither the Usagers nor the
1 Skinner, ii. 608. 2 Stephen, iii. 202.
8 James Peake, Vicar of Bowden, in Cheshire, survived his deprivation
in 1690 many years, and may have been the man ; but it is more likely to
have been Samuel Peck, who graduated in 1708.
4 Skinner, ii. 626. s Lawson, p. 236.
444 THE NONJUEOES
Non-Usagers in England were then much inclined to
peace. Eattray's proposals offended nobody, but they also
affected nobody ; and so the matter dropped a&, far as
England was concerned.
The Usages controversy assumed a different phase in
Scotland from what it did in England for two reasons :
(1) The whole position of the Scotch Church in regard
to liturgical questions differed from that of the English ;
(2) The question became mixed up with another dispute
with which in itself it had nothing whatever to do. These
two points must be worked out a little more in detail.
1. Strange to say, for many years the Scotch Episco-
palians had never used any liturgy at all, the attempt to
introduce the well-known Scotch Service Book in 1637
proving utterly abortive. When there arose a natural
desire to introduce one, it was much more easy to adopt
the English than the Scotch Office, for the excellent
reason that, in consequence of the opposition of the
Covenanters, very few Scotch Service Books had been
printed, and subsequently the Scotch Church had been
too poor to issue a reprint. 1 After the Union in 1707 the
English Service Book began to be generally used, the
adoption of it being greatly facilitated by liberal presents
of books from England, especially from the University
of Oxford, and from pious Churchmen with means, like
Robert Nelson. But it was chiefly necessity which led
to the introduction of the English Office, and it was always
acknowledged that the Scotch might be used. Indeed, it
sometimes was used. Bishop Falconer said in 1718 'that
he himself had administered with the Mixture, and by the
Scotch Prayer Book years back, long before any dispute
had commenced at London ; ' and he intimated that
Bishop Eose had acted similarly. 2 Then the fact that
1 See Skinner, ii. 627. 2 See Skinner, ii. 626.
USAGES CONTEOVEESY IN SCOTLAND 445
after the severe Act of 1719 clergy of English ordination
began to officiate in Scotland, and by degrees to deny the
authority of the Scotch bishops, naturally tended to
prejudice patriotic Scotch Churchmen against English
customs generally and the English Liturgy in particular. 1
Hence the Usages, which agreed better with the Scotch
than with the English book, were likely to find favour
with many in Scotland.
2. The Usages question became mixed up with the
larger question, ' Was the Church to be governed by
Diocesan Bishops or by a College of Bishops at large ? '
for the Diocesan party were for the most part Usagers,
the College party, Non-Usagers. It was a pity that the
former weighted themselves with this extraneous matter,
for, tried by the test of Church principles in all ages, they
were manifestly in the right, while the adoption of the
Usages was a question on which good Churchmen might
hold different opinions.
With Bishop Rose the last of the Diocesan bishops
passed away, and all who remained were merely bishops
at large. Accordingly, at a meeting of all the Episcopal
clergy, held at Edinburgh in that year, Bishop Falconer
said that ' though they were bishops of this Church, in-
tended for preserving Episcopal succession in it, they did
not pretend to have jurisdiction over any particular place
or district in it ; ' he therefore advised them ' to choose
proper persons for the management of the affair.' 2 It
was then proposed that they should acknowledge Bishops
Fullarton, Falconer, Millar, and Irvine as an Episcopal
College, to whom as such canonical obedience was due*
This was entirely ignoring Bishops Campbell and Gad-
derar, who, though absent in London, had equal rights
with the rest ; and there is little doubt that they were
1 See Grub, iii. 378-9. 2 See Skinner, ii. 628-9.
446 THE NONJUEOES
ignored not because they were absent, but because they
were Usagers. The proper course would surely have been
under the circumstances to have filled the vacant .sees by
due election and consecration. But here unfortunately the
political or politico-ecclesiastical difficulty came in. The
nomination to vacant sees was part of the Koyal preroga-
tive, and they must have recourse to the King over the
water. The Chevalier was quite ready to stand upon his
rights, and addressed the bishops in the most lofty tone.
He graciously approves of the appointment of Bishop
Fullarton as the successor of Bishop Rose ; ' but,' he
adds, ' as to such future promotions as may be thought
necessary for the preservation of your order, we think
it equally for our service and that of your Church that,
notwithstanding our present distance from you, you
should propose to us such persons as you may think
most worthy to be raised to that dignity,' 1 and he
actually appointed David Fairbairn to a bishopric on his
own account.
Now, really this was a sort of parody on the Erastianism
which prevailed too much in the sister Church of England.
In England the King and his ministers were at any rate
persons who possessed real power, and were tied down
by certain safeguards : the King by the Coronation Oath
was bound to be a member of the Church of England,
and his ministers were professedly of the same religion.
But here was a phantom monarch who had not, and by
this time was not likely ever to have, the slightest power
of enforcing his orders, who could not reasonably be
expected to have the Church's interest at heart, seeing
that he belonged to another communion, expecting his
commands to the Church to be obeyed as if he were
already seated on the throne of his ancestors !
1 See Lawson, p. 225.
DIOCESAN PAETY AND COLLEGE PAETY 447
But the Church rebelled, in spite of its loyalty. In
1720 the clergy of Forfar and Kincardine successfully
insisted upon having the saintly Falconer for their
diocesan ; and, emboldened by their success, the clergy of
Aberdeen elected Campbell to be bishop of that diocese.
Then, in order to strengthen the party of the Collegers
and Non-Usagers, no less than four new bishops were con-
secrated on that side, Andrew Cant and David Fairbairn
in 1722, and Alexander Duncan and Eobert Norrie in
1724. In 1723 a meeting of the College of Bishops was
held at Edinburgh, when Bishop Irvine, who was virtually
Primus, Bishop Fullarton being now old and inactive,
headed a remonstrance to the Episcopal Church ' exhorting
and obtesting them all to shun those fatal rocks whereon
others have been shipwrecked before ; and requiring the
clergy in particular to forbear mixture and other obsolete
Usages.' But this only succeeded in bringing to the
front the ablest and most learned man on either side,
Dr. Thomas Eattray (1684-1743), who wrote a long
reply which admirably defended, not only the Usages, but
also, what was far more important, the independence of
the Church in managing her own affairs.
The unseemly exhibition of the two parties appointing
bishops against one another went on for some years ; but
in 1732 a concordat was arrived at which virtually gave
the victory to the Diocesan party, and from that time
' the land had rest fourteen years.'
The only event which need be noticed during the
peaceful interval between the settlement of the disputes
and the rising of 1745 is one which brings together for a
moment the English and the Scotch Nonjurors. In 1744
the Edinburgh clergy, being discontented with the action
of the bishops in issuing canons without consulting their
presbyters, corresponded with Bishop George Smith,
448 THE NONJUROBS
whose name, it is hoped, the reader will not have for-
gotten. The interference of Bishop Smith was irregular ;
for the English Nonjurors had no status in the Scotch
Church ; but in fairness to him it should be remembered
that he was closely connected in more ways than one with
the Scotch, as we have seen in a former chapter. 1
Faint rumblings of the storm which had passed away
might still be heard in complaints against attempts
to introduce ' forbidden usages ' on the one side, and
against attempts to re-establish the secular influence
which formerly prevailed in the College by means of the
Chevalier and his trustees on the other. 2 But, on the
whole, this was a peaceful and a prosperous time ; every-
thing seemed to be going well until the rising of 1745
again unsettled it all. And yet the Scotch Nonjurors,
as a body, took little part in that rising.
The alarm, however, created by the later enter-
prise was greater than that created by the earlier, as
also was the exasperation against the supposed abettors
of it. There was a determined effort to stamp out
Jacobitism in Scotland. The conquerors made no nice
distinction between active Jacobites and passive Non-
jurors ; they thought that both were tarred with the
same brush ; and against both far greater severities were
exercised after the '45 than after the '15. In fact, a sys-
tematic and determined attempt was made to stamp out,
no only the Nonjuring Church, but Episcopacy generally
in Scotland.
An English Churchman may feel thankful that, though
the House of Commons, in its state of alarm and indigna-
tion, passed a Bill to this effect in 1746, the English
bishops opposed it in a body in the House of Lords, three
of them, Seeker, Sherlock, and Madox, speaking against
1 See supra, p. 321, note 1. 2 See Grub, iv. 9.
AFTEK THE RISING OF '45 449
it. Of these three, Bishop Sherlock, who had always
appreciated the merits and realised the position of the
Nonjurors better than most of the complying clergy,
deserves special notice. Having expressed frankly his
opinion that the Nonjuring clergy sympathised with the
late rebellion, he drew a very different conclusion from
that which was probably expected.
These clergymen, my Lords, by the purity of religious
doctrine, learning, decency of behaviour, and chiefly by their
sufferings, recommended themselves to the affection and esteem
of all ranks of people, and by their example, as well as private
lectures, recommended with great power those political prin-
ciples they professed. These are the men we ought to gain
over by mild usage, if possible ; and the more of them we gain
over, the more strength we shall add to our present happy
establishment, the more we shall weaken the cause of the
Pretender. 1
This was no more than the truth. Nothing could
exceed the quiet inoffensiveness and the patient sub-
mission of the Nonjuring clergy in those times of storm
and stress which succeeded the rising of '45 ; but at the
same time they were determined and who can blame
them ? to worship God in their own way and to supply
the means of worship to those who agreed with them;
and their efforts to do so remind us of the early Christians
who worshipped in the caves and dens of the earth. 2
When George III. ascended the throne, he at once
set his face against the enforcement of the cruel laws ;
this was all the more creditable to him because the Scotch
Nonjurors could not, of course, send in loyal addresses as
1 Quoted by Grub, iv. 39.
2 For details see History of the Church in Scotland, by Michael (after-
wards Bishop) Kussell (ii. 405), whose testimony is the more valuable
because he belonged to ' the liberal school,' and gave offence to stricter
Churchmen by his ' liberal views ' ; and Bishop Walker's ' Charge,' quoted by
Stephen, iv. 345.
G G
450 THE NONJUKOES
other religious bodies did. Kindness begets kindness, and
the Nonjuring Church was less inclined than ever to enter
into any measures against the Government ; till at last,
on the death of Charles Edward in 1788, 'the Bishops met
at Aberdeen, and after mature deliberation with their
clergy unanimously agreed to submit to the government
of King George, and to testify this compliance by uni-
formly praying for him by name in public worship.' 1
Here we must stop; when the Church ceased to be a
Nonjuring Church its doings ceased to come within the
province of this work.
1 Skinner, ii. 688.
451
CHAPTEK XI
THE NONJUEOES AND THE EASTEEN CHUECH
IT was only natural that the Nonjurors, holding the
views they did, should yearn for union, or at least inter-
communion, with other Churches, and should be ready to
make any sacrifice, short of actual principle, to attain it.
They could not possibly accept the position of one among
a number of sects ; they fondly hoped, even against hope,
that the National Church would come round to their
views, and many of them did their best, consistently with
their principles, to throw no obstacles in the way of
reunion or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, re-
absorption. But meanwhile they were quite isolated, so
far as England was concerned. Union with Eome was
out of the question ; for, though they were often absurdly
charged with being papists at heart, they were, in fact,
as a body, Protestant to the backbone. Eome had no
sympathy with them, nor they with Rome. But there
was another Church older, and perhaps greater, than
Rome itself a Church which had preserved an unin-
terrupted succession from the Apostles for 1700 years
a Church which was the mother of saints, such as
Polycarp, Ignatius, Chrysostom, and countless others.
In short, in despair of the West, might they not turn
to the East, and there find friends with whom they
might be united in the bonds of Christian fellowship ?
A closer communion with the great Eastern Church was
no new project on the part of English Churchmen, and
GG2
452 THE NONJUEOKS
especially that type of English Churchmen who would
have most in common with the Nonjurors. The great
Jacobean and Caroline divines, of whom the Nonjurors
were in a very real sense the legitimate successors, had
shown a deep interest in the subject. Lancelot Andrewes
had taught English Churchmen to pray in the very words
(translated) of the Greek Church, and had put into their
mouths petitions ' for the Churches Catholick, Eastern,
Western, British'; 'The Church Ecumenical, Eastern,
Western, our own ' ; ' for the Catholick Church, its esta-
blishment and increase ; for the Eastern, its deliverance
and union.' l On the execution of the Nonjurors' Martyr-
King in 1649, the Greek Church had addressed an earnest
remonstrance to the English Government ; Isaac Basire,
the friend of that staunchest of staunch Nonjurors, Dean
Granville, had spent fifteen years of enforced exile during
' the troubles ' as a sort of apostle of the English Church
in the East ; Thomas Smith, one of the most learned of
all the Nonjurors, had been chaplain at Constantinople,
and in that capacity had learnt much about, and taken a
great interest in, the Greek Church, and had written
more than one account of it ; the chief of the ' deprived
Fathers,' William Sancroft, had on more than one occa-
sion been brought into contact with the Greek Church,
and another deprived Father, Bishop Frampton, still more
closely.
In the reign of Queen Anne a Greek prelate, Arsenius,
Metropolitan of Thebais, came to England to implore
the aid of good Christians for his Church, which was
reduced to great distress through the tyranny of the
Turks. He lingered on until 1716, and it was through
him as intermediary that the overtures of the Nonjurors
1 See the Introduction to G. Williams' s Orthodox Church of the East,,
&c. p. vii.
COEEESPONDENCE WITH EASTEEN CHUECH 453
were first made and the negotiations carried on for nearly
nine years. The correspondence is of great length and
great interest ; but as it proved utterly abortive, and as,
in the language of the accomplished scholar to whom we
owe its first publication in all its fulness, it ' almost defies
analysis,' l it has been thought best in the present work
to supply the reader simply with the gist of it. The
account of its rise and progress, apart from its subject-
matter, must first be told in the language of Dr. Thomas
Brett, one of the chief actors in its later phase. This
may be transcribed without any preface or explanation,
because all the names which occur will be familiar to
every reader of the preceding pages. Dr. Brett, then,
writes the following
SHOET ACCOUNT OF THE WHOLE AFFAIE.
In the month of July 1716, the Bishops called Nonjurors,
meeting together about some affairs relating to their little
Church, Mr. Campbell took occasion to speak of the Archbishop
of Thebais then in London; and proposed that we should
endeavour an Union with the Greek Church, and draw up some
propositions in order thereto, and deliver them to that Arch-
bishop, with whom he intimated, as if he had already had some
discourse upon that subject. I was then a perfect stranger to
the doctrines and forms of worship of that Church, but as I
wished most heartily for a general union of all Christians in
one communion, I was ready to have joined with Mr. Camp-
bell on this occasion : But Mr. Laurence being in the room,
drew me aside, and told me, that the Greeks were more corrupt
and more bigoted than the Eomanists, and therefore vehemently
pressed me not to be concerned in this affair. Therefore I then
declined it. But Mr. Collier, Mr. Campbell, and Mr. Spinkes
joined in it, and drew up proposals, which Mr. Spinkes (as Mr.
Campbell informed me) put into Greek, and they went together
1 Introduction to The Orthodox Church of the East in the Eighteenth
Century, being the Correspondence between the Eastern Patriarchs and the
Nonjuring Bishops, &c., by George Williams, Senior Fellow of King's
College, Cambridge.
454 THE NONJUROBS
and delivered them to the Archbishop of Thebais, who carried
them to Muscovy, and engaged the Czar in the affair, and they
were encouraged to write to his Majesty on that occasion, who
heartily espoused the matter, and sent the proposals by James,
Proto-Cyncellus to the Patriarch of Alexandria, to be com-
municated to the four Eastern Patriarchs. Before the return
of the Patriarchs' answer to the proposals, a breach of com-
munion happened among the Non jurors here, Mr. Hawes, Mr.
Spinkes, and Mr. Gandy on the one side, and Mr. Collier, Mr.
Campbell, Mr. Gadderar, and myself on the other. So that
when the Patriarchs' answer came to London, in the year 1722,
Mr. Spinkes refused to be any further concerned in the affair,
and Mr. Gadderar and I joined in it. After Mr. Gadderar went
to Scotland, Mr. Griffin, being consecrated, joined with us.
The rest of the story relating to this matter may be gathered
from the Letters and the Subscriptions to them. Mr. Collier
subscribes Jeremias, Mr. Campbell Archibaldus, Mr. Gadderar
Jacobus, Mr. Griffin Johannes, and I, Thomas.
THOMAS BRETT.
March 30th, 1728.
A brief, but accurate, account of the correspondence
appeared in 1788 in Mr. Skinner's ' Ecclesiastical History
of Scotland ' (vol. ii. pp. 634-40) ; but the whole correspon-
dence, at least on one side, was first rendered accessible
to English readers by Mr. Lathbury in his ' History of
the Nonjurors' (1845). Having been furnished with a
copy which was preserved among manuscript collections
of Bishop Jolly, he printed for the first time all the letters
of the Nonjurors, and extracts from the letters of the
Patriarchs, giving also a summary of their arguments.
Then, in 1868, Mr. George Williams published a volume
containing the whole correspondence on both sides, and
various letters and documents bearing upon the subject.
He had the advantage of being able to collate three dis-
tinct manuscripts : (1) That of Dr. John Jebb ; (2) that
of Bishop Jolly, then deposited at Trinity College, Glen-
almond, now transferred to the Theological College of
HISTOEY OF THE COEEESPONDENCE 455
the Episcopal Church, Edinburgh ; and (3) a volume in
the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
But though Mr. Williams found and collated perfectly
correct copies of the correspondence, the original docu-
ments 'baffled,' he says, 'my search.' So the present
Bishop of Edinburgh (Dr. Dowden) contributed another
valuable addition to our knowledge by publishing a short
paper in the 'Journal of Theological Studies,' which
gives an account of these documents, and also a con-
temporary catalogue, drawn up by one who knew the
inner history of the movement and tells us who were
the readers and the translators of all the documents on
the Nonjurors' side. We find from it that the first
' Proposal ' was ' concocted at Mr. Hawes's ' ; that the
English was probably drawn up by Mr. Collier or Dr.
Lee, the Latin by Dr. Lee, and the Greek by Mr.
Spinckes ; that the long and extremely able ' Reply to
the Patriarchs' Answer to the Proposal ' was drawn up
also by Collier, who was, in fact, the composer of most
of the documents ; while the translator, both from Eng-
lish into Greek and Latin on the one side, and from Greek
and Latin into English on the other, was chiefly T. Wag-
staffe, but in some cases Mr. Jebb, Mr. Griffin, and Mr.
Ford. 1 Curiously enough, Campbell, who was the first
to move in the matter, and Brett, who on such a subject
was the best qualified of all, only appear to have drawn
up one document apiece, and neither of them a very
important one. But to turn to the correspondence itself.
The first document was termed 'A Proposal for a
Concordate betwixt the orthodox and Catholick remnant
of the British Churches, and the Catholick and Apostolical
1 Among the Nonjuring Ordinations in the Eawlinson MSS. is the fol-
lowing : ' 1721, June 20, William Weldon Ford deacon, and 1722, Sept" 6,
preist by Mr. Collier.'
456 THE NONJUEOES
Oriental Church,' and it began with a sufficiently startling
proposal nothing less than an alteration in the order of
the four patriarchal sees, the Church of Jerusalem to
come first instead of last. Of course the reason given is
a valid one : ' Jerusalem the mother of us all ' was the
natural 'principle of ecclesiastical unity.' But was it
likely that the unchanging East would change an order
which had been regularly settled by synodical authority
hundreds of years ago at the instance of a small com-
munity in a distant island, about which it appears to have
had very little knowledge ? Nor was it much more likely
that the Eastern Church should be interested in the
restoration of ' the most ancient English Liturgy,' seeing
it had liturgies of its own which it had not the slightest
intention of altering. Then, having specified twelve
points in which they agreed with the Eastern Church,
the bishops mention certain others 'wherein at present
they cannot so perfectly agree ' : (1) They cannot put the
canons of general councils on a level with Scripture ;
(2) they are afraid of giving the glory of God to a
creature, even to the Mother of the Lord ; (3) they are
jealous of detracting in the least from the mediation of
Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot use a direct invocation
to any angel or saint, not even the Blessed Virgin ;
(4) though they worship Christ as verily and indeed
present in the Holy Eucharist, they hesitate about
worshipping the sacred symbols of His Presence ; and
(5) they demur to the Eastern use of pictures and images,
fearing it might give 'scandal on the one hand to the
Jews and Mahometans, and on the other to many well-
meaning Christians/ to prevent which they suggest that
an explanation of the 9th Article of the 2nd Council
of Nice would be desirable. Finally, they propose that,
if a Concordate be aimed at, a church called the Concordia
PEOPOSAL OF A CONCOEDATE 457
should be built in or about London under the jurisdiction
of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and promise that if they
are ' restored to their just rights ' they will arrange ' on
certain days Divine Service in the Cathedral Church of
S. Paul according to the Greek rites.'
The document is dated ' London, August 18th, 1716.'
The answer did not arrive for nearly five years, ' not/ as
Archbishop Arsenius is careful to explain, ' owing to
Contempt, but because the Patriarchs were occupied in a
Synodical Examination of it.' But when it did arrive
* by James the Reverend Patriarchal Protocyncellus [sic],
the Person that carried the Questions to the Patriarchs,'
it certainly could not be complained of on the score of
brevity. It is a document of portentous length, filling
fifty-two printed pages 8vo., exclusive of two ' Synodical
Explications,' which fill sixteen more. It minutely ana-
lyses all the proposals and difficulties of the Nonjuring
bishops, and criticises several of them with considerable
severity. The sum of it all was that the Eastern Church
could alter absolutely nothing, and that it was only on
these terms that a Concordate could be arrived at. The
Patriarchs seem not to be quite clear as to whom they
were addressing. ' They who call themselves the Remnant
of Primitive Orthodoxy in Britain' thus (adopting, as
will be seen, the bishops' own language) they designate
them, being evidently puzzled as to their exact status.
The whole British Church would not appear to be a large
one to representatives of the great Church of the East.
What must a ' remnant ' of it be ?
They begin in a rather unpromising way by devoting
several pages to the absolute perfection of their own
Church, ' which holds the only true, religious, and right
faith, and continues undefiled and most true/ and con-
clude this exordium by a hint that 'these Gentlemen/
458 THE NONJUBOES
though ' lovers of Truth,' * yet, being prepossessed with
some old prejudices nourished and grown up with them,
cannot easily part with them.' In this not very hopeful
spirit they begin to examine their proposals. The first
five, as ' they relate to one point, the order of the
Patriarchal Throne/ admit of but one answer, and that
a decided negative ; it takes nearly five pages to make
it, but that is what it amounts to. The sixth proposal
relating to the revival of the ancient godly discipline
seems to have been misunderstood by the Patriarch,
owing apparently to the twofold meaning of the word
TraiSsia, ' discipline and instruction.' * We can't conceive
what kind of discipline it is they would instruct us in.' If
it was in human learning, they had Aristotle's works and
other philosophers, and schools in which they were taught
and explained ; if in Divine, they had the doctrine of the
Fathers as the rule of their Divinity Instructions, and it
was from no desire of instruction that they were inclined
to union. The seventh proposal relating to conformity
of worship is pronounced ' obscure and involved,' and is
very briefly dismissed. The eighth, concerning restora-
tion of the most ancient English Liturgy, is met by
the answer that the Orthodox Church has the Liturgy of
St. Chrysostom; there was no occasion for any other,
and the ' Eemnant ' had better receive that. The ninth,
promising a translation of the Homilies of Greek Fathers
into English, to be read in the public assemblies, is
graciously received ; the English could not do better than
read such homilies to benefit their souls. The last three
proposals require no particular comment.
Turning now to the twelve points on which ' the
suffering Catholick Bishops of the old constitution in
Great Britain ' agreed, the Patriarchs are satisfied (save
in one or two minor details) with all except the third,
ANSWEE OF THE PATEIAECHS 459
which deals with the celebrated ' Filioque ' clause ; they
do not at all agree with the bishops' explanation of the
clause, viz. that the Holy Ghost is sent by the Son from
the Father, meaning no more than what the Eastern
Church means.
We receive none who add the least syllable, either by way
of insertion, commentary, or explication to this Holy Creed, or
take anything from it. ... We cannot lawfully allow of the
addition of the preposition &a or IK, nor say either from or
by the Son. But we wou'd have those who desire to com-
municate and agree with us, to keep it pure and without
alteration. We don't allow it to be either publickly or privately
read with addition,
with much more to the same effect.
But the last part of the bishops' letter is, of course,
the great ' crux,' and on this the Patriarchs' answer is
remarkably explicit, and not at all conciliatory.
It is time [they say] to proceed to the point of greatest
difficulty, viz. : the proposals, in which those who are called the
British Eemnant of Primitive Piety, disagree with us. But
this is not to be wondered at. For being born and educated in
the principles of tbe Luthero-Calvinists, and possess'd with
their prejudices, they tenaciously adhere to them, like Ivy to a
tree, and are hardly drawn off. So paint of a deep colour sink-
ing into a Garment, is almost indelible ; and the garment will
grow rotten and decayed before the tincture can be washed off.
This prepares us for the rather severe criticism which
follows. The first proposition, that the canons of ancient
general councils are not of the same authority as the
Sacred Text, and may be dispensed with by the governors
of the Church where charity or necessity require, ' can
by no means be received by the Eastern Church.' Then
they argue this point out in detail, and conclude : ' If,
then, those who are called the Remnant of primitive
piety in Britain will be united to the Oriental Orthodox,
they will do well to agree with us also in this particular,
460 THE NONJUEOES
who both think and speak what is true.' On the second
proposition that ' tho' they call the Mother of our Lord
blessed .... yet they are afraid of giving the glory
of God to a creature/ the answer begins : ' Here we
may fairly cry out with David, They were in great fear
where no fear was,' and then they go on to explain at
some length the well-known distinction between Latria
and Dulia. On the third proposition, that ' they cannot
use a direct invocation to any saint or angel, the ever-
blessed Virgin herself not excepted, because they are
jealous of detracting in the least from the mediation of
Jesus Christ/ the Patriarchs begin again with a text of
Scripture. ' As for the jealousy they speak of, it seems
like the zeal of those of whom the Apostle says, I testify
of them that they have a zeal, but not according to
knowledge* and then they proceed to instruct their igno-
rance, ending with this apostrophe :
Ye lovers of Piety, passing over these Mormoes [bugbears],
embrace closely the dictates of Piety, and those things which
are profitable for the soul, and are no ways hurtful to any
body. ' Search,' says He, ' the Scriptures, for in them ye shall find
eternal life' And set yourselves free from the heavy bondage,
and as I may say, 1 captivity of prejudice ; shake it off, and
submit yourselves to those true Doctrines which have been
delivered from the beginning, and to the Traditions of the Holy
Fathers, which are not opposite to the Holy Scriptures. For, we
have good hopes of you, and do in our hearts spiritually re Joyce
and leap for joy. For, you give us great expectations (even in
this Proposition) of the wish'd for, and much desired happy
union and agreement : which do thou, o Christ our King,
quickly effect by Thy Almighty help, for the intercession of
Thy immaculate Mother and all the Saints : for, we earnestly,
and as we may say, from the bottom of our heart desire it.
1 When the first person singular is used, it is the Patriarch of Jerusalem
speaking in his own person, for it is said at the end of the answer, ' N.B.
The foregoing Paper was in the original drawn up by the Lord Chrysanthus,
the present Patriarch of Jerusalem.'
ANSWEE OF THE PATEIAECHS 461
The fourth proposition, however, in which the bishops
say they are for leaving the manner of Christ's Presence
in the Holy Eucharist indefinite and undetermined, and
think that people may worship Christ in spirit, as verily
and indeed present, without being obliged to worship
the Sacred Symbols of His presence, is the most offensive
of all to the Patriarchs. ' How,' it is replied, ' can any
pious person forbear trembling to hear this Blasphemy,
as I may venture to term it ? For, to be against wor-
shipping the Bread, which is consecrated and changed
into the Body of Christ, is to be against worshipping our
Lord Jesus Christ himself our Maker and Saviour ' ; and
then they argue this point out at some length.
The fifth and last proposition, ending with a request
that the ninth article of the second Council of Nice con*-
cerning the worship of images be so explained by the
wisdom of the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Oriental
Church as to make it inoffensive, and to remove the
scandal which may be occasioned (to Jews and Maho-
metans, as well as to many well-meaning Christians)
is dealt with more tenderly, but no less explicitly. The
Patriarchs declare it is impossible to alter the canon as
required, and argue that if anything is to be given up
for fear of causing scandal to Jews and Mahometans,
the worship of Christ, which is the greatest scandal of
all to them, would have to be given up. Those who
object to image-worship ' are confuted from the first
chapter of the Book of Genesis, in which it appears that
God first made images, for he says, ' Let us make man
after our own image and similitude ' !
The last part of the bishops' proposal relating to the
erection of a church in London, to be called Concordia,
and the ' performance of a public service in the Cathedral
of S. Paul in Greek and English,' they welcome most.
462 THE NONJURORS
cordially. The answers are said to have been drawn up
in council at Constantinople, April 12, 1718, though they
did not reach their destination until much later.
The ' Eeply ' of the Nonjuring bishops is also a lengthy
document filling nearly twenty pages, and reflects credit
both upon the heads and the hearts of those who drew it
up. It confirms what has been said in these pages about
the learning and ability of the later Nonjurors. It is
perfectly packed with matter, and the numerous citations
from the Scriptures and the Fathers are most apposite.
Moreover, although the Patriarchs had written in a lofty
tone of superiority which must have been rather exas-
perating, the bishops are never once betrayed into making
reprisals ; there is not one single bitter word in their
reply. At the same time they are quite firm in their
own opinions ; though the temptation to so small a body
to make concessions in order to win so large a body of
allies must have been great, they never yield to it. The
one point which they do yield is that in which they had
been manifestly unreasonable that is, in their very first
proposal, that the order of the Patriarchate should be
changed. ' Only,' they say, ' we conceive that the British
Bishops may remain independent of all the Patriarch-
ates ' a reasonable conception enough. On the sixth
article they remark with obvious truth : ' We never in-
tended to prescribe to the wisdom, or question the learn-
ing of the Catholic Oriental Church : Our meaning by
the word muSewz, relating only to points of Discipline ' ;
and no English reader could ever have mistaken their in-
tention and meaning. Nor could any Englishman who
knew what their real sentiments were doubt for a mo-
ment their sincerity in the following dignified disclaimer :
What conjectures soever the Catholic Oriental Church might
have to suspect us of Luthero-Calvinism, we openly declare,
EEPLY OF THE NONJUE1NG BISHOPS 463
that none of the distinguishing principles of either of those
Sects, can fairly be charged upon us ; and we farther believe,
that upon the perusal of our Eeply they will readily acquit us
of any such imputation.
On the five points on which they had said in their first
proposal that they could not 'perfectly agree/ they
remain absolutely unmoved, and it is in defence of this
position that their learning comes in most strikingly. The
weakest part of the defence is that which deals with the
doctrine of Transubstantiation. In their recoil from this
they seem to give the impression that they did not con-
sider the belief in a Real Presence essential, which could
hardly have been their true meaning; for the Keal
Presence was manifestly an article of faith with all the
Nonjurors. The general conclusion at which they arrive
is this :
If, therefore, our Liberty is left us in the instances above
mentioned : If the Oriental Patriarchs, Bishops &c. will
authentically declare us not obliged to the Invocation of Saints
and Angels, the worship of Images, nor the Adoration of the
Host; If they please publickly and authoritatively by an
Instrument signed by them, to pronounce us perfectly dis-
engaged in these particulars ; disengaged, we say, at home and
abroad, in their churches and our own : These relaxing conces-
sions allow'd, we hope may answer the Overtures on both sides,
and conciliate an Union.
Then follows a reminder, which surely was much
needed :
We farther desire their Patriarchal Lordships &c. would
please to remember that Christianity is no gradual Beligion,
but was entire and perfect when the Evangelists and Prophets
were deceased. And therefore the earliest Traditions are un-
doubtedly preferable, and the first Guides the best. For the
stream runs clearest towards the fountain's head. Thus, what-
ever variations there are from the original state, whatever crosses
in belief or practice upon the earliest ages, ought to come under
464 THE NONJURORS
suspicion. Therefore, as they charitably put us in mind to
shake off all prejudices, so we entreat them not to take it amiss,
if we humbly suggest the same advice. We hope, therefore,
their Lordships' impartial consideration will not determine by
prepossession or the precedents of later times ; but rather be
govern'd by the general usages and doctrine of the first four
Centuries, not excluding the fifth ; than think themselves
unalterably bound by any solemn decisions of the East in the
eighth century, which was even then opposed by an equal
Authority in the West.
It almost goes without saying that the Patriarchs did
not stir one inch from their former attitude : ' We have
nothing more to observe nor any other reply to make to
all the propositions you have now sent us.' The Non-
jurors must 'submit with sincerity and obedience, and
without any scruple or dispute.' And to make matters
quite clear, they send ' an exposition of faith ' as con-
tained in ' the Synod of Jerusalem,' commonly called the
Synod of Bethlehem, in 1672, as an indispensable con-
dition of intercommunion. This the Nonjurors could
not, of course, accept; they professed to be English
Churchmen, and as such they could be tied only to the
Church of England's formulas.
The Nonjuring bishops also entered into a correspon-
dence with a view to union with the ' Holy Governing
Synod of Russia,' who were far less repellent than the
Eastern Patriarchs. But the death of the Emperor of
Eussia (Peter the Great), who was most conciliatory and
kind, in the midst of the negotiations, put a speedy ter-
mination to what would probably have been futile in
any case.
The correspondence between the Nonjurors and the
Eastern Church came to the knowledge of Archbishop
Wake, who in 1725 wrote an indignant letter to Chrysan-
thus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, complaining that
CONCLUSION 465
certain schismatical Priests of our Church have written to you
under the fictitious titles of Archbishops and Bishops of the
Anglican Church, and have sought your Communion with
them ; who, having neither place nor church in these realms,
have bent their efforts to deceive you who are ignorant of their
schism.
He then adduces forcibly and ably the usual arguments
against the Nonjuring separation; but his arguments
would have had more force had it not been for the fact
that fifty years before the vast majority of English
Churchmen, including the archbishop's own two im-
mediate predecessors, openly expressed views, the only
logical result of which was their taking up the very
position now held by the Non jurors.
This last sentence brings us to the conclusion of the
whole matter. The Nonjurors must be judged by the
standard of the seventeenth, not that of the twentieth
century. Brought up in the Church principles of the
earlier period, they could not comply without manifestly
setting those principles at defiance. So at least they
argued, and from their own standpoint it is extremely
difficult to answer their argument. Their case is clearly
stated by one of their number * whose sensitiveness to
logic is as marked as his sensitiveness to conscience,* *
William Law ; and this work may fitly conclude with an
extract from the manly letter which he wrote to his
brother, announcing the loss of his fellowship because
he could not take the oaths :
My prospect, indeed, is melancholy enough, but had I done
what was required of me to avoid it, I should have thought my
condition much worse. The benefits of my education seem
1 See Sir Leslie Stephen's English TJwught in the Eighteenth Century,
ii. 39.
H H
466 THE NONJURORS
partly at an end, but that same education had been more
miserably lost if I had not learnt to fear something more than
misfortunes. As to the multitude of swearers, that has no
influence upon me : their reasons are only to be considered ;
and everyone knows no good ones can be given for people
swearing the direct contrary of what they believe. Would my
conscience have permitted me to have done this, I should stick
at nothing where my interest was concerned, for what can be
more heinously wicked than heartily to wish the success of a
person upon the account of his right, and at the same time in
the most solemn manner, in the presence of God, and as you
hope for mercy, swear that he has no right at all ? If any
hardships of our own, or the example of almost all people can
persuade us to such practice, we have only the happiness to be
in the broad way.
467
AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF NONJUKOKS,
CLEEICAL AND LAY,
COMPILED PARTLY FEOM NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL NON-
JURORS TAKEN IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK,
AND PARTLY FROM A COLLATION OF PREVIOUS LISTS,
PRINTED AND MANUSCRIPT, VIZ. :
1. A List of several of the Clergy and others in the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, who were
not thought to Qualify themselves upon the Revolu-
tion. (Appendix No. VI. to the Life of Mr.
Kettlewell, prefixed to the Compleat Collection of
his Works, vol. i. pp. v-xiii. 1719.)
This was probably drawn up by Dr. Francis Lee,
compiler of the Life, and was perhaps the list conveyed
by Dr. Hickes to King James, with a view to the New
Consecrations. As the title shows, it does not profess to
be a complete list ; it contains only the names of the
earlier Nonjurors, and includes scarcely any of the laity.
The strange vagaries of spelling which still prevailed in
the early eighteenth century render it difficult in some
cases to identify the names of persons, or places, or both.
In short, though it is a most interesting and valuable
document, * it wanted,' as Mr. Warren says, ' a good deal
of editing,' which it did not receive until he himself
undertook the task after the lapse of 177 years.
H H 2
468 THE NONJUEOKS
2. A Catalogue of the English Clergy and other Scholars
who have refused to take the new oaths in Bowles's
Life of Bishop Ken, vol. ii. ch. xi. and xii. (1830.)
This is said to have been * taken from a document
among the Ken Papers, collected, probably under Ken,
by the Rev. Mr. Harbin, chaplain at Longleat.' It was
corrected, so far as the diocese of Bath and Wells went,
in the Life of Bishop Ken by a Layman (J. L. Anderdon),
Appendix C to vol. ii., but is still very imperfect and
inaccurate.
3. A List of the English Ecclesiastical Nonjurors of the
Reign of William III., in an Appendix to Palin's
History of the Church of England from 1688 to
1717. (1851.)
This is no improvement upon the preceding lists.
4. A List, partly corrected, of the Nonjuring Bishops
and other Clergy and Ecclesiastics of 1689 and
later. Compiled from Kettlewell and other sources,
published anonymously by the late Rev. C. F. S.
Warren. (1895.)
This is drawn up with great care and accuracy. Mr.
Warren has been able to make some valuable additions
and corrections from a MS. of 1733 ; he has taken infinite
pains to identify persons from the published Graduati
Oxonienses and Cantabrigienses, and places from Crock-
ford's Directory ; he has avoided repetitions and corrected
endless obvious errors in the earlier lists ; but he modestly
tells us in his Preface that it is still very imperfect, and
he suspects that ' consultation of the Nonjuring treasures
of the Bodleian would have very much improved it;
but this was not in his power.' I am painfully conscious
that the present list is also very imperfect, but it has the
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUBORS 469
advantage at any rate of having been drawn up after a
careful consultation of the following manuscript treasures :
1. An Alphabetical Catalogue of the Dignified and
Beneficed Clergy and others who declined to take
the oaths required after the Revolution in 1688.
(Kawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library, D. 1238.)
This is Dr. Kawlinson's own list. It is not in his
handwriting, but it contains notes by him, and ap-
pended to it is a letter from Mr. Browne Willis to him,
in which he calls it ' your list.' It contains 311 names.
2. The Names of y 6 Clergy, Fellows of Colledges t and
Schoolmasters who have not taken y 6 Oaths to y e
Government in 1699. [Laurence] Howell's Collec-
tions for Cambridge. (Kawlinson MSS., B. 281 in
the Bodleian.) About 355 names.
3. Manuscripts in the Library of St. John's College,
Cambridge, including
(a) The names of the Suspended and Deprived
Clergie in the Diocese of Norwich (37), with
a heading in Thomas Baker's handwriting,
' This was drawn up in order to their relief.'
(b) Clergy in the Diocese of York (14), whose cases
are fully described in a letter from a Mr.
Watkinson of York to Bishop Lloyd of
Norwich, written at the Bishop's request,
also evidently with a view to their relief.
This is from a MS. left by Bishop Lloyd
himself to St. John's College.
(c) A Catalogue of Nonjurors, Writers, from the
year 1689. It contains 154 names, several
of which are not mentioned in other lists.
(d) Ordinations and Institutions of Nonjurors
and Successors of Cambridge. 18 names.
470 THE NONJUEORS
' Ex Epist. Tho. Baker ad Dr. Kawlinson,*
January 22, 1732-3.
(e) Matriculations. Admissions of Nonjurors at
Oxford. 23 names. ' Ex Epist. N. Cymes
ad Dr. Eawlinson,' February 11, 1731-2.
(f) Matriculations of Nonjurors of St. John's
College at Cambridge. 13 names, with
full descriptions. ' Ex Epist. Tho. Baker
ad D rem Eawlinson,' July 15, 1730.
(g) Matriculations, Graduations, &c. of Nonjurors
in Cambridge, ex epistolis Th. Baker ad
D rem Eawlinson, dat. July 25, 1733, and
January 4, 1733-4. 33 names, with de-
scriptions.
(h) Another list, with the same title as above,
1730, containing 24 names and descriptions.
The imprimatur of so learned and accurate a man as
Thomas Baker is most valuable.
I have also derived assistance in drawing up the list
from Hearne's Collections, from the Calendar of State
Papers (Domestic Series), from The Cheshire Sheaf, and
from the Nonjuring Ordinations and Nonjuring Con-
secrations recorded by Kawlinson.
When a name is inserted on only one authority I have
indicated that authority ; when two or more authorities
differ, and I cannot be sure which is right, I have given
the alternative reading in brackets. The different autho-
rities are referred to under the following letters :
K = Kettlewell list. W. = Warren list. 1
B. = Bawlinson list. L. H. = Howell list.
St. J. = St. John's MSS., including a, b, c, d t e,
f, g, h.
1 This includes all that is valuable in Bowles, ' a Layman,' and Palin ;
for my experience has been that when Mr. Warren differs from any of them,
lie is right, and they are wrong.
CLERICAL AND LAY NONJURORS
471
H. = Hearne t
Ch. Sh. = Cheshire Sheaf.
When Complied is attached to a name it means that
the person refused the oath at first but took it later.
When Penitent, that he took the oath at first but
repented and recanted.
When Non-Abjuror, that he stumbled at the oath of
abjuration, not that of allegiance.
'V.' stands for Vicar, <R.' for Sector, and ' F.' for
Fellow.
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCBSE
Acworth, Thomas
V. of Pyrton, Non-Abjuror
Oxford
Adee, John .
F. of B.N.C. Oxford
Allen, Cuthbert .
V. of Hornby .
Chester
Alleyne, Thomas.
F. of St. John's, Camb.
Altham, Roger .
Canon of Ch. Ch. and Reg.
Prof, of Hebrew, Oxford,
Complied
Amy, John .
Ord. D. by Bishop Lloyd
of Norwich, 1684
Andrews, John .
M.A. of Ch. Ch. Oxford
Andrews, William
- Wedmore, Somerset .
Bath and
Wells
Andrews,
Undergrad. of Univ. Coll.,
Oxford
Anger, [St. J.]
C. of Botesdale
Norwich
Appleford, Robert
F.,of St. John's, Camb.
Armytage, Chris-
F. of Peterhouse, Camb.
topher
Arnold, Thomas .
R. of Deene
Peter-
borough
Aston, Thomas .
Chaplain to Earl of Cla-
rendon
Audley, John
V. of St. Catherine Cree .
London
Babington,
V. of Trelleck .
Llandaff
Bagshaw, John .
V. of Sibbertoft '. . Peter-
borough
472
THE NONJURORS
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETO.
DIOOESE
Bailey, Daniel
Baker, Thomas .
Ball, John .
Bankes, Charles .
Barfoot, James .
Barnes, Miles
Barrow, Henry .
Bateman, John .
Battel, Arthur
Bayley, John
Bayley, Thomas .
Baynard, John .
Beach, William .
Beaufort, James .
Beaufort, John .
Bedford, Hilkiah.
Bedford, Thomas.
Bedford, William
Beeston, Edward.
Bell, Thomas
Benlowes, George
Benson, Samuel .
Berkley, William
Bettenham, Jas. .
Beynon, Thomas .
Billers, John
K. of Long Newton
F. of St. John's, Camb.
C.C.C. Oxford
V. of Cheshunt
Usher of Abingdon School
Senior F. of Peterhouse,
Cambridge
V. of Horton Kirby
F. of Merton, Oxford
Usher at Hertford School .
OfTettenhall .
E. of Slimbridge (F. of
Magd. Oxf.), Complied
Archdeacon of Connor
V. of Orcheston St. George
V. of Lanteglos by Camel-
ford
Scholar of Trin. Coll.
Camb., Complied
F. of St. John's, Camb.
E. of Whittering (N.-J,
Bishop)
Son of the above, St.
John's, Cambridge
C. of Brookland
E. of Sproughton and
Melton
V. of Askham .
C. of Easington
Archdeacon and Preb.
[Canon Ees.,E. & L. H.]
of Hereford, V. of Sellack
E. of Clophill . *
Printer, London
C. of Upton-on-Severn.
F. of St. John's and
Public Orator, Camb.
Hereford
Durham
London
Oxford
Eoohest'r
! Lincoln
Lichfield
Glo'cester
Connor
Sarum
Exeter
Peter-
borough
Canter-
bury
Norwich
Carlisle
York
Hereford
Lincoln
(now Ely)
Worcest'r
CLERICAL AND LAY NONJUROKS
473
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Bisbie, Nathanael
B. of Long Melford .
Norwich
Bishop, William .
F. of Balliol, Oxford
Blackbourne, Jno.
Trin. Coll. Camb., N.-J.
Bishop
Blackbourne, Th.
Trin. Coll. Camb. [St. J.]
Bladon, William .
Of Woodstock, Trin. Coll.
Camb., Non-Abjuror
Blair, Patrick
M.D. [St. J.]
Boardman, Thos.
B. of Grappenhall .
Chester
Bokenham, An-
B. of Helmingham .
Norwich
thony
Bold, Michael
F. of Trinity Hall, Camb.
Bolton, .
Undergrad. of B.N.C. Oxf.
Bonwicke, Am-
Headmaster of Merchant
London
brose
Taylors' School
Bonwicke, Am-
Son of the above, St.
brose
John's Coll. Cambridge
Boothe, Charles .
Last N.-J. Bishop
Bosse, Eichard .
V. of Leathley [B. of
York
Scawby, B. and L. H.]
Boteler, Thomas .
F. of Trin. Coll. Camb.,
V. of Masworth, Bucks
Lincoln
Boteler,
B. of Cadoxton
Llandaff
Boteler,
B. of Litchborough [B.] .
Peter-
borough
Bowdler, Stephen
Undergrad. of B.N.C. Oxf.
Bowdler, Thomas
Clerk of the Admiralty
Bowyer, William
Printer, London
Bowyer, William
' The learned Printer,' son
of the above, St. John's,
Camb.
Bradley, Thomas
B. of Walton-on-the-Hill,
Win-
and V. of Carshalton
chester
Bra veil, Bichard .
B. of Welton .
York
Bravill, Dr. .
[L.H.] . . . .
Bristol
Breach, William .
Ch. Ch. Oxford, M.D. .
Brett, Daniel
V. of Hockham
Norwich
Brett, Thomas .
B. of Betteshanger (N.-J.
Canter-
Bishop), Penitent
bury
Brett, Thos., son
(N.-J. Bishop) .
Canter-
of the above
bury
474
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Brett, Thomas .
V. of West Dean, and E.
Chiches-
of Folkington
ter
Brian (see Bryan)
Brokesby, Francis j V. of Eowley, Complied .
York
Brome [Bruce, B.]
E. of Middleton Tyas,
York
Complied
Brome [Broom,
Commoner of Ch. Ch. Oxf.
W.]
Brooke, Philip
St. John's Coll. Cambridge
[St. J.]
Brookes, Thomas
E. of Cunington, or Con-
Ely [Nor.
[Edward, St. J.]
Brown, Christo-
ington, Complied
E. of Priston .
E.]
Bath and
pher
Wells
Brown, Thomas .
Archdeacon of Derby and
Preb. [Canon Ees.,E.] of
Lich field
Brown, William .
Undergrad. of Balliol, Oxf.
[W.]
Browne, P. J.
M.D. of Manchester (N.-J.
Bishop)
Browne, Thomas
F. of St. John's, Cam-
bridge
Bryan, Matthew .
E. of Limington [C. of
Bath and
Newington Butts, E.]
Wells
Buchanan, Chas.
E. of Farnborough, Peni-
Win-
tent, Complied
chester
Buddie, Adam
F. of St. Cath. Hall, Cam-
bridge, Complied
Bull, Digby
E. of Sheldon .
Lichfield
Bunnys, Edward
C. of St. Dionis Back-
London
church [Eeader of, L. H.
and St. J.]
Burdyn, Henry .
V. of Beighton
Lichfield
Burgess,
......
Bristol
Burrell, .
Of Gorleston [E. and
Norwich
St. J.]
Carr, Eichard . Preb. of Lincoln and B. of
Lincoln
Huntingdon
Carr, William . E. of Jevington . . Chichest'r
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUEOES
475
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOOESE
Carte, Samuel
:
Carte, Thomas,
Eeader of the Abbey
Bath and
bro. of the ahove
Church, Bath
Wells
Cartwright, Thos.
Bishop of Chester [ignored
Chester
by L. EL]
Cartwright, Thos.
N.-J. Bishop
Castle, .
Eeader of Orrnond Chapel
London
[W.]
Cayley, Simon
C. of Barston in Berkes-
Lichfield
well and Chap, to Earl
of Aylesbury, Complied
Cholmondeley,
M.P., Cheshire [Ch. Sh.]
Francis
Clarendon, Henry
- ':"
Hyde, 2nd Earl
of
Cock, John .
V. of St. Oswald's, Durham
Durham
Cockburn, Patrick
C. of St. Dunstan's (East
London
or West ?)
Cole, Christopher
E. of Billesdon
Lincoln
Cole,
E. of Chellesworth [W.] .
Norwich
Cole or Coles, Wm.
V. of Charlbury (F. of St.
Oxford
John's, Oxford)
Collier, Jeremy .
Lecturer at Gray's Inn,
London
N.-J. Bishop
Cooke, Shadrach .
Lecturer of Islington, E.
London
of Tanfield, Complied
Chester
Cooke, Thomas .
F. of St. John's, Camb.
Cope, Jonathan .
V. of Betley [and Chap.
Lichfield
to Sir J. Egerton, K]
Cotton, Eobert .
Lancashire (?) Esquire
Cotton, John, his
son
Crane, John ,
C. of Winwick .
Chester
Cressy, Joseph .
V. of Sheriff Hutton
York
Creyk, John
Of St. John's, Camb.,
Chaplain to Earl of
Winchilsea
Crofton, Eichard .
Headmaster of Preston
Chester
School
476
THE NONJUKORS
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETO.
DIOCESE
Grossman, James | V. of Banwell .
Crosthwaite,
Thomas
Crowbrow, Sam.
Crowther [Crow-
der, L.
Joseph
Cuffe, John
H.],
Cumberland, . C. of Tabley .
F. of Queen's, Oxf., and
Preb. of Exeter
Archd. of Nottingham,
Preb. of York and of
Southwell [E. of South-
well, L. H.], F. of
Queens', Camb.
Chanter of St. Paul's,
Principal of St. Mary
Hall, Oxford, Preb. of
Worcester, E. of Tred-
ington .
E. of Wicken
Daillon, James,
Count de Lude
Davenport, John .
Davie or Davis,
John
Davis, Thomas .
Davison, Jonathan
Davison, Thomas
Dawkins, George
Day, Henry
Deacon, Thomas
Dobree,
Dod, Samuel
Dodwell, Henry .
Doughty, Henry .
Downes, Samuel .
V. of Wrawby
E. of West Easen, Com-
plied
V. of Frodsham, Complied
E. of Yerbeston
V. of Aldworth
C. of Norton, Complied .
V. of Icklesham
E. of Hunstanton
N.-J. Bishop
E. of Sausthorpe and
Aswardby
V. of Chigwell .
Camden Eeader (Prae-
lector) of History, Oxford
C. of Eobin Hood's Bay
[Filingdales, nr. Whitby,
E.], [under Abp. of York,
K], N.-J. Bishop
Probationer F. of St.
John's, Oxford
Bath and
Wells
London
Worcester
Peter-
borough
Chester
Lincoln
Lincoln
Chester
S. Davids
Ely
Durham
Chichest'r
Norwich
Lincoln
London
York
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUEORS
477
NAME PREFERMENT, ETO.
DIOCESE
Downes, Theo-
F. of Balliol, Oxford
philus
Dowsing, John .
Chanter of Ely
Dresser, Thomas .
E. of Westley . -, .
Ely
Dunkyn, Maurice
Ireland
Dunn, Jerman
E. of Waddington, Com-
Lincoln
[Herman, St. J.]
plied
Dykes [or Dyke,
Senior Taberdar of Queen's,
E.], Oswald .
Oxford
Eades, Thomas .
V. of Chiddingly , ,
Chichest'r
Earbery, Matthias
V. of Neatishead
Norwich
Eccles, .
Balliol Coll. Oxford [H.]
Edmunds, David
E. of Kenilworth, Penitent
Lichfield
Edwards,
Bristol
Edwards, Samuel
V. of Eye and E. of
Norwich
Weston [Troston, St. J.]
Edwards, Thomas
Son of Vicar of Kingston .
Hereford
Edwards, Thomas
Trinity Coll. Oxford
Egerton, Philip .
E. of Astbury, Complied .
Chester
Ellerby, James .
V. of Chiswick
London
Ellis, James
Schoolmaster at Thistle-
London
worth (Isleworth)
Ellys, Edmund .
E. of East Allington
Exeter
Emmerson, Wm.
Scholar of St. John's,
Camb.
Enfield, Thomas .
Trin. Coll. Oxford [F. of,
L. H.]
Ennis, Alexander
(see Innes)
Ensor, Eichard .
E. of Heckham [?] .
Lichfield
Erskine, William
E. of Wrangle, Complied .
Lincoln
Falkner, Thomas
V. of Middle wich, Complied
Chester
Farmer [Harmer,
V. of Montford
Lichfield
L. EL], Edward
Farringdon, John
E. [C., Ch. Sh.] of Church
Chester
Minshull
Fenton, Elijah .
Poet, Non-Abjuror
Fettiplace, Thos.
M.A. of St. John's Coll.
Camb., Curate
478
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Fisher, .
C. of Warham [B., L. H.,
Norwich
and St. J., Washbrook,
; .
W.]
Fitzgerald, John.
Archdeacon of Dublin
Dublin
Fitzwilliam[s],
B. of Cottenham
Ely
John
Canon of Windsor, F. of
Magd. Oxford
Fletcher, James
'A.M.ofCh. Ch.Oxf.'[B.]
[Flesher, W.]
.
Fletcher,
V. of Marnham (near
York
Newark)
Flud[Fludd,L.H.
V. of Halstock .
Bristol
Flood, W.]
Ford, William
Ord. by Collier, D. 1721,
Weldon
P. 1722
Fothergill,Marma-
B. of Skipwith
York
duke
Fothergill, Wil-
Ord. by Griffin, 1728
liam
Frampton, Kobert
Bishop of Gloucester
Fullerton, Wm. .
BalliolColl. Oxford, [H.]
Gandy, Henry .
B.of St. Leonard's, Exeter,
Exeter
Sen. F. of Oriel, N.-J.
Bishop
Gardiner, Thomas
F. of All Souls', Oxford
Garnett, Thomas
Of Manchester, N.-J. Bp.
Gervase .Humphry
(see Jervis)
Gibbes, John
B. of Gissing .
Norwich
Giifard, Francis .
B. of Bussel [Bushall],
Sarum
Wilts, Non-Abjuror [H.]
Gifford [Gyffard,
B. of Great Bradley .
Norwich
W.], William
Gilbert, John
V. of Medmenham, Bucks.
Lincoln
Gilbert, Michael .
C. of Spexhall
Norwich
Gipps, George
B. of Brockley . .
Norwich
Gordon, Kobert .
N.-J. Bishop
Gosling [Gostling,
B.], Isaac
V. of Sturry and C. of St.
Mary Bredin
Canter-
bury
Gosling, . . * '.
Of . ..-,. . .
Lincoln
CLERICAL AND LAY NONJURORS
479
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Granville, Denis .
Dean and Archdeacon of
Durham
Durham and B. of Easing-
ton and Sedgefield
Grascome [Gras-
E. of Stourmouth .
Canter-
comb, L. H.],
bury
Samuel
.
Grey, .
C. in Newcastle
Durham
Griffin, John
N.-J. Bp., E. of Churchill
Worcest'r
Griffith, John .
Petty Canon and E. of St.
Worcest'r
Nicholas
Grigg, William .
F. of Jesus Coll. Camb.
Guy, Henry
Of Kendall [not beneficed,
Chester
K]
Gwillym, James .
V. of Harewood " .
Hereford
Hall, Henry
Son of E. of Castle Camps,
a N.-J. Bishop
Hall, James Acres
F. of B.N.C. Oxford,
Penitent
Hall, Joseph
Son of E. of Castle
Camps, ord. D. and P.
in 1716
Hall, Eichard
E. of Kettlethorpe .
Lincoln
Hall, Thomas .
E. of Castle Camps .
Ely
Hall, .
Chaplain to Countess of
Kent [E. and L. H.]
Hamerley [Am-
V. of Burton Dassett
Lichfield
mersly, B. and
L. H., Ham-
mersley, K.],
Chamberlain
Hanbury, Wm. .
E. of Botley .
Win-
chester
Hanbury, -
Balliol Coll. Oxford, M.D.,
Utrecht [H.]
Hansted, -
E. of Searby .
Lincoln
Harbin, George .
Chaplain to Bishop Turner
of Ely, and then to Lord
Weymouth
Harmer, (see
' Farmer ')
480
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Harsnett, Kobert
Hart, Percyval,
M.P.
Harte, Walter .
Harvey, Joseph .
Hatton, Christo-
pher
Hawes, Samuel .
Headlam, Kichard
Hearne, Thomas .
Hellier, George .
Herbert, Edward
Heron, Arthur .
Heron, John
Hickes, George .
Higden, William .
Higgons, Bevil .
Hildyard,
Hill,
Hind, William .
Preb. of Wells
K. of St. Clement's, Ox-
ford, Complied
Of Lullingston, Kent
Preb. of Wells, Preb. of
Bristol, V. of St. Mary
Magd. Taunton (F. of
Pembroke College, Oxf.)
Preb. of Hereford and
Chancellor of the Cathe-
dral, E. of Weston-juxta-
Boss, Non-Abjuror
[St. J.] Esquire
B. of Braybrooke, Chap-
lain to Lord Griffin, a
N.-J. Bishop
[Fellow, B.] of St. John's
Coll. Camb,, Complied
Of St. Edmund Hall, Oxf.,
Assistant-Keeper of the
Bodleian Library
P.C. of Broomfield [V.,
B. and W.]
New Coll. Oxf. [St. J.]
St. John's Coll. Camb.,
Complied
Chaplain to Lord Preston,
Scholar of St. John's,
Cambridge
Dean of Worcester, N.-J.
Bishop
Lecturer and C. of Cam-
ber well, Complied
[St. J.] St. John's College,
Oxford, Complied
Chaplain to Countess of
Yarmouth
[W.] Penitent.
[W.J Oxford
Bath and
Wells
Bath and
Wells
Hereford
Peter-
borough
Bath and
Wells
Worcester
Win-
chester
Norwich
London
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUEORS
481
NAME
PRBFEBMBNT, ETC.
DIOOESE
Hobart, Thomas,
F. of Christ's Coll. Camb.
M.D.
Hobson, Joshua .
[St. J.]
V. of All Saints', Camb.,
Ely
F. of St. John's Coll.
Hodgson, Aaron .
Usher of Stanstead Ab-
Lincoln
bots School, Herts
Holbrooke, John .
E. of Titsey .
Win-
chester
Holder, Eichard .
C. of Stanford Bishop,
Hereford
Complied
Holdsworth, Ed-
Poet Demy of Magd.
ward
Coll. Oxford
Holford, Na-
Chaplain to Duchess of
thaniel
Buckingham
Hollis, John
Holmes,
V. of Brompton [W.]
E. of Eustwick [Pons-
York
wicke, St. J.] and Vicar
York
Choral of York
Holmes,
V. of North Clifton .
York
Hope, James
' C. to y e A.B. [Abp.] in y e
York
East Eiding ' [E. &K]
Hope, John
C. of Easington [F. of St.
Durham
John's, Camb., E.]
Hopkins, Edward
F. of Lincoln Coll. Oxf.
Horton, Alex.
E. of Kelshall, Herts
Lincoln
Horton, William .
Master of the Haber-
London
dashers' School
Howard, Ephraim
F. of Queens' Coll. Cam-
bridge
Howell, John
E. of New Eadnor .
Hereford
[St. Da-
vids, E.]
Howell, Laurence
Master of Epping School,
C. of Eastwick, Herts .
Lincoln
Howell, Kobert
(see Nowell)
Howell, Thomas
(see Powell)
Hughes, John
F. of Balliol Coll. Oxf.,
and Chaplain to Turkish
Embassy
II
482
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Hughes, John
Hunt, . -."I-
Hutton, Charles .
Hutton, John
Hutton, Philip .
Hutton [Hulton,
R]
Innes, Alexander .
Islip, Eobert
Ives, Jonathan .
Jacomb, Thomas .
James, Nicholas .
Jebb, Samuel
Jebb, Sir Eichard,
son of the above
Jenkin, Eobert .
Jenkins, .
Jennens, Charles .
Jervis, Humphry
[Gervase, K]
Johnson, Henry .
Johnson, Matthew
Minor Canon of Peter-
boro' and C. of Eye
E. of Up-Lyme
College Street, Westmin-
ster, friend of Samuel
Wesley
Of West Witton
V. of Bolton
E. of St. Martin, Vintry,
and St. Michael Eoyal
St. John's Coll. Camb.
[St. J.], ord. by Gandy,
1717
V. of St. Giles', North-
ampton
Master of the Free School,
Coleshill
Of Tregare . .
M.D., Peterhouse, Cam-
bridge, ord. by Collier,
1716
M.D., Licentiate of Coll.
of Physicians
F. of St. John's, Camb.,
V. of Waterbeach
Chanter of Chichester
and Chaplain to the
Bishop, Complied .
1 Sea-captain, now a Peni-
tent ' [E.]
Balliol Coll. Oxford, and
Gopsall Park, Leicester
St. Alban Hall, Oxf. [W.]
Master of Wandsworth
School
C. of Kelloe, Complied
Peter-
borough
Hereford
Exeter
Chester
York
London
Peter-
borough
Lichfield
Llandaff
Ely
Chichest'r
Gloucest'r
Win-
chester
Durham
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUEOES
483
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Johnson, Kichard
[William, L.H.]
Johnson, Thomas
Jones, Barzillai .
Jones, David
Jones, Henry
Jones, Henry
Jones, Eichard .
Jones, Eobert
Jones, Thomas .
Jones, William .
Jones, .
Kelly, George
Ken, Thomas
Kendall, Nicholas
Kent, .
Kenyon, Koger .
Kenyon, Eoger .
Kerrington, Eich.
Kerrington [Led-
ington,Wm.,E.]
Kettlewell, John .
Keyt, Thomas
Killingbecke, Jno.
King, Charles
Master of King's School,
Canterbury, Complied
F. of St. John's, Camb.,
and V. of Madingley
Dean of Lismore, and
Treasurer of Waterford .
Scholar of St. John's,
Camb. [E.]
E. of Sunningwell . *
Master of Wandsworth
School
Chancellor of Diocese of
Bangor
V. of Cannington and C.
of Calcott
C. of Efenechytd
Treasurer of Connor, and
Chaplain to Bishop of
Down
C. of Lydd [Lydd, Bed-
ford, E.]
Trinity College, Dublin
Bishop of Bath and Wells
C. of Elwick . . *;.
C. of Tissington
F. of St. John's Coll.
Camb., M.D.
St. John's, Camb., A.B.,
' nee ultra progreditur '
[St. J.]
E. of Tacolneston
C. of Depden .
V. of Coleshill . k
E. of Binton . .
F. of Jesus Coll. Camb.
Student [Curate, E.] of
Ch. Ch., Chaplain to Mr.
Chetwynd
Ely
Lismore
and Wat.
Win-
chester
Win-
chester
Bath and
Wells
St. Asaph
Canter-
bury
Durham
Lichfield
Norwich
Norwich
Lichfield
Worcest'r
i i 2
484
THE NONJURORS
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
King, Kichard .
Kipping, Kichard
Kirby, William .
Kirkham, James .
Knight, George .
Lake, John
Lake, Kichard
Lake, Kichard
Lake, William .
[Lake, William .
Lamb, .
Lambe, Seth
Laurence, Koger
Law, William
Leake, John
Leake, John
Leche, Thomas .
Lee, Francis
Lee, William
Leigh, John
Leigh, . ,
K. of Marston Bigott,
Chaplain to Lord Wey-
mouth
Chaplain to Bp. of Nor-
wich and K. of Faken-
ham (?)
K. of Wickham [Whick-
ham]
K. of Wick war
C. of Keyworth [W.]
Bishop of Chichester
K. of Avon Dassett .
C. of Parham .
Son of Bp. of Chichester,
Complied
[F., K.] of St. John's,
Camb. [St. J.], query
same as above]
V. of Stillington, Penitent
[K.]
V. of Ealing, Non-Abjuror
N.-J. Bishop
F. of Emmanuel Coll.
Camb.
Lecturer of St. Giles',
Cripplegate, and St.
Michael's, Queenhythe
Hart Hall, Oxf . [H.], query
same as above
JV. of Foxton, F. of St.
John's Coll. Camb.
JM.D., F. of St. John's
Coll. Oxford
| Dyer in Spitalnelds,
brother of the above
V. of Edenhall-with-
Langwathby
Choirmaster, [Chief Mini-
ster, K.] of St. Mary
Overy, Southwark
Bath and
Wells
Norwich
Durham
Gloucest'r
York
Lichfield
Norwich
York
London
London
Ely
Carlisle
Kochester
CLERICAL AND LAY NONJUEOES
485
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Leslie, Charles .
Chancellor of Connor
Connor
L 'Estrange, Sir
Licenser of the Press
Koger
[St. J.]
Lewis, John . j
Lewis, John . j
C. of Bolston^J Query
Of Jesus Coll. > same
Oxford J man
St. Davids
(Hereford
now)
Lewis, Thomas .
Scholar [E.] of Magd.
Hall, Oxford
Lightfoot, Thos. .
V. of Eoxby .
York
[Chester,
W.]
Lindsay, David .
C. of Croydon [White-
London
chapel, K], Complied
Lindsay, John
N.-J. Minister of Trinity
Chapel, Aldersgate Street
Lloyd, John
E. of Llangar .
St. Asaph
Lloyd, Eichard .
C. of Bridstow and Yarpole
Hereford
Lloyd, William .
Bishop of Norwich
Long, Thos., sen.
Preb. of Exeter, Non-
Exeter
Ab juror
Long, Thos., jun.
E. of Whimple and Preb.
Exeter
of Exeter
Lowndes, Ralph .
E. of Eccleston
Chester
Lowndes, Ealph .
Of Lea Hall, Middlewich,
Chester
Penitent
Lowth, Simon .
V. of Harbledown, E. of
Canter-
Cosmas Blean, Dean-
bury
elect of Eochester
Lowthian, Eich. .
A.B., St. John's, Camb.,
ord. by Spinckes, 1722
Lowthorp, John .
E. of Coston, near Melton
Lincoln
Mowbray
Ludlam,
V. of Dalby Magna, near
Lincoln
Melton Mowbray
Mackintosh, Alex.
E. of Woodmansterne
Win-
chester
Maddison, Chas. .
V. of Chester-le-Street .
Durham
Major, George
Emman. Coll. Camb. [W.]
Malabar [Malla-
C. of Cottenham
Ely
barr, W.]
486
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Mallory, Thomas
R. of Mobberley
Chester
Manly, Robert .
R. of Powderham .
Exeter
Manton, .
V. of Crook [W.] .
Carlisle
March, John
V. of Long Compton
Worcest'r
Marsh, .
Marston, Edward
[W.] . . . .
C. of Rushton, Complied .
Ely
Peter-
borough
Marten, William
Vice-Principal of Hart
[Hugh, K]
Hall, Oxford
Martin, John
Preb. of Sarum and R. of
Sarum
Melcombe Horsey
Martyn [Mason,
R. of Holme Lacy [R. and
Hereford
W.], Thomas
L. H.]
Massey, Middle-
A Keeper of Ashmolean
ton
Museum, Oxford, B.N.C.
Maston, Edward.
V. of Dalby Parva, near
Lincoln
Melton Mowbray
Mattaire, Michael
[H. and St. J.], but query?
Mauliverer, John
[F. of, W.] Magdalene
Coll. Cambridge
Maurice [Morris,
Minor Canon of Worcester
Worcest'r
L.H.][Morrice,
and C. of Claines
Mawburn, Luke .
R. of Crayke .
York
Mawman, Tim. .
N.-J. Bishop
Maxwell, William
Min. of Wapping Chapel
London
Meaux, .
Of Woodstock, Non-
Oxford
Abjuror
Metcalfe, -
V. of Voles [St. Paul's ?]
Canter-
Cray
bury
Milles, Richard .
V. of Ridge, near Barnet,
London
Complied
Millington, James
Draper of Shrewsbury
Milner, John
Preb. of Ripon and V. of
York
Leeds
Mingay, .
C. of Holveston
Norwich
Minors,seeMynors
Mitchell, Michael
V. of Pinchbeck
Lincoln
Montgomery,
i * * ,
York
Robert
Moor, John.
V. of Rustington ' s.'
Chichest'r
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJURORS
487
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETO.
DIOOESE
Moor, Jonathan .
Schoolmaster at Long
Norwich
Melford
More, Ingram
V. of Mumby and Strubby
Lincoln
Morgan, Eobert .
Student of Ch. Ch. Oxf.,
Complied
Morrice [Maurice,
R. of Bangor-Monachorum
Bangor
E.], Hugh
Morse, William .
R. of Llanwarne
Hereford
Moy, Anthony
Chaplain to Lord Ferrars
of Chartley
Munsey, Kobert .
R. of Bawdeswell
Norwich
Mynors, Wil-
C. of Shoreditch
London
loughby
Nash, Gawen
Petty Canon of Norwich
Norwich
and V. of Melton
Nash, John
F. of Pembroke Hall, Cam-
bridge
Naylor, John
F. of St. John's Coll.
Camb.
Nelson, Robert .
Complied. Esquire
Nelson, - - .
V. of .
York
Newcourt, Richd.
Registrar of the Bishop's
London
Court
Newman, John .
Trinity Coll. Cambridge
[St. J.]
Newmarsh, Tim. .
N.-J. Bishop
Newson, Stephen
R. of Hawkedon
Norwich
Newton, George .
R. of Cheadle and V. of
Chester
Prestbury
Nicholls, Matthew
C. of Eggesford
Exeter
Nicholls, Richard
V. of Welton .
Peter-
borough
Nixon, Robert .
Ord. by Gandy, 1717
Norres, Ralph
V. of South Littleton
Worcest'r
North, Roger
Steward to the See of
Canterbury, son of the
4th Lord North
Nowell, Robert .
V. of Seaford and Bishop-
Chichest'r
stone
Nutting, John
Pembroke Coll. Oxford
THE NONJUEOKS
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Oakely, Jeremy .
E. of Sutton , '-..
Win-
chester
Oakes, John
V. of Whitegate
Chester
Oldham, Richard .
E. of Streatham, F. of St.
Ely
John's, Cambridge
Oldham, .
Chaplain to the Earl of
Lichfield
Chesterfield
Onley, Humphry
E. of Little Budworth .
Chester
[Vanogden, W.]
Orme, Eobert
V. of Wouldham, Penitent
Eochester
Osborn, .
C. of Aldgate . . . London
Osbourne, William
' Chaplain to my Lord
Bath and
Weymouth ' [E.] .
Wells
Otway, Charles .
Doctor of Laws [K.]
Owen, John *
E. of Tuddenham .
Norwich
Owen, Michael .
V. of Langhorne and E. of
S.Davids
Eglwys
Palmer, - - .
.
Hereford
Paman, Henry .
M.D., Master of the Facul-
Canter-
ties to the Archbishop of
bury
Canterbury
Panting, Henry .
E. of St. Martin's, Worces-
Worcest'r
ter, and Upton-on- Severn
Parker, Samuel .
Son of the Bishop of Ox-
ford, Complied (?)
Parr,Bartholomew
V. of .
Exeter
Pattrick, Jerman.
C. of Haddenham
Ely
Peake, James
V. of Bowdon (F. of Magd.
Chester
Coll. Cambridge)
Pearce, .
Attorney of Took's Court,
London
Pearson, Eichard
E. of St. Michael's, Crooked
London
Lane
Pearson, Matthew
F. of St. John's, Camb.,
Complied
Peck, Francis
Trinity Coll. Cambridge
Peck, Samuel
Trin. Coll. Camb. [St. J.]
Perkins, Joseph .
C. of , Penitent [K.]
Gloucest'r
Perne, John
F. of Peterhouse, Camb.
[St. J.]
CLERICAL AND LAY NONJUEOKS
489
NAME
PREFEBMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Pert, Arthur j .
Philips, John
Philips, Vincent .
Phillips, Stephen
Phillips, William
Pickering [Pucker-
ing, Ch. Sh.],
John
Pickering, John .
Pierce, John
Pigeon, - - .
Pinchbeck, Martin
Pincock, Thomas
Pincocke, William
Pine, William .
Pinsent, .
Pitts, John .
Pocklington,
Charles
Podmore, Thomas
Polwhele, Thomas
Potinger [Pottin-
ger, B. and L.
H.], Daniel
Powell [Howell, B.
& L. H.], Thos.
Powell, Timothy .
[P. of, L. H.] Queens' Coll.
Cambridge
Student of Ch. Ch. Oxford
[K.]
Trin. Coll. Oxford
Scholar of Trinity Coll.
Cambridge
F. of Cath. Hall, Camb.,
and C. of Long Melford
Schoolmaster of Middle-
wich
V. of Ferring, South
Heighten, and Westham
Ord. by Collier, 1725
C. of St. Andrew's, Under-
shaft
C. of Freiston and School-
master at Butter wick,
Penitent
Usher of Preston School .
Senior F. of B.N.C. Oxf.
[Student of, L. H.] Ch. Ch.
Oxford
Undergrad. of St. John's
Coll. Cambridge
E. of St. Lawrence [St.
Giles, St. J.], Norwich
B. of Brington, Bythorn,
and Old Weston
Master of Millington's
Hospital, Shrewsbury
V. of Newlyn [Newland,
B. and L. H.]
B. of Nettleton
C. of New Badnor .
V. of St. Cleers and B. of
Bobeston West
Norwich
Chester
Chichest'r
London
Lincoln
Chester
Norwich
Lincoln
(now Ely)
Exeter
Lincoln
Hereford
S. Davids
490
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Pownoll, Edward
Of Shottesbrooke [H.]
Pretty, Edward .
R. of Little Cornard [Cor-
Norwich
neath, E. and St. J.],
Penitent
Price, Henry . V. and Preb. of St. Asaph
St. Asaph
and Schoolmaster of
Ruthin
Price, Kenrick
N.-J. Bishop
Prichard, John .
Of Winforton .
Hereford
Prichard, William
V. of Eglwyswrw, Penitent
S. Davids
Pulford, .
Herts
Lincoln
Rawlinson, Rich.
St. John's Coll. Oxford,
N.-J. Bishop
Rawlinson, Thos.,
brother of the
above
Redmayne, Peter
[Fellow, W.] of Trin. Coll.
Camb.
Rich, Samuel, Dr.
[L.H.] . . . .
Bristol
Richards, William
R. of Helmdon (and Lec-
Peter-
turer of St. Andrew's,
borough
Newcastle)
Richardson, John
R. of North Luffenham .
Peter-
borough
Richardson, Sam.
C. of Little Bradley, Com-
Norwich
plied
Richardson, .
C. of Great Thurlow
Norwich
Rickaring, John
[R.] (see Picker-
ing)
Roberts, Lewis .
V. of West Firle and Bed-
Chichest'r
dington
Roberts, Thomas
Minor Canon and R. of
Worcest'r
St. Nicholas' [St. Giles',
R. and L. H.]
Robinson,
M.D. [St. J.] *
Nicholas
Robinson, Wm. .
. . . . .
Gloucest'r
Robson[R.&L.H.] V. of Stonehouse
Rogerson, Thos. . j R. of Ampton, Suffolk
Norwich
CLEKICAL AND LAY NONJUEOES
491
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOOESE
Kokeby, Francis .
Undergrad. of St. John's
Coll. Camb. [son of
Koper, Francis .
Major E. Bokeby, B.]
F. of St. John's Coll.
Ely
Camb. Preb. of Ely, B.
of Northwold, and Canon
of Norwich .
Norwich
Boss, Thomas
B. of Bede
Norwich
Boss, Thomas
B. of Scalby, or Scawby .
York
Boss, Thomas
B. of Hunmanby [W.],
York
Penitent
Botheram,
[W.] ....
Bath and
Wells
Bowe, .
Ord. by Collier, 1716
Bussell, Bichard .
Univ. Coll. Oxford [St. J.]
Butter, John
M.A., ord. by Collier, 1716
Safiyn, Bichard .
V. of Berkeley . .. v
Gloucest'r
Sagar, Seager, or
B.N.C. Oxford
Seagar
Sage, Elisha
[W.] ....
Bristol
Sagg, Thomas
Beader in Christ Church
York
[the chief church,K], Hull
Salmon, Nath.
C. of Westmill, Herts .
Lincoln
Salter, Abraham .
V. of Edwardstone .
Norwich
Sancroft, William
Archbishop of Canterbury
Sanderson, James
St. John's Coll. Camb.,
Penitent, B.
Sanderson, Bobt.
Scholar of St. John's Coll.
Camb.
Sandys, Samuel .
V. of Willoughby (F. of
Worcest'r
Peterhouse, Camb.)
Saunders, John .
Trin. Coll. Camb. [St. J.]
Scandrett, John .
V. of Madeley [Madley, B.
Hereford
and L. H.]
Schmid (Smith) .
Preacher to Walloon Con-
Canter-
gregation at Sandwich .
bury
Sclater, William .
V. of Brampton Speke
Exeter
Scott, .
Scrivener, Henry
C. of Highgate [W.]
[Charles, B.], F. of Pemb.
London
Hall, Camb.
492
THE NONJURORS
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETO. DIOCESE
!
Seaman, Christo-
K. of Winton and Little
Norwich
pher
Snoring
Sefton, - .
[H.]
Seller, Abednego .
V. of St. Charles, Plym'th
Exeter
Sharp, Isaac
C. of Stepney (F. of Magd.
London
Coll. Camb.)
Shaw, John
V. of Carleton and Petty
Norwich
Canon of Norwich
Sheldon, Ealph .
Steward (Auditor of Ac-
counts) (?) of Ch. Ch. Oxf.
Sheridan, William
Bp. of Kilmore and Ardagh
Sherlock, William
Master of the Temple,
Lecturer at St. Dunstan's-
in-the-West, and V. of
Therfield, Complied
Sherwell, John .
Reader at Covent Garden
London
Shrawly, John .
[W.].
Chaplain to Lord Lexing-
Hereford
ton [W.]
Sims, William (see
Sym)
Skelton, Bernard.
R. of Cantley .
Norwich
Slater [Blatter, E.]
V. of Chatteris
Ely
Sloper, William .
Schoolmaster of Wantage,
Sarum
Penitent
Smith, Charles .
V. of Sompting and R. of
Chichest'r
Coombe ....
Smith, .
V. of Little Packington .
Lichfield
Smith, George .
St. John's Coll. Camb.,
N.-J. Bishop
Smith, Henry
Canon of Ch. Ch. Oxford
Smith, James
R. of Lound, Complied
Norwich
Smith [Smyth,
F. of Magd. Coll. Oxford,
K.], Thomas .
Preb. of Heytesbury
Sarum
Snatt, William .
Preb. of Chichester, and
Chichest'r
V. of Cuckfield
Soames, Moses .
R. of Broughton
Peter-
borough
Southcomb,Lewis
R. of Rose Ash, Penitent .
Exeter
Southcomb,Lewis,
jun.
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUEORS
493
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOOESE
Speed, George .
Master of the School in
London
St. Mary Axe [W.]
Spinckes, Na-
Preb. of Sarum, E. of St.
Sarum
thaniel
Martin's, Salisbury, N.-J.
Bishop.
Squib, Laurence .
E. of Stanton St. John's .
Oxford
Stampe, Thomas .
E. of Langley, Penitent .
Sarum
Standish, Ealph .
E. of .
Chester
Sterling,
Balliol Coll. Oxford [H.]
Stone, Thomas .
E. of Hempstead
Norwich
Strachan,William
[F. of, L. H.] Balliol Coll.
Oxford
Street, - .
* C. and Schoolmaster near
Bath and
the Bath '
Wells
Sutton, Gilbert (?)
Trin. Coll. Cambridge
Symmes [Simrns,
E. of Langton .
York
L. H.]
Symmes [Sims,
V. of Chislet . .
Canter-
E.]
bury
Talbot, Andrew .
E. of Southstoke
Bath and
Wells
Talbot, John
E. of Fretherne (F. of
Gloucest'r
Peterhouse, Camb.),N.-J.
Bishop, Complied
Taylor, Ealph .
E. of Severn-Stoke, N.-J.
Worcest'r
Bishop
Thomas, Samuel .
Preb. of Wells and V. of
Bath and
Chard ....
Wells
Thomas, William
Bishop of Worcester
Thomas,
Canon of Exeter, Non-
Exeter
Abjuror
Thomkinson,
F. of St. John's, Camb., V.
Ely
Thomas
of Holy Trinity, Camb.
Thornly, Edmund
C. of Bury [Littleboro',
Chester
L. H.] .
Thornton, Wil-
Principal of Hart Hall,
liam
Oxford, Non-Abjuror
Thurkettle, Saml.
E. of Littleton.
London
Tisdale, Eichard .
E. of Felthorpe and Tros-
Norwich
trey, and Chaplain to
Bishop of Norwich
494
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Traffics, Eichard,
D.C.L.
Trumbull, Charles
Tudway,
Turner, Francis .
Turner, Thomas .
Tutt, Eobert
Urry, John
Vanogden .
Verdon, Thomas .
Vincent,
Vincent,
Wace, Francis
Wagstaffe, John .
Wagstaffe, Thos.
Wagstaffe, Thos.
(son of the above)
Walker, Lucius .
Wall, Henry
Wase, Christopher
Watson, George .
Watson, John
Webster, Eichard
Welton, Eichard .
West, Thomas .
New College, Oxford
[Ant. Wood]
E. of Stisted in Essex,
Hadleigh in Suffolk, and
Chaplain to Archbishop
Bancroft
Mus.B., and Organist of
King's Coll. Camb., Com-
plied
Bishop of Ely
Archd. of Essex, and Preb.
Sub-Dean of Salisbury
Student of Ch. Ch. Oxf.
(See ' Onley, Humphry ')
E. of Great Snoring
F. of St. John's, Camb.
Curate of [W.]
C. of Sulhampstead. [W.]
E. of Blakeney
E. of Little Wenlock
Chancellor of Lichfield .
E. of St. Margaret Pattens,
London, N.-J. Bishop
Keeper of Non jurors'
Church Eegisters
E. of Stokesley [W.]
Chpln.to Countess of Kent
Esquire Bedell at Oxford
E. of Millbrook, Bucks .
E. of Saltfleetby St. Cle-
ment's
E. of Glemsford, Complied
E. of Whitechapel, N.-J.
Bishop
E. of Childrey [Childrew,
E. and L. H.]
Norwich
London
Sarurn
Norwich
Lincoln
Sarum
Norwich
Hereford
Lichfield
London
York
Lincoln
Lincoln
Norwich
London
Chester?
[R. & W.
&L.H.]
Oxford
CLEEICAL AND LAY NONJUKOES
495
NAME PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Weybergh, Jeffrey
[C. of, E.] Queen's College,
Oxford
Whatton,William
Chap, to Earl of Eutland
Lincoln
White, Thomas .
Bishop of Peterborough
Whitehead, - v
St. Mary Hall, Oxford,
ord. by Spinckes, 1718
Whiting,
St. John's College, Camb.
Wigmore, John .
Queens' Coll. Camb., ord.
by Gandy, 1727
Willcox, Giles .
E. of Bixley and C. of
Norwich
Bungay
Willet,
Of Tattershall [W.]
Lincoln
Williams, Daniel .
Jesus Coll. Oxford [St. J.J
Wilson, Edward .
E. of Blatchington
Chichest'r
Wilson, John
E. at Northampton ? [W.]
Peter-
borough
Wilson, Eobert .
Vicar-Choral, York, C. of
York
Drypool, &c.
Wilson, Thomas .
E. of Arrow . ;
Worcest'r
Wilson, Thomas
(son of the above)
Winchilsea,Hene-
age Finch, 4th
Earl of
Winford, Edward
E. of Harpsden
Oxford
Wingfield,
Of Canterbury, refused to
Canter-
take M.A. degree
bury
Winship[p], Geo.
Preb. of York and E. of
York
Malton
Wolley, Charles
E. of North Somercoates,
Lincoln
[Wooley,
Complied
Samuel, E.]
Wood, Henry
Chaplain to Mr. Chol-
Chester
mondeley of Holford
Wood, John
Chaplain at Ch. Ch. (?),
London
London
Woodroffe, Gabriel
V. of Felsted .
London
Woodward, John
F. of Peterhouse, Camb.
[Complied, St. J.]
Wooton, Henry .
St. John's Coll. Camb.
[St. J.]
496
THE NONJUEOES
NAME
PREFERMENT, ETC.
DIOCESE
Worsley, Edward
Ei. of Gatcombe, Isle of
Win-
Wight
chester
Worthington,
V. of Offenham, School-
Worcest'r
John
master of Evesham (F.
of Peterhouse, Camb.)
Worthington,
Magd. Hall [Ch. Ch., K],
Thomas
Oxford, Non-Abjuror
Wortley, Bartho-
F. of Caius Coll. Camb.
lomew
Wright, Matthew
C. of Warmingham .
Chester
Wright, Thomas .
V. of Wymondham (F. of
Norwich
St. John's, Camb.)
Wynne, Hugh .
F. of All Souls', Oxford,
Chancellor of Diocese of
St. Asaph
St. Asaph
Yapp, Abraham .
Precentor of Durham and
Durham
C. of Wilton Gilbert
Yarborough, Sir
Of Snaith Hall, Yorks
Thomas
Yates or Yeates,
C. of Lymm
Chester
John
Yorke, John
Vicar-Choral of York and
York
K. of St. Peter, of St.
Belfry's [St. J.], of St.
Michael-le-Belfry
Zinzano, Nicholas
K. of St. Martin Outwich
London
SCOTLAND.
The Scotch Non jurors include the great majority of
the Scotch Episcopal Church. It seems to me that all
or none should be given, and, as it is quite impossible to
give all, I have given none in the above list. The names
of the chief leaders will be found in Chapter X.
497
INDEX
ABJURATION Oath, 2, 10, 64, 139, 192,
258, 315, 348
' Account of Church Government,'
Brett's, 402
Act of Settlement, 2, 10
' Address to Persons of State and
Quality,' Nelson's, 253
Allhallows Barking Church, 93
Altar-piece in Whitechapel Church,
347
America and Nonjuring Bishops,
349, 369-371
Anne, Queen, 11, 65, 73, 202, 218,
239, 427
Anointing the Sick, 354, 357, 358-9
Apographum consecrationis, T. Wag-
staff e, 116 n.
J. Collier, 119
H. Doughty, 313
Apostolical Constitutions, The, 296,
358-9
Arsenius, Metropolitan of Thebais,
452-3, 457
Ashton, John, 71
Atterbury, Francis, 336
BAILEY, THOMAS, 147, 181
Baker, Thomas, 46, 56, 189, 226,
281, 409, 416
Balliol College, Oxford, 183, 342
Bedford, Hilkiah, 17, 111-2, 176,
198-203, 217, 274, 311, 320, 321,
324
Bedford, Thomas, 290, 320, 324,
339-340, 409
Bettenham, James, 263
Beveridge, William, 5, 28, 168
Billers, John, 195-7
Bingham, Joseph, 352-3
Bisbie, Nathanael, 40, 224-6
Bishops, Imprisonment of the seven,
23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 40, 48, 58, 61,
71,75
Bishops, Consecration of, by Non-
jurors (in 1693-4),
29-31, 84-91
(in 1713), 118 et seq.
(in 1715-6), 137 et seg_.
(in 1720-1), 311
(later), 312-25
Nonjuring, in Scotland, 420
at large in Scotland, 436 et
seq., 445
Blaekbourne, John, 283, 306, 308,
314-6
Bonwicke, Ambrose, the elder, 255-6,
262
Bonwicke, Ambrose, the younger,
197, 219, 256-8
Life of, 410
Boothe, Charles, 373
Bowdler family, 325, 327
Bowdler, John, 18
Bowdler, Thomas, 254
Bowyer, William, the elder, 221,
261-2, 266, 315, 406
Bowyer, William, the younger, 257,
262-3, 334
Brett family, 325
Brett, Thomas, the elder, 20, 138-
147, 151, 211, 288, 297,
353, 356, 395, 401
on the Usages, 302-5
and the Eastern Church,
453-4
Brett, Thomas, the younger, 307,
317
Brokesby, Francis, 206-7, 232, 382
'Life of Dodwell,' by, 237-8,
410
' History of Government of
Primitive Church,' by, 409
Browne, P. J., 363-4
Browne, Thomas, 198
Bull, George, 245
'Life of,' by Nelson, 410
K K
498
THE NONJUEOES
Burnet, Gilbert, 5, 16, 34, 66, 106 et
seq., 160-1, 195, 347, 422
Byrom, John, 332, 342-4, 359, 363-4
'Remains,' 410
CAMBRIDGE Nonjurors, 186 et seq.
Campbell, Archibald, 118-9, 312,
351, 421, 440-1, 445-6
' Middle State,' 402-4
Carte, Samuel, 127, 283
Carte, Thomas, 127, 335
'History of England,' by,
408-9
Cartwright, Thomas, 24
Cartwright, William, 290, 364 et seq.
' Case in View,' Dodwell's, 46, 120,
150-1, 235
' Case in View, now in Fact,' Dod-
well's, 120, 149, 150, 235
' Case of Allegiance,' Sherlock's, 5,
115
' Case of Reason,' &c., Law's, 398
' Case of Resistance,' Sherlock's, 5
Case of Schism in Church of Eng-
land Fairly Stated,' L. Howell's,
214-5
'Case of the Regale and Pontificate,'
Leslie's, 91
'Cautionary Discourse of Schism,'
Dodwell's, 232
Cave, William, 219, 382, 401
' Character of a Jacobite,' 13, 14
Charity Schools, 265-6
Cherry, Francis, 157, 161, 204, 231,
238-240, 241 et seq
Chevalier, the old, 11, 12, 121, 161-2,
307-8, 338, 341, 408, 446
Chevalier, the young, 11, 325, 338
Cholmondeley, Francis, 271
Chrism in Confirmation, 354, 357,
366
Gibber, Colley, 12-13, 19 et seq., 282
Clandestine Consecrations, 90
Clarendon, Henry, second Earl of,
36, 85, 157, 221, 271-2, 282
' Diary ' of, 49, 160, 221, 272
' Clarendon's History of the Rebel-
lion,' 11
Clayton, John, 290, 333, 343
Cock, John, 220
Cole, William, 220-1
Collier, Jeremy, 9, 19, 21, 119, 121-9,
217, 268, 283, 291 et seq.
Autobiography of, 410
'Essays on Moral Subjects,'
414-5
Collier, Jeremy, ' Short View of the
English Stage,' 415-6
on the Usages, 295-6, 304-5
and the Eastern Church,
453-4
' Ecclesiastical History of
Great Britain,' 407-8
' Desertion Discussed, The,'
123
' Collier's (Mr.) Desertion Discussed,'
293, 315
Communion office of 1718, 293-5
301
Preface, 302
Tracts for and against, 303
' Companion to the Festivals and
Fasts' (Nelson), 154, 206, 253,
382-3
' Compleat Collection of Devotions '
(Deacon), 357-9
i ' Compounders ' and ' Non-Com-
pounders,' 216
j Compton, Henry, 57, 73, 422-3, 435
' Conference between Junius and
Gerontius ' (Gandy), 149-51
I ' Constitution of the Catholic
Church ' (Hickes), 91, 151, 402
Controversial Works of Nonjurors,
392-400
Leslie, 392-4
Hickes, 394-5
Brett, 395-6
Spinckes, 396
Dodwell and Howell, 397
Law, 397-400
Convention Parliament, 36
Convocation of Oxford University, 4
Cosin, John, 32, 163
Cotton, Sir John, 176
Country Gentlemen, 240, 270
Country Services for Nonjurors,
288-290
Crewe, Nathaniel, 164, 168, 189-190
Crosthwaite, Thomas, 178-9
DEACON, THOMAS, 288, 290, 305, 307,
332, 333, 343, 354-63, 365,
373
Declaration of Indulgence, James's,
72, 76, 94, 189-90
' Defence of our Constitution in
Church and State ' (N. Marshall),
110, 284
'Deprived Fathers, The,' 23-83,
107, 276, 309
' Desertion Discussed, The ' (Collier),
123
INDEX
499
Digby, Lord, 241
Divine Right, The Doctrine of, 3-6
1 Doctrine of Church of Borne con-
cerning Purgatory ' (Deacon), 355-6
' Doctrine of the Cross, The,' 6 n., 65
Dodwell, Henry, 9, 63, 140, 149-51,
157, 160, 206, 219, 229-38, 251,
391, 397. (Works under their
titles.)
Domestic Chaplains, 123, 131, 133,
170, 312
Doughty, Henry, 313-4
Downes, Theophilus, 183, 202
Drake, Samuel, 337
EARBERY, MATTHIAS, 211-3, 283, 306
Eastern Church, Correspondence
with, 313, 451-65
Brett's account of, 453-4
Edmund Hall Nonjurors, St., 181
EtKuv ftaffiXini), Wagstaffe on, 114
Ellis, James, 264-5
Ely House Chapel, 49, 160, 172,
282
Episcopal College (Scotland), 445-6
Erastianism in England, 7, 247
in Scotland, 446
Essentialists (Usagers), 300, 301,
303, 332, 337
Eucharist, Sacrificial character of
the, 292, 322, 383
Evelyn, John, 276
FALCONER, JOHN, 439-40, 444
Fenton, Elijah, 13, 186, 258-9
Fenwick Plot, The, 54, 59
Filmer, Sir R., 4, 151
Fitzwilliam, John, 55, 63, 169-72
Forbes, Robert, 323-5, 338, 365
Frampton, Robert, 24, 29, 69-74,
233, 281
Life of, 69 et seq.
Friend, Sir John, 217
' Full, true, and comprehensive view
of Christianity ' (Deacon), 361,368,
GADDEBAR, JAMES, 118-9, 441-3,
445-6
Gandy, Henry, 20, 119, 134, 135,
147-52, 283, 306
Garnett, Thomas, 372-3
George I., 3, 11, 162, 429-31
George II., 336, 343
George III., 368, 450
Gibson, Edmund, 109
Giffard, William, 58, 88
Gloucester, Death of Duke of, 10
Gordon, Robert, 263, 284, 323-8,
338, 370
Gower, Humphry, 188-9
' Grand and Important Question ' (on
Church Communion), 284-6
Granville, Denis, 5, 163-9, 312
Grascome, Samuel, 207-11, 283
Greek Church, The, 173
Griffin, John, 312-3, 454
HALL, HENRY, 316
Harbin, George, 202, 203-5, 273
Harte, Walter, 184-6
Hawes, Samuel, 119, 133-7, 219, 274,
281, 455
Headley in Surrey, 255 et seq.
Hearne, Thomas, 90, 111, 114, 147,
148, 150, 177-8, 194, 200,
206, 219, 232, 240, 409, and
passim
4 Autobiography ' and ' Collec-
tions,' 410, and passim
'Itinerary of John Leland,'
&c., 416
Hereditary Right, 3 et scq.
' Hereditary Right of Crown of
England Asserted,' 200-3, 248
Hickes, George, 9, 20, 29, 56, 72, 77,
81, 84 et seq., 91-312,
118-9, 127-9, 130, 137,
140, 143, 153-4, 219, 220,
247, 248, 283, 290-1, 353.
390, 394-5, 400, 401
' Thesaurus,' &c., 414
4 Anglo-Saxon and Moeso-
Gothic Grammar,' 414.
(Other works under their
titles.)
Hickes, John, 92, 97-9
Higden, William, 148, 200
Historical and Biographical Works
of Nonjurors, 400-1
' History of the Clemency of our
English Monarchs ' (Earbery),
312-3
Holdsworth, Edward, 341, 342, 416
Hooper, George, 45, 62, 63, 65, 66
Hope, John, 314
Horsley, Samuel, 369
Hough, John, 175, 181
Howell, Laurence, 21, 213-5, 397,
406
Hymns, Ken's, 379
500
THE NONJUEORS
' IMMOBAL Prayers, The,' 209, 237,
247
Indemnity Act of 1718, 431
Independence of Church in Spirituals,
6-7, 141, 151
Invocation, Prayer of, 295, 322
Ipswich, Suffragan Bishop of, 29, 91
Irregular Offshoots of Nonjurors,
328-9
The first, 346-51
The second, 351-75
' JACOBITE Conventicle, A,' 286-7
' Jacobite Liturgy, The,' 41, 49
Jacobite Songs and Ballads, 413
Jacobites, The, 10, 14, 41, 59, 64, 66,
158, 180-2, 222, 246, 359
Jacomb, Thomas, 265
James II., 2, 10, 47-8, 51, 54, 61,
86-7, 90, 94, 166-7, 174-5, 254-5
Jebb, Sir Eichard, 268
Jebb, Samuel, 268, 455
Jenkin, Robert, 80, 81, 192-3, 273
Jennens, Charles, 341-2
Johnson, John, of Cranbrook, 145-6,
383, 401
' Life of,' by Brett, 410-1
Johnson, Samuel, 12 et seq., 122,
156, 182, 258, 441
' Jure Divino ' (Gandy), 151
KEN, THOMAS, 24, 28, 29, 40 et seq.,
44-5, 46, 55, 60-9, 82, 98, 155,
170, 176-7, 204, 233, 239, 273-4,
378-80. (Works under their titles.)
Kennett, White, 5, 43, 95-7, 109,
191, 242, 347
Kenyon, Eoger, 266-7
Kettlewell, John, 14, 58, 65, 131,
153-6, 170, 209, 234-5, 247, 263,
380-1. (Works under their titles.)
Kidder, Eichard, 204
King, William, 182
LAKE, JOHN, 14, 25, 41, 78-82
Lambeth Chapel, 280-2
Laud, William, 32
Laurence, Eoger, 283, 351-4
Law, William, 281, 330-3, 334, 335,
342, 385-90, 397, 400, 465-6.
(Works under their titles.)
Lawyers, Nonjuring, 268-70
4 Lay Baptism Invalid ' (E. Lau-
rence), 352
' Layman's Apology, A' (Podmore),
374-5
Lee, Francis, 250-4, 266, 283, 391
'Life of Kettlewell,' 69, 410
and passim
Lee, Thomas, 265
Lee, William, 283
Leslie, Charles, 156-62, 221, 239,
261, 266, 281, 297-300, 307, 392-4.
(Works under their titles.)
'Letter out of Suffolk' (Wagstaffe),
117
Lindsay, John, 222, 333-5
Liturgical Studies of Nonjurors,
142-3, 144, 357
Liturgies used by the Primitive
Church, A Collection of (Brett),
402
Lloyd, William (of Norwich), 24, 29,
38-46, 66, 81, 88, 263
Lloyd, William (of St. Asaph), 25,
48, 73, 231, 282, 422
London as a Nonjuring Centre,
282-8
Lowndes, Ealph, 270-1
' Lyon in Mourning, The,' 323
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, Oxford, 71,
173-5
Manchester and Jacobitism, 280,
343-4, 360-2
1 Manual for Winchester Scholars '
(Ken), 378-9
Marshall, Nathanael, 110-1, 284
Mary II., 3
Mary of Modena, 162, 167
Mawman, Timothy, 306, 323
' Measures of Christian Obedience '
(Kettlewell), 154
' Middle State ' (Campbell), 402-4
Milbourne, Luke, 39
Mill, John, 181
Millington, James, 270, 373, 374
Mixed Chalice, The, 292, 297, 306,
337, 444
Moor, Jonathan, 265
Morley, George, 170
NELSON, EGBERT, 90, 110, 130, 131,
154, 202-3, 235, 239, 244-50, 252,
261,274,276,381-4. (Works under
their titles.)
Newmarsh, Timothy, 350-1
Nicolson, William, 109, 282, 435-6
1 No Eeason for Eestoringthe Prayers,
&c.' (Spinckes)
INDEX
501
Nobleman, Nonjuring, 271 ct seq.
Non-Abjurors, 3
Non-Usagers, 306
OATH of Allegiance, 2, 3, 26-7, 34,
77, 80, 81, and passim
Abjuration, 2, 3, and passim
Oblatory Prayer (Holy Communion),
292, 295
Oratories, Nonjurors', 281-4, 356,
366
Orme, Robert, 221-2
' Orthodox British Church,' 370, 374
' Overall's Convocation Book,' 36,
115, 117
Oxford Movement, The, 18
Oxford, on Non-resistance, 4
Attractions of, to Nonjurors,
179-80, 231
Authorities favourable to Non-
jurors, 180-3
Stronghold of Jaoobitism,
180-3, 186
PAMAN, J. H., 267
Panting, Matthew, 182
Parker, Samuel, the elder, 174,
260
Parker, Samuel, the younger, 259-
60
Parkyns, Sir William, 124-6, 217
Passive Obedience, 3, 6, 81, and
passim
' Passive Obedience, History of '
(Collier), 208
Patrick, Simon, 5
Patristic Studies, 400 et seq.
'Pattern for Young Students' (A.
Bonwicke), 257, 263
Penitent, Forms of Admission of a,
287-8, 357
Pepys, Samuel, 130, 275-6
* Persuasive to Boyalists ' (Collier),
281
Physicians, Nonjuring, 113, 218,
250, 266-8, 356, 362, 363
Pinchbeck, Martin, 215-6
Podmore, Thomas, 373-5
Poetical Works of Nonjurors, 411-3
Ken's, 411-2
Fenton's, 412
Byrom's, 412-3
Harte's, 413
' Practical Treatise on Christian
Perfection' (Law), 385-6
Practical and Devotional Works,
378-91
Ken's, 378-80
Kettlewell's, 380-1
Nelson's, 381-4
Spinckes', 384-5
Law's, 385-90
Seller's, 390
edited by Nonjurors, 390-1
Prayer-Book of 1549, 291-2, 293,
296
of 1718 (Nonjurors'), 293-5,
301
of 1734 (Deacon's), 257-9,
359
of 1761 (Cartwright's), 372
Prayer for the Faithful Departed,
292
for the Descent of the Spirit
upon the Elements, 292
' Preservative against the Nonjurors '
(Hoadly), 110
Preston Plot, The, 50, 52, 53
Price, Kenrick, 363-5, 370
1 Printers, Nonjuring, 261-3
i Protestantism of Nonjurors, 93-4,
129, 145 and passim
Pryme, Abraham de la, 289
! Public Worship, 8, 280-1, 331
Purgatory, 355-6
BATTRAY, THOMAS, 443, 447
Bawlinson, Bichard, 194, 269, 283,
318-20
Thomas, 318, 344-5
1 Seasons for Bestoring some
Prayers,' &c. (Collier), 295-6
Bebellion of 1715, 11, 19, 336, 430-1
of 1745, 360, 373, 448-9
' Becords of the New Consecrations,'
84-91
'Beflections on Learning' (Baker),
416
' Begale and Pontificate ' (Leslie),
126, 157
Begeney Scheme, 27, 34
Belief of the Distressed Clergy,
Scheme for, 131, 155, 263-4
Bevolution, The English, 10, 26, and
passim
Borne, Church of, 12, 145, 451, and
passim
Boper, Francis, 197
Bose, Alexander, 420-6, 432-7
Boss, Arthur, 419, 433
Boyal Supremacy, The, 89 and passim
502
THE NONJUEOES
Russell, Lord William, 5, 154, 171
Lady Eachel, 171, 172
Russia, Holy Governing Synod of,
464
SAGE, JOHN, 437-9
St. John's College, Cambridge,
Socii ejecti, 187 et seq.
Baker's ' History of,' 416, and
passim
Salmon, Nathanael, 218
Sancroft, William, 24,29, 31-8, 40-1,
46, 62-3, 88, 113, 117, 164, 223,
267, 280, 282, 421
Sanderson, Robert, 4
Schism, Nonjurors on, 7-8
Schoolmasters, Nonjuring, 255-6,
258-9, 264-6
' Sclater's Original Draught of the
Primitive Church,' 404-6
Scotch Nonjurors, 118-9, 418-50
Bishops, 312, 313-4, 326,
420-5, 434, 435, 445-8
Service-Book of 1637, 444
Scott, John, 28, 108
Seabury, Samuel, 369-71
Seller, Abednego, 219-20, 390
' Serious Call, A ' (Law), 386-9
Services in Nonjuring Oratories in
London, 286-8, 324-5
outside London, 288-90, 340
Sharp, John, 16-7, 20, 248, 264, 435
Sheridan, William, 60
Sherlock, Thomas, 17, 448-9
Sherlock, William, 5, 17, 37, 60, 115,
207, 233
Shottesbrooke (in Berkshire), 157,
161, 206, 229 et seq.
' Sick Man Visited, The ' (Spinckes),
384
Skinner, John, 424-5, 442
Smith, George, 320-3, 324, 409,
447-8
Smith, Thomas, 45, 172-8, 410
Snatt, William, 124, 216-8, 306
Soame, Moses, 288-9
Soldiers, Nonjuring, 263-4
Somers, Lord, 96
Sophia, The Electress, 10
South, Robert, 28
Speed, George, 265
Spinckes, Nathanael, 9, 119, 129-33,
276, 307, 384-5, 391, 396
on the Usages, 296, 303
and the Eastern Church,
453-4
1 State Prayer Days,' 237
Stillingfleet, Edward, 5, 207
Stuarts, The, 9-10, 46, 179, 418, and
passim
Suffragan Bishops (under Henry
VIII.'s Act), 29, 89, 90-1, 191-2,
316
* Synopsis Canonum ' (L. Howell),
406
TALBOT, JOHN, 348-50
Talbot, William, 94, 95
Taylor, Ralph, 203, 311-2, 346
Tenison, Thomas, 73, 139, 141
1 TerraB Filius ' (N. Amherst), 180
' Thesaurus,' &c. (Hickes), 109, 130
Thetford, Suffragan Bishop of, 29,
91, 119
Thomas, William, 24, 25, 74-8
'Three Letters to the Bishop of
Bangor ' (Law), 397-8
Tillotson, John, 5, 28, 106 et seq.
233, 247
Toleration Act (Scotland), of 1712,
428-9, 430
'Tradition Necessary,' &c. (Brett),
297
Trelawney, Sir-J., 25
Trumbull, Charles, 223
Turner, Francis, 24, 29, 34, 46-56,
62, 80, 81, 113, 171, 177, 181, 203,
282
Turner, Thomas, 54, 60, 62, 63, 181,
242
' UNITY of the Christian Priesthood '
(Bisbie), 225, 234
' Unreasonableness of a New Sepa-
ration ' (Stillingfleet), 198, 208
Usages Controversy, The, 290-308
The Four Points, 291
Rise of, 292-5
Tracts on, 295-301
Usagers victors in, 306-8
Efforts to end, 321-2
in Scotland, 440, 443-5
' VIEW of the English Constitution '
(Higden), 148, 200
'View of the Pontificate,' &c. (L.
Howell), 397
1 Vindication of the Deprived Bishops '
(Dodwell), 150, 234
WAGSTAFFE, THOMAS, the elder, 29,
112-8, 206-7
INDEX
503
Wagstaffe, Thomas, the younger,
305, 307, 325, 336-9
Wake, William, 191, 435, 464-5
Warburton, William, 195
Warming-pan Story, 10
Waterland, Daniel, 322, 401
Watson, John, 226
Welton, Eichard, 283, 287, 346-9
Weymouth, Viscount, 202, 204,
272-4
Wharton, Henry, 32, 108, 165
Wheatley, Charles, 353
W T heler, Sir George, 109
Whiston, William, 195, 258-9
William III., 2, 3, 10, 27, 239, 422-4
Winchilsea, Heneage, second Earl
of, 199
Winchilsea, Heneage, fourth Earl
of, 119, 133, 135, 274-5
Wood, Anthony, 50, 147, 169
Wordsworth, Christopher, 91
Wynne, Hugh, 268-9
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