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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\
