1887.] on UnpuhlisJied Records of London. 29 



first by Dr. Lightfoot (a Presbyterian), the celebrated Eabbiuical 

 scholar, afterwards by Mr. Cawton, another Presbyterian, who was 

 imprisoned for praying for King Charles II. after the execution of 

 his father, and finally had to leave the country in consequence of his 

 association with Mr. Love, the rector of St. Ann and St. Agnes, who 

 was executed on Tower Hill for negotiating with the Scotch for 

 bringing King Charles II. to England. During the incumbency of 

 Dr. Lightfoot and Mr. Cawton, the Presbyterian Church government 

 was in full force in the parish, and the nature of it, and the dissatisfac- 

 tion which it caused to the inhabitants, is clear from the parish books. 

 After Mr. Cawton's flight to Holland, the parishioners appointed 

 another Presbyterian named Mr. Hall, who continued until the death of 

 Dr. Grant. In 1653, the living then being vacant, and in the gift of the 

 Commissioners of the Great Seal, they appointed one Sidrach Simpson, 

 a well-known Indej)endent. He died about eighteen months after his 

 appointment, having in the meantime been suspended and imi)risoned 

 by the Protector Oliver, in consequence of his having preached 

 against his personal government. On Mr. Sidrach Simpson's death, 

 the Protector aj)pointed — without consulting the Commissioners of 

 the Great Seal— by a writing under his own hand, to the living one of 

 his chaplains, Mr. Philip Nye, who associated with him another 

 Independent minister named Mr. John Loder. The minutes from 

 this time to the months immediately preceding the Eestoration, give 

 an interesting account of the quarrels between Mr. Nye and Mr. 

 Loder and the parishioners, on the ground that they refused to 

 administer the sacrament and to christen children, except the 

 parishioners would be joined in communion with their Church, the 

 parishioners also refusing to pay tithes, on the ground that their church 

 was taken up and their pews filled with strange congregations. Mr. 

 Loder, on behalf of Mr. Nye, offered the parishioners to allow them 

 to choose a minister to officiate in the afternoons of the Lord's Day 

 in a manner which was adopted in the adjoining parish of St. 

 Stephen's, Coleman Street, where Mr. John Godwin, the Independent, 

 shared the church with Mr. John Taylor, the Presbyterian vicar, but 

 this the parishioners of St. Bartholomew's refused. 



In January 1659 the Lord General Monk came to London, and on 

 his demand the secluded members were reinstated in the resuscitated 

 Long Parliament, then sitting, and fresh Commissioners of the Great 

 Seal were appointed. 



The parishioners took the opportunity to petition the Com- 

 missioners to declare the living vacant on the ground that the Pro- 

 tector Oliver had improperly presented to the living which was in 

 their gift. The books show how Mr. Loder had obtained from the 

 Lord General Monk a letter to the Commissioners in his favour, 

 which letter the Lord General at a subsequent request of the 

 parishioners revoked, and how the Commissioners refused to appoint 

 any of the Independent faction and ultimately appointed Dr. Brideoak, 

 one of the defenders of Lathom House and a friend of the Speaker 



