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tion of parliaments, finds himself just where King Charles was 
when the revolution began—without a Parliament, and trying to 
govern alone. 
At Penrith the old vicar, John Hastie, had been ejected, and 
Roger Baldwin, a Presbyterian, was reigning in his stead. This 
we know from other sources ; but the old book never once mentions 
his name. There is no historical record of the date of John 
Hastie’s ejection and Roger Baldwin’s appointment by the revo- 
lutionary leaders; but his advent was evidently quite recent, as 
the entries in the book bear the aspect of a new broom, just 
beginning to sweep very clean. The book itself was only then 
started, for in the list of first payments there is this item: ‘ For 
this paper book with the ordinances bound therein, 5s. 8d.” 
The churchwardens’ names for the year are old Penrith names 
(three of them at least): Peter Mawson the younger, Christopher 
Rumney, William Cookson, and Thomas Steaphenson—the last 
not quite clear. The writing is of an obsolete character, and the 
spelling capricious and abbreviated, making the deciphering of the 
entries extremely difficult except to an expert. 
John Hastie when ejected must have been a very old man, for 
he came to the living in 1600, three years before the death of 
Queen Elizabeth. He must have come to an almost depopulated 
parish ; for only two years had gone by since the fearful visitation 
of the plague had subsided, when it is recorded, 2,260 persons in 
Penrith and its neighbourhood had perished; and hardly had he 
got settled in his parish, when the town and neighbourhood was 
harrassed by their old Border enemies, and such watching had to 
be kept up day and night as had not been experienced for a century 
before. History has often shown how soon nations and communi- 
ties forget their distresses—and, phoenix-like, Penrith was well used 
to rising out of its ashes. 
John Hastie’s ministry at Penrith extended over an eventful 
period of English history. He saw the closing years of Queen 
Elizabeth’s reign, the reign of James I., Charles I. reign and 
miserable death, and the period of the Puritan revolution. All 
local historians represent John Hastie as living at the Restoration, 
