52 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
induction to the vicarage, but it is clear that the school was not 
on a Satisfactory footing. A fresh body of governors was there- 
fore appointed in 1613 by Mr. Style, under the charter, of whom . 
Abraham Colfe was one. The years went by and no progress _ 
could be made, presumably for want of funds, and Colfe then 
decided to refound the school and endow it himself. For this 
purpose he saved all the money he could devote to the purpose, 
buying land in various parts of the parish—mostly at Lower 
Sydenham and Catford. In 1634 he approached the Leathersellers’ 
Company, who already owned some land in the parish at Perry 
Hill, and they agreed to become his trustees. 
The political and religious horizon had meanwhile become 
dark with the clouds of the coming storm, and it is necessary in 
order to understand the position of affairs to refer briefly to the 
events which were happening in London and the country generally. 
In 1633 Laud was advanced to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, 
and endeavoured, unfortunately not always in the most tactful 
manner, to remedy the state of indiscipline into which the English 
Church had fallen. The Puritan movement had been slowly rising 
throughout the reign of James I, the Archbishop’s proceedings 
were met by the most violent opposition, and on the assembling of 
the Long Parliament in 1640 he was impeached of high treason 
and committed to the Tower. 
One of his orders, which gave offence to the Puritans, was a 
direction that the communion tables were to be placed at the 
upper end of the chancels and railed in to prevent irreverence. The 
order was generally obeyed, but in 1641 the Commons ordered the 
removal of the rails. 
Amongst the Sloan MSS. in the British Museum is a diary 
kept by one Nehemiah Wallington, who lived in the parish of 
St. Leonard, Eastcheap, of which Mr. Colfe was also Vicar, and 
in this is the following note :— 
‘‘Of the exploits that I heere very credably the solgars did in 
Kent. At Lusume the gth January, 1641, being Satterday at night 
when they were ringing y® belles, the Railes that were about the 
Communion Table ware pulled up, and it is not knowen who did 
it, nor what became of them, as it is thought they were cast into 
the river and so carfied quite away.” 
The quarrel between Charles I and Parliament had meanwhile 
developed into the Civil War which led by slow steps to the King’s 
execution in 1649. No engagement took place near Lewisham, 
but the mustering of troops on Blackheath from time to time must 
have helped to bring events home to our predecessors, whilst the 
frequent orders of the House of Commons in matters pertaining to 
religion left few places untouched. Amongst these was a scheme 
in 1642 for appointing preaching lecturers in various parishes, the 
parochial clergy being required to lend their puJpits. In many 
places the appointments were no doubt justified by the want of 
zeal on the part of the incumbents, but this can hardly have been 
