ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



sake throughout all the dioceses of England and Wales in the first thirteen 

 months of Mary's reign is generally accepted as about one in five, whereas 

 in Peterborough diocese the proportion was one in ten. The exact number 

 for Northamptonshire was twenty-eight. 



The religious persecution of this reign had only one victim in North- 

 amptonshire, so far as the death penalty was concerned. It has been stated 

 that this immunity was chiefly due to the character of Bishop David Pole, 

 who was consecrated on 15 August, 1557,' on the death of Bishop Chambers,* 

 and who is described as a learned, pious, and meek man, and as having given 

 no encouragement to severity within his jurisdiction. John Kurde, a shoe- 

 maker of Syresham, after a year's imprisonment, was brought before Dr. Bensley, 

 archdeacon of Northampton, in the church of All Saints, Northampton, in 

 August, 1557, on a charge of denying transubstantiation, and holding other 

 heretical views. He was condemned to death, handed over to the secular 

 power, and burnt outside the north gate on 20 September, John Rote, vicar 

 of St. Giles's (ex-monk of St. Andrew's priory),' in vain exhorting him to 

 recant. 



The question of the pensions of the dispossessed monks and of the 

 ejected chantry and collegiate priests received special attention in the reign 

 of Philip and Mary. A revised list was drawn up for each county, on 

 which various fresh names appear, but the amount granted in the old cases 

 (many of the ejected persons had died in the interval) seems never to have 

 exceeded the sum originally promised. The Northamptonshire list includes 

 twenty-five monks, twelve religious canons, six nuns, and thirty-six chantry, 

 collegiate, or stipendiary priests. The total expenditure was £1^^ 4-'"- lo^-* 



With the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 came another movement away 

 from Rome ; and her advisers, warned by her sister's reign, went more quietly 

 and slowly to work than the promoters of the late movement in the opposite 

 direction. The process of deprivation for conscience sake was extended over 

 a considerable period. The number of those thus deprived of their benefices 

 in the county of Northampton was sixteen. In 1559 were ejected Bishop Pole, 

 Dean Boxall, and the incumbents of Bugbrooke, Harrowden, and Wadenhoe ; 

 in 1560, the incumbents of Cottingham, Kettering, and Yelvertoft; in 1561, 

 the rector of Dingley; in 1562, the incumbents of Desborough and Lodding- 

 ton. The incumbents of Alderton, Badby, Mears Ashby, Newnham, and 

 Southwick were also ejected, but the precise dates of their deprivation cannot 

 be ascertained.^ 



Special visitations of all the dioceses were made in 1559 to secure the 

 subscription of the clergy to the Elizabethan Settlement. The visitors were 

 almost exclusively of the laity, those for the county of Northampton being 

 headed by William Parr, marquis of Northampton, as lord-lieutenant. The 

 Peterborough subscriptions are, unfortunately, not extant. Archbishop Parker, 

 who was consecrated on 17 December, 1559, instituted a metropolitical 



' Stubhs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. 82. ' Gunton, Hist, of Pelerburgh, 69, 70. 



' L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii, pt. i, 405. 



* This includes the yearly payments to a large number of annuitants of the religious houses, and not 

 merely the payments made to the pensioners proper. The ex-abbot of St. James's, Northampton, was then 

 receiving the yearly sum of ^^i I 6s. S^/., and the ex-prioress of St. Michael's nunner}-, Stamford, j^8. The 

 Premonstratensian canons of Sulby were each receiving ^^6, while the five surviving nuns of Delapre were only 

 in receipt of pittances varjing from £2 13/. ^J. to 20s. (Add. MS. 8,102). 



' Gee, The Elizabethan Clergy, l 5 5 8-64 passim. 



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