A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



visitation with the object of testing the working of the new Act of Uniformity 

 and gauging the obedience of the clergy to the Injunctions. All these 

 visitations were held by commission, and after the issue of a prohibition 

 restraining the suffragan bishops from holding any visitations of their own. 

 Peterborough came late upon the list : it was not until 19 December, 1560, 

 that a commission was issued to Thomas Yale, vicar-general of Canterbury, 

 and Edward Leeds, to hold a visitation of this diocese.' 



The Marian bishops were all imprisoned for not taking the oath of 

 supremacy, save Goldwell of St. Asaph, who fled to the Continent, and 

 David Pole of Peterborough, whose age and mildness, though he was quite 

 as firm in his convictions as his brethren, secured him more lenient treat- 

 ment.^ He was deprived in November, 1559,^ and the temporalities of the 

 bishopric were seized. In an interesting list of about the year 1561 of 

 ' Recusants which are abroad and bound to certain places,' * mention is made 

 of ' Doctor Poole, late bishop of Peterborough, to remain in the city of 

 London and suburbs, or within three miles' compass about the same,' his 

 character being thus given in the margin : 'A man known and reported to 

 live quietly, and therefore hitherto tolerated.' Subsequently Bishop Pole 

 was removed to other quarters, and in November, 1564, was at the house of 

 Bryan Fowler, at the manor on Sowe in Staffordshire, for Dr. Bentham, bishop 

 of Coventry, complained ^ that his presence there ' causeth many people to 

 think worse of the regiment and religion than else they would do, because 

 divers lewd priests have resorted thither. His removal would do much good 

 to the country.' This ' removal ' seems to have taken place, and he died in 

 May or June, 1568.^ John Boxall, dean of Peterborough, for refusing the 

 oath of supremacy, was imprisoned in the Tower for three years, and after- 

 wards handed over to the custody of Archbishop Parker, whom Cecil scolded 

 (in 1567) for allowing him too much liberty.'' 



On the deprivation of Bishop Pole, the see of Peterborough, after some 

 delay, was filled by the consecration of Edmund Scambler on 1 6 February, 

 1560— I.'' In the late reign as minister to a secret Protestant congregation 

 in London, he had been in great danger, but afterwards, on the accession of 

 Elizabeth, became chaplain to Archbishop Parker.' In his first episcopal 

 visitation he prescribed to the chapter of Peterborough an interesting body 



' Cant. Archiep. Reg. Parker (Lambeth), fol. ^iSJ. Immediately following this commission, in Parker's 

 register, is an interesting instance of submission on the part of one of the Northamptonshire clergy to 

 Dr. Yale, as commissary of the see. George Butman, rector of Barnwell, who had apparently refused his 

 subscription to Elizabeth in the previous year, sought the benefit of absolution. This was granted him, and 

 having been restored to his benefice he was asked what benefices he now held. In answer he confessed that, 

 in addition to the church at Barnwell, he also held the church of Stevlngton in Lincoln diocese, whereupon 

 Dr. Yale enjoined upon the rector that he should reside one year in the one parish and one in the other, 'sub 

 pena juris.' 



' Gunton, Hist, of Peterburgh, 70. ' Stubbs, Reg. Smi: Angl. 82. 



* S.P. Dom. Eliz. Addenda, xi, 4;. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Salisbury Papers at Hatfield, pt. i (1883), 309. 

 ' The place of his death is not certainly known. Sanders, writing only three years after his death, states 



in his Di Fisiii/i Monorchia that Bishop Pole died in prison. It is possible that this was the Fleet, as the bishop 

 by his last will, dated 17 May, 1568, appointed as his chief and trusted executor Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, who 

 was then and had been for some time before a prisoner there. The statement, often repeated, that the bishop 

 died at one of his farms is based on no contemporary authority. The chief provisions of his will have been 

 printed by Phillips, Extinction of the j^mient Hierarchy (1905), 284. 



' Spanish Cal. i Nov. 1 567. In addition to being dean of Peterborough, John Boxall was dean of 

 Windsor and archdeacon of Ely, as well as prebendary of Salisbury, Bath and Wells, and London. He was 

 one of Queen Mary's Privy Council. 



* Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. 83. " Diet. Nat. Biog. L, 396. 



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