ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



vation of unity hereafter.' They were also desired to send for Peter 

 Wentworth, to whose house at Lillingstone, inhabitants at Northampton were 

 still resorting, and to deal with this difficulty ' so as their Lordships be not 

 hereafter any more troubled therewith.' ^ IBut the case of Jennings, at any 

 rate, was not settled yet, if, that is, he was the ' preacher named Jenens' 

 mentioned in the Acts of the council under 6 September, i 580, where a letter 

 is recorded as sent to the bishop of London, ' requiring ' the latter to remove 

 'Jenens ' from Northampton, where, according to report, he had been ' a very 

 unquiet and indiscreet person in his behaviour among the inhabitants,' and 

 to send him to a certain benefice in Devonshire.^ 



As early as 1572 Thomas Cartwright, previously Professor of Divinity at 

 Cambridge, published a treatise strongly attacking episcopal government, and 

 advocating Calvin's Presbyterian system, and in 1574—5 he issued an English 

 translation of Walter Travers' celebrated book on ecclesiastical discipline. 

 Cartwright endeavoured to show how Presbyterianism could be grafted on to 

 the Church of England. To put it briefly, he suggested the retention of 

 bishops, who, however, would be left with little more than a semblance of 

 power, whilst all real authority was to be vested in ' classes,' or boards of 

 Puritan clergy and elders. Fuller, an almost contemporary writer, and a 

 native of Aldwinkle, speaking of these ' classes,' says he found them ' more 

 formally settled in Northamptonshire than anywhere else in England.'^ 



In 1587, Northamptonshire, in accordance with the scheme of Cart- 

 wright and Travers, was divided into three ' classes,' those of Northampton, 

 Daventry, and Kettering. Their meetings were each of them commonly 

 attended by some six or seven Puritan incumbents. The Northampton 

 ' classis ' was frequently held at the Bull Inn ; and one, Edmund Snape, acting 

 as curate of St. Peter's, generally presided. There was also an assembly at 

 Northampton, consisting of six members, two from each 'classis,' Daventry 

 being usually represented by two members named Barbor and King, and 

 Kettering by two members named Stone and Williamson. They went so far 

 as to order a survey to be taken of every benefice in the shire, having a 

 special column for the ' life, paines and qualities ' of the incumbent. A 

 Puritan incumbent was appointed to draw up this account of his brethren for 

 each deanery, Mr. Littleton, at one time curate of West Haddon, being 

 chosen for the Haddon deanery.' All the members of the Northamptonshire 

 ' classes ' subscribed as follows : — ' We doe promise to submit ourselves unto 

 such orders and decrees as shall be set downe by our classis, and we doe pro- 

 mise to submit ourselves to be censured by our brethren of this classis in all 

 matters concerning doctrines and discipline.' As an instance of the discipline, 

 it may be stated that Nicholas Edwards, rector of Courteenhall, was severely 

 rebuked by the Northampton ' classis ' for using the sign of the cross in 

 Baptism,^ 



Whether Bishop Scambler would have tolerated these more advanced 

 developments of Puritanism in his diocese is perhaps doubtful, but the way 

 had been largely prepared for them by the favour he had shown to the move- 



' Jets of P. C. (New Ser.), xi, 218-19. ' l\nd. xii, 194. ' Fuller, Church Hist. bk. ix, section 7. 



* The style of comment in which they indulged can be gathered from the sample of the Cornwall survey 

 given by Neal, Hist, of the Puritans. 



^ BzncToh, Dangerous Positions and Proceedings (1593), 75-8. Lansd. MS. ccxxxviii, 327. Ix:, 3, 24; 

 Strype, li'kitgift, iii, 268-85. 



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