A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



final settlement of 1662. There is no proof of this county taking any share 

 in this theological movement ; and nowhere, perhaps, did there still remain 

 within the Church a greater Puritan leaven than in Northamptonshire. The 

 successors of Bishop Scambler (Rowland and Dove) were men of little mark ; 

 and though Bishop Andrewes from time to time visited the county, his 

 sojourns were too brief to make any special impression, as they appear to have 

 been confined to the preaching of state sermons before James and his court at 

 Holdenby. 



When Charles I, in 1626, committed the first great blunder of his reign 

 by endeavouring, without the intervention of Parliament, to raise a 

 considerable sum of money by way of ' benevolence,' Northamptonshire was 

 speedily in the thick of the fray. The resistance was by no means confined 

 to the laity, the neighbouring bishop of Lincoln setting an example in this 

 respect even from the episcopal bench. It was felt by the king's advisers 

 that a special stand should be made in Northamptonshire, and the aid of the 

 pulpit was invoked. The president of the council and the earl of Exeter were 

 at Northampton in January, 1626-7, when they had a conference with 

 Dr. Sibthorpe, vicar of Brackley, Dr. Clerke, rector of St. Peter's, 

 Northampton, and other High Church clergy, on the question whether 

 conscience and religion did not necessitate a loan to the king if it were 

 demanded. Dr. Sibthorpe, as the divine who most strongly upheld the royal 

 prerogative, was selected to preach the sermon in All Saints at the coming 

 assizes. Accordingly, on 22 February, Dr. Sibthorpe delivered himself of a 

 discourse, wherein he taught the doctrine of passive obedience under every 

 conceivable circumstance with absolute thoroughness. Archbishop Abbot 

 was requested to license the sermon for printing, but he refused, and drew 

 up a series of objections. The preacher replied, toning down the strongest 

 passages. The king then appointed a committee, consisting of the bishops of 

 Durham, Rochester, Oxford, and Bath and Wells (Laud), to decide on the 

 fitness of the sermon for printing. The committee sanctioned its publication, 

 and the Northampton sermon on 'Apostolike Obedience' at once attained a 

 great circulation under the licence of the bishop of London. 



The king was delighted, made the preacher one of his chaplains-in- 

 ordinary, and soon afterwards presented him to the Northamptonshire living 

 of Burton Latimer.^ 



Laud was called to the primacy in 1633, ^^'^ three years later began his 

 celebrated metropolitical visitation. Bishop Dee, of Peterborough, heartily 

 welcomed Laud's interference, and Dr. Sibthorpe and Dr. Clerke (rector of 

 St. Peter's, Northampton) were appointed commissioners to carry out a 

 circumstantial visitation of the diocese. In no other county of England was 

 there probably the same extreme defiance of rubrics, order and doctrine, as 

 was the case in some of the parishes in Northamptonshire. The report and 

 orders of the commissioners with regard to All Saints', Northampton, dated 

 26 October, 1637, show the condition to which that church was reduced. The 

 whole of the fabric and fittings were in a miserable plight ; the collegiate 

 seats (stalls with high backs) had been dragged from the chancel, and placed 

 round the Holy Table at the upper end of the nave, which, intentionally or 



' There are many blunders with regard to Sibthorpe in Wood's Athenae. For a long account of him, 

 based on original documents, see Cox and Serjeantson, Hist, of St. Sepulchred, 'Northampt. 144-54. 



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