ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



actual military operations, and from the Independent sympathies of the army, 

 but it remains an unsolved problem. 



The Committee for Scandalous Ministers, appointed in 1641, did not 

 interfere with patronage, but dealt only with the condition of the clergy. 

 The Journals of the House show that Dr. Beale was removed from the living 

 of Paulerspury as early as i i March, 1640— i. 



The central committee issued an order immediately on their appointment, 

 calling upon every ingenuous person to be active in improving the present 

 opportunity by giving true information of all parishes in their several counties, 

 as to (i) pluralities, (2) defect of maintenance, (3) not preaching, and (4) 

 scandalous lives. The certificate from Northamptonshire for that year is of 

 much interest. It is stated that there were not more than sixteen or twenty 

 cases of plurality out of the 326 benefices, and that they did not do near so much 

 harm as the poor and scandalous livings; that half the churches were ' appro- 

 priate,' and the vicarages often so small and destitute ' that there is no sufficient 

 means left to a minister to buy books, nor to keep hospitality, nor live like a 

 minister in reasonable condition ' ; that there was not an ordinary clergyman 

 in the diocese able to leave >Ci°o ^^ scarce £^0 to his children in land, 

 'excepting Doctor Gierke, who having been the King's Chaplain twenty 

 years hath perhaps gotten something.' In this printed certificate the ques- 

 tions of the local power of preaching and of scandalous living are left alone. 

 Specific instances are however adduced of lack of maintenance. The tithes, 

 glebe, and parsonage house of Piddington were entirely in the hands of Sir 

 John Wake ; not so much as a poor curate left resident there to read prayers 

 or bury the dead, and neither a child or a servant in the parish that can say 

 the Lord's prayer — ' only Sir John keeps a minister in his house at the Lodge 

 in Sawcy Forest, whom he sends to Piddington at times.' As to the vicarage 

 of Preston, everything was in the hands of Sir Robert Hartnell, the poor vicar 

 being only allowed eight pounds stipend. Sir Robert ' pulled down the body 

 of the church, sold the lead and the bells, and employed it to profane uses, 

 the Chancell also for a time was prophaned, being made a kennell for grey- 

 hounds, and the steeple a pigeon house ; as for prayers and preaching, when 

 they were disposed to have any, it was performed in the Hall or Parlour, the 

 house standing neere to the church, and sometimes they frequented the 

 lectures at Northampton.' * 



Early in 1644 the Houses of Parliament began to appoint to livings that 

 were in the gift of the crown, or would otherwise have lapsed to such patronage. 

 Later in the year they claimed the right to livings which pertained to the 

 estates of sequestrated royalists. The second instance in which this was carried 

 out and the first in which a definite principle was laid down, happened in 

 connexion with a Northamptonshire living: — 'August 23d 1644. Whereas 

 the parsonage of Braybrook in the county of Northampton is become void 

 by the death of the late incumbent Nicholas Bent, and that Sir Edward 

 Griffin in arms against the Parliament is patron of the said living, and that 

 James Uty, M.A., an orthodox divine, is in the same living by way of seques- 

 tration : and whereas the House is of opinion that where livings become void 

 of which delinquents are patrons that in such cases the gift of such livings 

 is in the Houses of Parliament : it is ordered that Sir Arthur Haselrig and 



' B.M. Pamphlet, 873, E 61. 

 55 



