ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



whose translation of some of the writings of his friend Emmanuel 

 Swedenborg first revealed that remarkable genius to English readers. 



In the later part of the century none of the well-known evangelical 

 leaders within the church had any particular connexion with Northampton- 

 shire, or any special influence upon it, nor is the ecclesiastical layman so 

 prominent or important as in the preceding and succeeding centuries. In a 

 word, this county reflected fully the general tendencies of the age. 



The condition of the diocese of Peterborough strikingly illustrates the 

 well-known change of social status and material resources of the parochial 

 clergy in this century. Many reasons contributed to depress the social 

 importance of the clergy at the end of the seventeenth century, though their 

 actual position has been caricatured and exaggerated by Macaulay and others. 

 The secularity of tone which set in from the Restoration period, and the 

 losses already mentioned of non-jurors on one side and Puritans on the other, 

 reduced the calibre of the county rector, and after the death of Queen Anne 

 the Tory gentry being excluded from power, and the parochial clergy generally 

 sharing their opinions, were both further from the centre of social life and 

 culture than their predecessors had been. The next three generations saw a 

 great change, and nowhere more than in Northamptonshire. Thrown together 

 in opposition to the ruling powers, and living their lives side by side, the 

 squire and parson formed an alliance which became a leading feature of rural 

 England. The great families had in all ages given of their sons to the 

 ministry of the church. Now that profession was the certain lot of the 

 younger son of the smaller gentry, and to a large extent in rural districts that 

 which had been specially a profession became in this century something like 

 a caste. Another great cause of change was the economic condition of the 

 great agricultural counties, of which Northampton was one. The steady and 

 great rise in rents under Walpole, while it enriched the landowners, made 

 just the difference to the clergy between struggle and ease. A careful 

 observation of the parsonage houses in Northamptonshire shows that the 

 largest and finest were built in the eighteenth century,^ and in some places 

 put upon new and better sites than the old rectory or vicarage. This shows 

 most clearly where the landowner was patron, and the incumbent often a 

 scion of the patron's family. The improved circumstances and territorial 

 connexions of the parochial clergy have their weight in explaining that 

 dislike of enthusiasm, that static rather than dynamic temper of mind, which 

 marked most of them all through this period. 



The transition to greater energy and order in matters ecclesiastical, if 

 we omit Bishop Hinchcliff, 1769-94, who in 1786 secured the establishment 

 of Sunday Schools,^ is marked by the episcopate of Herbert Marsh, 1819-39, 

 though in theological matters he w^as a strong partisan. A critical theo- 

 logian himself, with strong anti-Calvinistic views, he did his best to 

 purge the diocese of men of the evangelical school whose now modified 

 Calvinism was the theological frame-work of much of the highest spiritual 

 life of the time. He has incurred an unenviable immortality at the hands of 

 Sydney Smith for the eighty-seven questions to which all curates seeking his 

 licence had to submit, and which were familiarly known as ' A trap to catch 



1 e.g. Lamport, Edgcote, Orlingbury, Milton, and otliers. 

 ' 'Northampton Mercury, 22 July, 1786. 



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