ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



by the Commons at this juncture towards the king and the bishop, great 

 capital was made out of the Smart case, and a note of 27 January, 1629, 

 records that the Commons ' propose to inquire . . . how ceremonies are 

 crept in as at Durham.''" As the months went by, and the weary proceed- 

 ings were dragged out before the High Commission — now at Durham, now at 

 Lambeth, and again at York — the comparative apathy of the diocese was 

 stirred by degrees to something like excitement : ' You have much disturbed 

 the peace of the church, and ministered great cause of offence and distraction 

 to the weak and tender consciences of sundry inhabitants of the city and 

 country.' '" Such was the objection made against Cosin and his adherents at 

 York on the day that Smart was finally sentenced after a protracted considera- 

 tion of the case during two years.'" The long document from which this 

 quotation is given sets out in the most bitter way the case against the reform- 

 ing prebendaries. It is possibly the work of the lawyer, Mr. Wright, who 

 had sided with Smart from the outset."* It shows how thoroughly Cosin was 

 the leading spirit in the changes at Durham.'" He had in the earlier days of 

 the agitation forced the dean into compliance with his own methods and aims, 

 and on one occasion 



he brawled in the church with the Dean himself about the gentlewomen who would not 

 stand when he bade them, whose pew he locked up and afterwards nailed because they 

 would not stand, and again with him about the lighting of three or four candles upon each 

 candlestick on the altar. He called the same gentlewomen ' lazy sows,' and tore their 

 sleeves because they refused to stand. '^^ 



At a later date, apparently, the gentle dean was more active in his sympathy, 

 and introduced the stone altar which still stands, though somewhat injured, 

 under the present communion table in Durham Cathedral. 



You have lately so set it [says the indignant protestor] that the minister can not possibly 

 stand on the north side of the Table, there being neither side standing northward, and 

 contrary to the example either of St. Paul's Church or any other. You Richard Hunt have 

 cast out the Communion Table of wood which was light and portable, and you have erected 

 a mighty altar of stone, unmovable, fastened to the ground and standing (being a double 

 table, one below, of which there is no use at all, and another above), upon six pillars upon 

 which are curiously wrought nine pair of white cherubins' faces. You beautified the same 

 altar with paintings and gildings, and hangings and coverings of silk and velvet, of silver and 

 gold, so brave and glorious that all the altars in England (for so our popish Arminians have 

 lately began to term all communion tables) I say all altars may cast their caps at our Durham 

 altar which hath cost with the furniture thereunto belonging above ^^3,000.'°' 



Nor was it the furniture and ornaments alone which gave offence to the party 

 of Smart. A variety of ceremonies had been introduced, standing at the 

 Nicene'^^ Creed, bowing (or as the Durham people called it), 'making legs to 



»«' Lonsdale MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii), App. vi, 64. "' Surtees See. Pui/. lii, 164. 



'«' CaL S.P. Dom. 1634-5, p. 321. 



^ See above note, and C. Hunter, Illustration oj NeaPs Puritans, p. 64. 



'" This is evident from other authorities : 'A great part, if not the most of the evil of our church, at 

 this present, is supposed to proceed from him, and those he wholly ruleth, as My Lord of Durham whom he 

 wholly ruleth.' In strictness of date, since the paper is dated 29 March, 1628, the bishop to whom reference 

 is made is Bishop Monteigne, who was only bisliop from 3 March to 16 June, 1628. If this is correct it 

 shows that Monteigne was under the direction of Cosin even before he entered upon the see. The passage is 

 given in Surtees Soc. Publ. xxxiv, 198, from the Baker MSS. 



^^ Surtees Soc. Publ. lii, 174. '" Ibid. 179. 



'^ Ibid. This was a source of considerable contention, and led to a successful defence on the part of 

 Cosin, which is given in his correspondence, ibid. 200. 



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