ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



The parishioners of Bunny, Lowdham, Whatton, Carlton, Hawton, 

 Stapleford, and Scarrington, reported that their books, supplied in the reigns 

 of Henry VIII and Edward VI, such as communion books and Erasmus's 

 Paraphrase (and in two instances Bibles), had been burnt in the time of Queen 

 Mary. In one or two cases it was reported that they had been handed over 

 to Mr. Cressy, the archdeacon's official, for this purpose ; this must have 

 been rather awkward for Cressy, for he was in attendance on the Eliza- 

 bethan visitors. 



At the end of this visitation register the names of the clergy who failed 

 to appear are set forth. The Nottinghamshire absentees, including the 

 prebendaries of Southwell, amounted to about fifty. The incumbents who 

 did not respond to the summons to this royal visitation were the rectors or 

 vicars of Attenborough, Barton, Beckingham, Bole, Bonnington, Broughton, 

 Carlton, Clayworth, Clifton, South Collingham, Colston Basset, Cotgrave, 

 Cromwell, East Drayton, Egmanton, Epperstone, Finningley, Fledborough, 

 Gamston, Gotham, Gringley, Harworth, Hawksworth, Hawton, Holme, 

 Kirkby in Ashfield, Laneham, Great or East Leake, North Leverton, Mis- 

 terton, North Muskham, Normanton, Owthorpe, Rampton, Rolleston, South 

 Scarle, Thorpe in the Glebe, Warsop, South Wheatley, Widmerpool, and 

 Worksop. At this stage in the proceedings the absentees were pronounced 

 contumacious ; but there is no doubt that the majority of these Nottingham- 

 shire clergy eventually acquiesced in the change. 



The first Elizabethan Archbishop of York was Thomas Young, trans- 

 lated from St. David's early in 1561. In the course of a few years Young 

 procured the consecration of a suffragan under the title of Bishop of Not- 

 tingham. Richard Barnes, born at Bold, Lancashire, in 1533, a fellow of 

 Brasenose, Oxford, B.A. in 1553 and M.A. in 1557, after holding small 

 preferments, became chancellor and canon residentiary of York in 1561. On 

 4 January 1567 he was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Nottingham by 

 Archbishop Sandys and others in York Minster. 120 On the report of the death 

 of the Bishop of Carlisle in April 1570, Sir Henry Gates wrote to Cecil 

 recommending that Richard Barnes, Bishop of Nottingham, should be pro- 

 moted to that see, 121 and he was elected Bishop of Carlisle in the following 

 June. Barnes gained high favour with Burghley, and was promoted to the 

 very wealthy see of Durham in 1577. 



There seems no reason to think that Barnes in any way left his mark on 

 the county whose name he bore for some three years. He seems to have 

 acted as suffragan for the whole diocese ; at all events he resided in Yorkshire 

 all the time he was Bishop of Nottingham, either in the city of York or at 

 Stonegrave Rectory, which he held together with the rectory of Stokesley 

 and his prebend. 



Nottinghamshire enjoyed a far greater measure of religious peace under 

 a succession of Elizabethan archbishops than was the case with several of 

 her neighbours, particularly Derbyshire. The recusants who clung to the 

 unreformed faith were not numerous in this archdeaconry, and there was but 

 little harrying of those who declined to conform, whether Papists or Puritans. 

 The most pious and learned of these prelates, Archbishop Sandys, not 



110 Pat. 9 Eliz. pt. xi, m. 33. 

 "' S.P. Dom. Eliz. Ixvii, 78. 



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