ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



So far as can be discovered, only the incumbents of Aston Flamville, 

 Houghton-on-the-Hill, Aylestone, and Lutterworth, and a schoolmaster of 

 Leicester were deprived for final refusal of conformity to the Elizabethan 

 settlement. 140 



There are some returns still existing for the year 1562, which show 

 that though the clergy of this archdeaconry were in the main conformable, 

 they could not at once rise up to the increasing demand for sermons. Out 

 of 129 parish priests, who are nearly all described as resident, and moderately 

 learned, only fifteen were able to preach. 141 At about the same time there 

 were twelve benefices which had been vacant from three to five years. 143 In 

 1564 a fresh list of churches and chapels was made out ; 143 from which it 

 may be gathered that fifty of the chapels existing in 1344 were disused or 

 decayed. It is quite likely that most of these ceased to be served, owing to 

 change in population or defective endowment, about the end of the fourteenth 

 century but there were a few quite recent losses, such as the Chapel of 

 St. Nicholas, Mountsorrel, 144 and the church of St. Peter, Leicester. 145 



It was no doubt the lack of preachers amongst the parochial clergy that 

 made the appointment of lecturers at this time a matter of such importance. 

 In 1567 the mayor and corporation of Leicester decided to appoint a lecturer 

 for their town, by the advice of Henry earl of Huntingdon, whose influence 

 was steadily in favour of Reformation principles. 148 He was to preach from 

 7 to 8 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, and a member of every household 

 in Leicester was to come and hear him under pain of fine. The lecturer, 

 being appointed by the corporation, had to preach the doctrines they desired ; 

 and what they desired we may gather from the fact that in 1586 when the 

 post was vacant they begged the earl of Huntingdon to use his influence to 

 secure the services of Travers, the well-known opponent of Hooker a man, 

 as they were credibly informed, 'of singular goodness and approved learning.' 117 

 Travers, however, was not appointed ; it may be because the mayor and 

 corporation did not offer him sufficient inducement, for in 1589 Sir Francis 

 Walsingham wrote to rebuke them for their niggardliness towards the new 

 lecturer, Thomas Sacheverell. 148 



The town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch was throughout this reign a centre of 

 Puritan influence. Anthony Gilby was vicar there from 1566 to 1583, and 

 was strong in his refusal to conform to the requirements of the bishops. His 

 work entitled ' A view of Anti-Christ, his laws and ceremonies in our 

 English Church unreformed,' containing fourteen parallels between the pope 

 of Rome and the pope of Lambeth, shows sufficiently the line of his oppo- 

 sition. 149 But though the tendencies of many of the leading clergy and laity 



. 14 Gee, Elizabethan Clergy. 



141 Frere, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. 107. See also Nichols, Leic. ii, 298, and elsewhere. Only nine out of 

 the 1 29 mentioned above were married. 



141 S.P. Dom. Eliz. xii, 108. '"Nichols, Lew. i, Ixxxv, from Harl. MS. 618. 



144 This chapel had all things necessary for divine service in 1552. It was pulled down by the parishioners 

 without any licence from the vicar of Rothley soon after 1569. Nichols, Leic. iii, 987. 



145 United with All Saints in 1590. The deed is printed in full, Nichols, Leic. i, 550. The bells had 

 been sold and timber taken down in 1563. Ibid. 328. 



146 Hist. MS5. Com. Rep. viii (i), 427. 147 Ibid. 431. 



148 Ibid. 432. Sacheverell was a notable preacher at this time, and gave the lecture at Leicester for 

 many years, being also confrater of Wigston's Hospital. 



149 Frere, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. 175. He showed ' an hundred points of popery' which still deformed 

 the English Reformation. 



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