ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



was drawn up for uniting some of the smaller benefices, where it was in 

 any way possible for an incumbent to serve two. 1 It was noticed at the 

 same time that Colnbrook, a market town and much frequented, ought to 

 have a separate endowment ; and Fenny Stratford (where it may be 

 remembered there was once a gild chapel) ought to have a church 

 built. 8 These good intentions deserve to be recorded, though their 

 authors had not much time to carry them into effect. During the Civil 

 War this county was continually traversed by troops, chiefly belonging 

 to the Parliament : there was a Royalist garrison for some time at Boar- 

 stall ; Parliamentary forces were stationed at Newport Pagnel and at 

 Aylesbury ; and some small engagements actually took place around 

 these centres. The church at Great Marlow was at one time fortified 

 and occupied by soldiers. 3 Other churches suffered more or less from 

 the violence of the fanatical soldiery : the parish register of Maids 

 Moreton, for instance, records how the ' reverend and religious rector ' 

 died in March 1643, 'almost heartbroken with the insolence of the 

 rebels against the Church and the king,' having seen the windows of his 

 church broken, the cross cut off the steeple, and the ' costly desk in the 

 form of a spread eagle gilt, on which he used to lay Bishop Jewel's 

 works, doomed to perish as an abominable idol.' 4 A letter of a 

 soldier stationed at Aylesbury describes how he and his companions 

 broke into the church there, defaced the stained glass windows, and 

 burned the altar rails. 5 It is also asserted that they were guilty of similar 

 outrages at Lillingstone Dayrell, Grandborough, Winslow, Hogshaw, 

 East Claydon, and Addington * ; and it may have been at this time that 

 the effigy of a priest in Woughton Church was * designedly mutilated, 

 for fear ignorent popish Christians should fall down and worship it,' 

 and monuments defaced in other places also. 7 Such excesses were of 

 course common enough at this period. A story is also given by 

 Walker from the Mercurius Rusticus of 1 646, of the rough handling of 

 the aged rector of Tyringham, arrested on suspicion by a troop of 

 soldiers near Stony Stratford, and carried to the gaol at Aylesbury. It 

 is said that they robbed him of everything he had, even to his boots and 

 cap, but when they ordered him to take off his cassock, he, ' being not 

 sudden in obeying the command nor over hasty to untie his girdle to 

 disrobe himself of the distinctive garment of his profession,' was accused 



1 The scheme is too lengthy to transcribe here : it is summarized in Augmentations of Livings, 

 vol. icoi. 



1 Ibid. There is an order given for the repair of the chancel of Wyrardisbury dated 31 Jan. 

 1655 (ibid. vol. 972, f. 18) ; and there may have been others, though on the whole there must have been 

 much more damage than repair done during this period. 



3 The Churchwardens' accounts quoted in Records of Bucks, vi. 156, contain an item in 1642 

 ' Paid for throwing in the bulwarks about the Church and in Duck Lane and for cleaning out the church 

 when the soldiers lay in it.' 



* Ibid. vi. 432. 



5 R. Gibbs, History of Aylesbury, 20, from the letter of one Nehemiah Wharton. 



Ibid. 21. The church of Hogshaw seems to have been still in use at the Survey of 1650, but it 

 was probably very far gone in decay. By the time of Browne Willis, at about 1730, there was not a trace 

 of it left. 



7 Noted by Cole, Add. MS. 5839, f. 223d, and 5840, f. gid. 



I 329 42 



