A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



tion towards the repair of the churches, but it is not easy to get detailed 

 information on the subject. The Churchwardens' Book at Wing gives 

 us perhaps a fair average specimen of changes that had to be made, and 

 the cost involved in carrying them out. In the year 1660 the Kings' 

 Arms were purchased for ^10 15.;., and put up at a cost of 32^. : the 

 church was painted and 'sentenced' for 28 ; other work done cost 5 gj. ; 

 a new cloth (perhaps for the pulpit l ) was bought for 5, a hearse cloth 

 for 2, a prayer book for 14^-. 6*/., and a Bible for 3 QJ. od., amounting 

 altogether to 56 IQJ. 6*/., a considerable outlay at that time in a small 

 country church." In some places order would only be gradually 

 restored: in 1699 when Browne Willis came to Bletchley he found 

 the altar in a * dinner posture '* out in the middle of the chancel, and 

 the same arrangement might have been seen at Grandborough and 

 Tattenhoe even in 1847.* At Little Horwood the archdeacon ordered 

 the purchase of a book of Common Prayer in 1684,* as if up till then 

 they had only a shabby or mutilated copy. 



A good specimen of the ideal which an ordinary good Churchman 

 of the Restoration period would set before him is found in the will of 

 George Bushope,' vicar of Edlesborough from 1664 to 1707, who left 

 50 to his successors on condition that they should preach a special 

 sermon on the Sunday before Lent (presumably to set forth to the 

 parishioners their duties at that season) and should read prayers on 

 Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent and all through Holy Week, and 

 administer the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday ; there were special 

 bequests in the same will to poor widows who should attend the services 

 in Lent regularly. It may have been that the clergy were growing 

 remiss in their performance of week-day services towards the close of this 

 good vicar's life, and he hoped by this legacy to supply his successors 

 with an additional incentive. 



The imaginary 'Popish plots' of 1678 led to a fresh return of 

 recusants, and a list of fourteen names in Buckinghamshire was drawn 

 up in connection with the proposed ' Bill for the Removal and Disarming 

 of Papists.' 7 The best known name on this list is that of Sir John For- 

 tescue of Salden ; and it is stated that Sir Francis Throgmorton of 

 Weston Underwood and Rowland Dormer, heir of the family once 

 settled at Wing, were no longer living in this county. 8 Among the 

 various redistributions of Romanists involved in this scheme, it was 



There was a ' new communion cloth and napkin ' bought in 1657, and a ' new carpet for the com- 

 munion table ' in 1664, so that this new cloth of 1660 cannot have answered either of those purposes 



3 Churchwardens' Book, 1660-1. 



3 W. Cole in Add. MS. 5821, f. 200. The roof was at that time out of repair, and the windows 

 still stopped up with brick and mortar. 



Lipscomb, History of Bucks, iii. 251 and 489. He may perhaps be trusted to report correctly of 

 his own time. 



e MS. Records of the Archdeaconry of St. Albans. 



Add. MS. 5840, f. 33d. 



' Hist. MSS. Com., Rep. xi. pt. ii. p. 232. 



8 The descendants of the youngest son of the first Lord Dormer were still living at Great Missenden, 

 and the parish register contains entries of their names from 1696 to 1733 as ' baptized by their own Popish 

 priest ' (Records of Bucks, vi. 316-7). Upon these the peerage finally devolved. 



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