ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



the parishes in the archdeaconry of Buckingham between the years 

 1705 and 1723 : they give the population of each, the number of ser- 

 vices usually held, the number of Eucharists celebrated throughout the 

 year, and other details of interest. It appears from these returns that 

 not in one church of the archdeaconry, even where as at Amersham 

 and Bletchley, the incumbents were pronounced High Churchmen, were 

 mattins and evensong daily recited in public, 1 though nearly everywhere 

 there were services on Wednesdays, Fridays, and holy days throughout 

 the year. Only three churches Buckingham, Hambleden, and New- 

 port Pagnel had a celebration of the Holy Eucharist as often as once 

 a month a ; at Waddesdon there were ten celebrations during the year, 

 at Olney, Whaddon, Steeple Claydon, Denham, Great Brickhill, as many 

 as eight (at least during part of the period specified), at Aylesbury seven. 

 The rest had only three or four ; a few small and sparsely populated 

 villages like Horsenden, Chenies, Chicheley, Buckland, only one or two 

 in the year. 3 The practice of catechizing on Sunday afternoons seems 

 however to have been well kept up ^during this period, though doubtless 

 the explanations given of the Catechism were not always very satis- 

 factory. 4 Yet there were even in this county a few excellent churchmen, 

 among the laity as well as among the clergy, whose devotion to the 

 interests of the Church was as real and practical as that of the first 

 disciples of the Oxford movement. Browne Willis 6 of Whaddon Hall 

 deserves an honourable mention in any history of the Church in Buck- 

 inghamshire. He spent his whole energy on researches prompted by 

 the love of Catholic antiquity, and a great part of his wealth in beauti- 

 fying the churches of his neighbourhood. In periods of history when 

 all goes smoothly, when the standard of life is low, when there is no 

 strong call for self-devotion and nothing specially picturesque in sacrifice, 

 there are generally but few men who can boast of being the poorer for 

 their love of the Church. Willis therefore deserves all the more credit 

 that he not only did what he could himself but tried to inspire others 

 with the same enthusiasm. This made him no doubt something of a 

 tyrant in his exercise of patronage his friend Cole, the rector of 



1 Mattins and evensong were said daily in many London churches at the beginning of the Restor- 

 ation period, and the same may have been done in some country churches also (Overton, Life in the Eng- 

 lish Church, 1660-1714, p. 167. 



2 The entry ' once a month ' is only found in connection with Hambleden ; at Buckingham and 

 Newport it is ' ten or twelve times a year,' which does not necessarily imply a monthly celebration. 



3 There are three entries in connection with each parish, showing changes between 1705 and 1723 : 

 e.g. ' 4 . . . 5 vel 6 . . . 6 plerumque 3.' Decrease is commoner than increase. ' Six communions in 

 the year ' is further explained (at Turville) to be ' i.e. bis in tribus festis ' ; that is to say, only three times 

 a year after all. In some churches there may have been a general communion at Michaelmas or All 

 Saints to break the long gap between Whitsunday and Christmas : there is an allusion to a ' sacrament ' 

 on St. Michael's Day in the Wing Churchwardens' Book for 1716. A little earlier the celebrations at 

 Wing were somewhat more frequent. In 1684-5 there was one on the Coronation Day, as well as in 

 November ; and on Easter Monday and Tuesday, as well as Easter Day (the entry being ' Bread for the 

 Communion for three days at Easter '). 



At Aston and Clinton and Boarstall it was stated that the people were invited to the catechizing, 

 but would not come. 



' His grandfather, Thomas Willis, had been physician in ordinary to King Charles II. and a devout 

 Churchman. Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714, pp. 111-3. 



I 337 43 



