ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



pulpit and reading desk were similarly furnished ; the oaken kneeling 

 desks at the two ends of the altar, as well as the Bible and two prayer 

 books which lay upon it, were also covered with red velvet. In Lent a 

 ' suit of violet cloth ' was substituted for the ' crimson furniture.' A 

 handsome silver almsdish and flagon, engraved with the sacred monogram 

 and emblems of the Passion, were also among the gifts of the Willis 

 family. 1 



It is probable that in very few churches was anything more ornate 

 than this attempted. Cole gives this description with very evident 

 pride and satisfaction, and adds, after commenting upon his patron's 

 generosity, ' May he live to see the communion table decked with an 

 embroidered covering, and the pulpit with a cushion and cloth of the 

 same kind ! ' as if that would leave nothing further to be desired. 

 He does not seem to have even dreamed of such things as crosses, candle- 

 sticks or flower vases, although he gladly ' patched up ' an old crucifix 

 in the glass of the eastern window. Moreover, the returns of Bishops 

 Wake and Gibson show that four,- or at the outside six, celebrations in 

 the year were all that could be attained at Bletchley during the first 

 part of the eighteenth century. It seems indeed that the High Church- 

 men of that period belonged to a type which is now extinct. There is 

 really no party within the Church of to-day which can fairly claim to 

 represent them. They justified the Reformation, while yet they despised 

 the vandalism which it often produced 2 ; they hated Dissenters as no 

 Churchman of to-day would think it proper to do ; they were sincere 

 lovers of the English Church, and yet they seemed content with so 

 small a share in Church privileges. They had lost, too, all the old 

 bitterness against Rome it is indeed a little startling to hear Cole speak 

 of the 'pretended Powder plot' 1 of 1605, and of ' Foxe's Book of 

 Martyrs, as it is called' 4 and yet they were in no way attracted by her 

 modern methods. 



The parish church of Gayhurst was rebuilt in 1728 at the expense 

 of a certain Mr. Wright, patron at that time of the living 8 ; he was 

 doubtless a man of real generosity, though not a Churchman of the same 

 type as Browne Willis. 8 The old chapel of St. Giles at Stony Stratford 

 was also rebuilt in 1757.* There was destructive work done too during 



1 Add. MS. 5821, ff. 164, 198-200. The crimson velvet coverings for the altar, pulpit and desk 

 were the gift of Dr. Martin Benson (Rector 1728-35), and the kneeling stools of Cole himself. 



2 Cole, speaking in one place about the loss of some of the brasses from the tomb of an abbess of 

 Elstow, supposes that one of them contained an inscription ' which the squeamish stomachs of former 

 ages would not digest, and so reaved the brasses of such Popish stuff away to sell it in a good Protestant 

 method ' ! It is the tone which he and Willis always take with regard to such acts. Add. MS. 5830, 

 f. i4od. 



a Ibid. 5839, f. 82d. 



4 Ibid. 5840, f. I5d. From this entry, from the inventory of Bledlow 1785, and other allusions, 

 it would seem that Foxe's Book of Martyrs was sometimes read aloud in church in place of a sermon as 

 late as the end of the eighteenth century. 



o Add. MS. 5839, f. 8sd. 



8 He regretted the demolition of the tower of Filgrave Church on the ground that it made a ' very 

 good object ' from his parlour window. Ibid. f. 7gd. 



' Ibid. f. 192. 



339 



