A HISTORY OF DORSET 



seconded all his efforts to promote the Presbyterian cause in the town, were 

 both among the triers deputed to examine the qualifications of candidates for 

 the cure of souls under the Commonwealth, and two daughters of Mr. White 

 married ministers who were among the ejected in this county at the 

 Restoration: John Wesley and Benjamin Way. 



The recent publication of the minute books of the Dorset Standing 

 Committee,"^ which came into operation shortly after the issue of the 

 ordinance of i July, 1644, affords ample information as to the ecclesiastical 

 working of the county during the Commonwealth. The ecclesiastical powers 

 vested in the members of this committee enabled them to determine the 

 delinquency, scandal, or malignancy of any incumbent, whether he had 

 preached against the Parliament or joined the king's army,""' to enforce the use 

 of the Directory, and to make appointment of other ministers to serve in the 

 cures that had been sequestered, provided their names had been approved by 

 those deputed to examine them. Besides these duties they are found ordering 

 additions to small stipends, as in the case of the vicar of Abbotsbury,-'^ 

 appointing lecturers,"" assigning stipends to schoolmasters,"" directing the pay- 

 ment of fifths to which the families of ejected ministers were entitled out of 

 sequestered benefices ; in many cases intruded ministers showed great reluc- 

 tance to pay and the committee had to resort to threats in order to enforce 

 payment. Among these was Bartholomew 'Westleye' of Charmouth, the 

 great-grandfather of the revivalist, who in January, 1648, was ordered to pay 

 the full fifths of the parsonage, or to show cause why he refused ; the follow- 

 ing February came the order, ' whereas it is made known to us that Mr. Nor- 

 rington who was outed from the church of Charmouth for scandal hath 

 since obtained in the county of Wilts ^^3° P^"" annum for his livelyhood, 

 Mr. Westley is released from payment of fifths, as the whole profits of Char- 

 mouth only amount to about ^20.'"'' Among smaller matters of detail referred 

 to the committee was the official custody of the church key,"*" which at Stoke 

 Abbott had been detained by the ' outed ' incumbent."*^ Out of the lands, 

 tenements, &c., belonging to any dean and chapter or impropriated personages 

 within the county under sequestration, they advised the assignment of certain 

 sums in augmentation of the living or the maintenance of a lecture in some 

 fifty different parishes, the ministers or lecturers of which should first be 

 approved by the committee before the extra payment should be made to them."*" 

 On 6 January, 1646, Walter Fry and John Squibb, gent., were appointed 

 to receive and distribute their payments out of the rents payable from the 



"* Dorset SlanJ. Com. ed. by C. H. Mayo, 1902. 



'" On 22 Dec. 1642, it was moved in Parliament that in the case of those ministers who had left their 

 charges and joi-ned the king's forces the profits of their livings should be sequestered and their names 

 presented to ' this House.' Lds. Journ. v, 516. '" Min. Bks. ofDonet ^tand. Com. 78. 



*" Ibid. 67. '"' At Beaminster and Dorchester. Ibid. 29, 85 



"' Ibid. 491, 500-1. W.ilker's account of the fate of this outed minister is that ' he left his wife and Five 

 Children as poor as Misery could make them,' and that ' his widow was at length constrained to beg the charity 

 of the Corporation for Ministers' Widows by whom she was relieved ' ; Sufferings of the Clerg<i,\\, 318. Other 

 intruded ministers who appeared unwilling to pay were John Galping at Durweston, who was admonished in 

 1647 and again in 1648, 'on the sad complaint of Mr. Richard Hooke, last incumbent of Durweston in this 

 countie on the behalfe of himself his wife and children' {Jilin. Bks. 282, 432) ; James Rawson, of Haselbury 

 Bryan (ibid. 304, 438) ; John Salway, of Whitchurch Canonicorum (ibid. 347, 403), who, according to 

 Walker {Sufferings of the Clergy, ii, 293), protested ' that hee will rather leave the place than paie any fifths' ; 

 John Moulas, at Tarrant G\m\\\\s. {Min. Bks. 374) ; William Hardy at Sturminster Marshall (ibid. 464, 538) ; 

 Henry Lamb, at Burton Bradstock (ibid. 522). 



-*» Ibid. 152, 176, 341, 540. '-' Ibid. loi. =" Ibid. 159-60. 



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