ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



irevenues of the dean and chapter.^^'' The following benefices, or portions of 

 benefices, were ordered to be united : — Knighton to Lillington, Beer Hackett 

 to Yetminster, Stockwood to Melbury Bubb, Knowlton to Horton, Chilcombe 

 to Askerswell, Wraxall to Rampisham, East Holme to East Stoke and the 

 three Wareham churches; the inhabitants of the annexed churches were 

 admonished to attend the other. Motcombe was ordered to be separated from 

 ■Gillingham.^"* On 25 December, 1646, we read an order was issued for the 

 rebuilding of the town of Beaminster after the fire, to be paid for out of the 

 ■sequestered estate (amounting to ^^2,000) of Mr. George Penny of Toller, a 

 recusant.**" 



As regards the actual number of sequestrations that took place during 

 the Commonwealth and the new regime introduced by the Parliament, they 

 •cannot be much under seventy. From the minute books of the committee 

 as many as fifty-nine have been extracted, the greater number of which, it has 

 been noted, had already occurred when the minute books, commencing in 

 August, 1645, began.^"" The names of six more sequestered clergy are also 

 given from another source,^" and Walker's list, containing only seventeen 

 names, includes three that are not given in either of the other two lists. ^*'*' In 

 October, 1646, William Gollop, rector of Stoke Abbott, was declared 'not 

 only a delinquent and within the ordinance of sequestration, but allso a 

 malignant and a scandalous minister and an enemy ag' the pliam'.'*"^ Another 

 entry states: 'the inhabitants of Wareham desire the removall of Thos. 

 Whiteroe clerke who now doth officiate in that towne in respect of his 

 insufficiency and scandalous lyfe.' ''° On 6 January, i 646-7, an unordained 

 person, one Mr. Stapleton, who had been admitted to preach in the church 

 of Radipole ' to the great disturbance and hazard of the garrison of Wey- 

 mouth and Melcombe Regis,' was inhibited. ^^^ The changes introduced by 

 the committee did not, however, meet with universal approval in the county, 

 and in sundry places parishioners refused to pay tithes to the newly-appointed 

 ministers. At Charlton Marshall such a dispute arose between Mr. John 

 Trottle and his flock that three members of the committee, Mr. Chettle, 

 Mr. Elias Bond, and Mr. John Squibb, were desired to make inquiry into its 

 cause.^^- At Silton the dissatisfaction of the parishioners with the minister for 

 whom they had petitioned became so great that the Committee ' finde the 

 discontent between them to bee growne soe high as that we conceive the 

 sayd Mr. Boles will not be able to doe any good in the way of his ministry 

 in that place,' and he was forthwith discharged from officiating there. 

 Among the archives of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis a minute book of 

 the Corporation, 1644—9, during the period when the town was occupied by 

 the Parliamentarians, records, 10 April, 1646, that Robert Saunders, mariner, 

 was heard to say ' that Mr. Ince and Mr. Way, the two ministers, were knaves 

 both in their preaching, and that the said Mr. Way did preach plaine Popery; 

 and that he would justifie to Mr. Ince his face, that he was a knave in his 

 preaching, and that he would soundly heare of it, or used words to the like 

 effect.' -^* A later entry the same year, however, states that the said Mr. Ince 



'«' Miti. Bb. of Dorset Stand. Com. 1 59-60. "' Ibid. 60, 61, 106, 112, 125, 138, 148, 206. 



■ »»' Ibid. 139-14-0. '"^ Ibid.Introd.pp. xxxvi-xxxviii. =>«' Add. MS. 8845. 



"' Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, W, passim. '"^ Minute Bks. 58, 59. 



"» IbiJ. 67. "' Ibid. 130. ^" Ibid. 333. 



^' Ibid. 234. »* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, App. pt. i, 587. 



37 



93 



