A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



' our learned lecturer of Gloucester, who last summer made an expedition 

 into Scotland for bachelor in divinity, but was fain to return as wise as 

 Waltham's calf and so still continues,' Jones of Tytherington, Workman the 

 younger, and Stubbes, Sir Robert Cooke's chaplain. Nelmes, Edwardes, and 

 Alderman Pury were the mainstay of the party in Gloucester ; Pury is 

 described by Allibond as ' sometimes a weaver, now an attorney, whom I 

 think nothing has so much endeared as his irreverence in God's house, sitting 

 covered when all the rest sit bare.' 



In 1641 Gloucestershire was one of eleven counties which sent a petition 

 to parliament for the abolition of episcopacy. 1 Speaking on the Root-and- 

 Branch Bill in the Commons on 15 June, 1641, Alderman Pury proposed a 

 scheme for the employment of the revenues of the dean and chapter of 

 Gloucester : 



If the dean and three prebends, being but seven in all to be now taken away, will be 

 preaching ministers, there is sufficient maintenance for so many of them as have not too much 

 besides, and yet to reserve so large a salary as now is allowed for so many singing-men then 



in holy orders as cannot preach Out of the manors and lands the said cathedral 



living to be made a parochial church, 200 or more may be allowed for a learned preaching 

 minister there, and jiOO per annum each for two such others to assist him ; and then the 

 rest of the said manors and lands may be employed to other godly, pious, and charitable 

 uses as the wisdom of the king and parliament shall think fit. 2 



These moderate opinions ultimately prevailed among the corpor- 

 ation, for although the cathedral was in danger of destruction, as certain 

 persons agreed among themselves to divide the plunder, they had only 

 pulled down part of the little cloisters and removed the battlements from the 

 Lady chapel when their work was arrested. 3 About 1653 John Dorney, 

 the town clerk, exhorted the officers of the city to take charge of this its 

 greatest ornament,* and three years later the cathedral, cloisters, library, and 

 free school with the residences of the schoolmaster and usher were granted by 

 Act of Parliament to the mayor and burgesses ' for the public worship of God, 

 the education of children in learning, and for such other public and charitable 

 uses as they may deem fit.' 6 



In 1640 Bishop Goodman was tried with Laud and the other bishops 

 who had signed the Canons. In 1 642 he was released and ordered to return 

 to his diocese, but in the next year his palace at Gloucester was sacked and 

 he fled. 6 When the war broke out Archdeacon Robinson was seized at 

 Dursley, set on horseback with his face towards the tail, and hurried away to 

 prison at Gloucester. 7 He subsequently took the covenant and accepted the 

 sequestered living of Hinton near Winchester. In 1641 the vicar of Painswick 

 and the rector of Downham were sequestered, 8 and at least twenty-four other 

 country clergy were afterwards deprived of their livings 9 or severely mal- 

 treated by the soldiers of the Parliament. 10 Although the new incumbents 

 were bound to pay them a fifth of the revenues for their maintenance, they 

 often had difficulty in getting it. 11 Churchwardens' accounts illustrate the 



1 Shaw, Hist, of the Eng. Church, 1640-60, i, 26, 38. 



1 Ibid. 90. " Britton, Glouc. Cathedral (Essay on the Abbey), 1 8. 



4 Ibid. 5 Stevenson, Cal. ofRec. Cor. of Glouc. 45. 



6 Diet. Nat. Biog. xxii, 250-1. ' Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, 33. 



8 Shaw, op. cit. ii, 297. Walker, op. cit. passim. 



10 Ibid. 242, 282. Ibid. 200, 397, 398. 



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