ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



two or three miles to church. They were willing to subscribe to the 

 maintenance of a clergyman, and accordingly the bishop contributed himself 

 and induced some of the gentry of the county to bear their share. He chose 

 a man who soon filled the neglected church, preaching twice every Sunday 

 and catechizing often. He held the vicarage of Standish near Gloucester 

 with its three dependent chapels in commendam, and on one occasion he 

 addressed the people in the conventicle on the borders of the parish, pre- 

 venting the servant of the justice of the peace and other persons from 

 defacing the windows and seats. A great number of nonconformists were 

 cited before the consistorial court, and over 900 of them were persuaded by 

 Frampton and other divines to conform. 1 He exercised great care in collating 

 to benefices and in examining candidates for holy orders, and if he was 

 obliged to reject any for lack of knowledge, he encouraged them to continue 

 their studies.' He steadily opposed the arbitrary measures of James II. 

 When the fellows of Magdalen College were ejected, he presented one of them 

 to the church of Sandhurst, and refused to institute the nominee of the 

 Roman Catholic fellows to the living of Slimbridge.* When the second 

 Declaration of Indulgence was issued in 1688, Frampton forbade any of 

 his clergy to read it in their churches ; very few did, and one was deserted 

 by his whole congregation, who left the church.* He was absent from 

 London when the petition was signed by the seven bishops, arriving half an 

 hour too late to append his signature. He visited his brethren in the Tower, 

 and was dissuaded by Sancroft from presenting a petition of his own on the 

 next day. On the accession of William III he scrupled to take the oath 

 of allegiance, and in 1689 was deprived of his bishopric with the other non- 

 jurors. With the connivance of the government he retained the living of 

 Standish, of which the net income was only 40 a year.' There he lived in 

 retirement for sixteen years, dying at the age of eighty-six. He undertook 

 the afternoon service himself, omitting the names of the royal family in the 

 prayers, and expounded the catechism to the children with such weighty 

 plain truths as might be instructive to the parents. Only six of his clergy 

 followed his example in refusing to take the oaths.* Though Trelawney, 

 bishop of Bristol, was imprisoned in the Tower for signing the petition, he 

 did not afterwards become a non-juror. 



Frampton's successor was Edward Fowler, one of the most distinguished 

 Whig prelates of his age. 7 He held the see for twenty-four years and made 

 regular visitations. In his charge to the clergy in 1707 he discoursed on 

 the animosities of professed Church of England men to one another, 

 deprecating the blackening distinctions of High Church and Low Church, 

 and assuring them that there was no ground for the popular cry of the Church 

 in danger. 8 



In 1715 the nonconformists were established in thirty-four places in 

 Gloucestershire, and possessed forty-eight chapels, of which twenty-five 



' Simpson Evans, op. cit. 142. ' Ibid. 177. ' Ibid. 154. 



4 Ibid. 151. * Ibid. 190, 208. 



* Overton, Tht Nonjurors, Appendix, passim. Their names were James Kirkham, rector of Wickwar, 

 Richard Saflyn, vicar of Berkeley, William Robinson, Humphrey Jcrvis Robson, vicar of Stonehouse, and 

 Joseph Perkins. Thomas Bayley, rector of Slimbridge, and John Talbot, rector of Fretherne, refused at first, 

 but took the oath afterwards. 



' Abbey, The Engl. Cb. and its Biibops, 1700-1800, p. 1 1 8. 



* Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Gloucester, 1 707. 



2 41 6 



