ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Sessions ' for disturbing the minister in tyme of preaching.' At the 

 Summer Sessions in 1670 Sir Philip Musgrave paid into court the sum 

 of j as the king's moiety ' due upon a conviction of several seditious 

 persons,' which sum was paid over to the sheriff. Sir Philip Musgrave 

 was a notorious opponent of all sectaries. His spies were sent in all 

 directions with strict orders to watch the ' bad people,' as he roughly 

 called them, and many meetings were captured by these agents. John 

 Lamplugh did not hesitate to levy a fine of 10 on the overseers of the 

 poor of the parish of Dean, ' for negligence in their office in not making 

 information to the next justice of the peace of a conventicle at Pardsay 

 Cragg.' Moreover, the quakers carried on a stout resistance to the 

 payment of tithes, ' steeplehouse rates and clerk's wages,' which added 

 not a little to their other troubles. When Charles II. granted his 

 temporary indulgence in 1672, very few of the quakers took advantage 

 of it. Almost all the licences for preaching houses in Cumberland were 

 taken out by persons of the presbyterian or congregational persuasion. 1 

 Several of those who were licensed to preach are well known in the 

 annals of Cumberland nonconformity. 



It is a matter of general history that the King was forced by the 

 Cavalier party to revoke his declaration of indulgence, and that the law 

 known as the Test Act of 1673 was passed to which he reluctantly 

 gave his consent. There is a long entry in the records of Quarter 

 Sessions explanatory of the new Act. It is singular that though the 

 Act affected all kinds of dissenters, it is designated in the preamble 

 as ' an Act for preventing danger which may happen from Popish 

 Recusants.' The justices seemed very impartial in carrying out these 

 penal enactments, as they affected both protestant and papist. At 

 the Easter Sessions, 1674, above a hundred persons were summoned 

 ' for not repayreing to church within 6 months after ye 6th of July last.' 

 Neither degree nor sex was considered. No part of the county was over- 

 looked. The non-churchgoers were indicted from places so wide apart as 

 Alston and St. Bees, Kirklinton and Bootle. Knights and squires as well 

 as yeomen and rustics, were fined the Sunday 'shilling. Members of four- 

 teen different families were fined out of the parish of Kirklinton. There 

 was a goodly contingent from Wetheral, and among them Francis 

 Howard of Corby and Anne his wife. The yeomen of Leath Ward 

 were conspicuous. We may name also Sir Francis Salkeld of White- 

 hall ; Henry Curwen, with five of the same name from Camerton ; 

 Katherine Curwen of Workington Hall ; Skeltons of Branthwaite, and 

 Porters of Bolton. We hear no more of church neglect till the October 

 Sessions, 1680, when Sir George Fletcher was high sheriff. The 

 majority of the offenders this time were evidently papists, and of the 

 squirearchy ; whereas the lists of 1 674 were principally quakers and 

 of the yeomen and humbler classes. 



1 Dioc. Hist, of Carl. (S.P.C.K.), pp. 152-3. The list of Northumberland licences has been printed 

 in Arch. JEliana, xiii. 63. Both lists will be found in ' Domestic Entry Books of Charles II.' at the 

 Record Office. 



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