A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 
the ministers appointed by the Assembly of Divines complained that 
they could not get in their tithes from the parishioners ; while at Temps- 
ford, Flitton, Marston, Potton, the ejected incumbents refused for a long 
time to leave their parsonages, and in two cases were clearly supported 
by parishioners in their refusal. At Luton the minister who held the 
living in 1658 (Thomas Jessopp) complained that for eight years a 
malicious and prelatical party had withdrawn from his church and wor- 
shipped in the prelatical form.” The same thing may very likely have 
happened elsewhere. But this much is clear: though the numbers of 
those appointed by Parliament (and therefore probably without episcopal 
ordination) went on steadily increasing, by sequestration or the death of 
the old incumbents, during the five and twenty years between the out- 
break of Civil War and the Restoration of the Monarchy, there were 
only eleven * in this county who resigned their livings on St. Bartholo- 
mew’s Day, 1662, rather than submit to the new act of uniformity. The 
rest conformed and were ordained, if not already in orders. But, as it 
had been proved before under similar circumstances, such enforced con- 
formity was bound to be very half-hearted in many cases. Calamy tells 
us of the old vicar of Arlesey, who had kept his living all through the 
Commonwealth, how he conformed by reading just such parts of the 
liturgy as he approved of, and leaving out the rest ;* it cannot be doubted 
that others did the same as they found opportunity. 
The only university men among the Nonconformists of this year 
were William Dell, master of Caius College, Cambridge, and rector of 
Yelden ; Samuel Fairclough, fellow of the same college, and rector of 
Houghton Conquest ; and John Donne, of King’s College, rector of 
Pertenhall.* Dell was a remarkable man in his way, though apparently 
of shifting views. He had been chaplain to the Parliamentary army 
before he came to Yelden. In 1660 his parishioners sent a petition to 
Parliament accusing him, among other things, of neglecting to adminis- 
ter the sacraments ; but the parish registers prove that he certainly had 
his own children baptized. The rest of his accusations need not be 
detailed, as they are probably worth about as much as those made at an 
equally convenient time against Giles Thorne, Hugh Reeve and the 
ejected of an earlier date. But one of them is of historical interest ; he 
had allowed ‘ one Bunyan, a tinker,’ to preach in his pulpit on Christmas 
Day.” It is probably true that he thought lightly of all outward cere- 
1 At Tempsford Mr. Rolt complained that the late incumbent still kept the parsonage house, and 
‘prohibited’ the parishioners from paying tithes, 9 July 1647 ; at Potton the late incumbent had in- 
truded himself with violence into the vicarage house, and also prohibited the payment of tithes, 2 Sep- 
tember 1647. At Marston Dr. Cookson, though he left the vicarage, went ‘from house to house’ and 
told the people not to pay their tithes, 17 August 1647. The ‘prohibitions’ of ejected parsons would 
not have had much weight with unsympathetic parishioners, 
2 Luton Church, by the Rev. H. Cobbe, p. 215. 
® Appendix to the Life of Baxter, Calamy, ii. 91-5. As Dr. Fowler of Northill, though not 
satisfied at first, afterwards conformed and became Bishop of Gloucester (p. 95), while Shepherd, rector 
of Tillbrook, conformed at first but afterwards resigned his living (edition of 1727, p. 130), they balance 
each other, and neither has been counted. 
* Ibid. 93. 5 Ibid. 91, 93, 95. 8 Hist. MSS. Com, vii. 102. 
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