ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



in character. It was conducted by commissioners ; those for the diocese of 

 London included eighteen laymen, local interest being represented by Sir 

 Ralph Sadleir of Standon. For Hertfordshire the visitors sat at Bishop's 

 Stortford." Dealing with the Church from the point of view of order the 

 questions put were not generally concerned with doctrinal points, the most 

 important in this respect being that which inquired whether the clergy 

 ministered ' the Holy Communion in any other wise than after such form 

 and manner as is set forth by the common authority of the queen's majesty 

 and the Parliament.' *^ The form of the question opened up serious difficulties, 

 but the recent course of events had made even the Marian clergy recognize 

 the power of the Crown in matters ecclesiastical. Nevertheless, only nineteen 

 out of twenty-nine beneficed clergy in the parishes within the archdeaconry 

 of Middlesex subscribed.*' These results show that the clergy were not 

 prepared for the changes wrought, had not indeed yet decided as to their 

 import. Such a result was not satisfactory to the Government, and William 

 Chedsey, who had been made Archdeacon of Middlesex in 1556, was 

 deprived in 1560. Chedsey had from the first been strongly opposed to the 

 new movement, and in 1559 had taken part in the Westminster Disputation, 

 the other representatives of the old learning being Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, 

 Scott, Bishop of Chester, Bayne, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,** White, 

 Bishop of Winchester, Henry Cole, Dean of St. Paul's, Nicholas Harpsfield, 

 Archdeacon of Canterbury, and Alban Langdale, Archdeacon of Lewes. 

 The removal of John Dugdale, Archdeacon of St. Albans since 1557, and 

 of Anthony Draycott, Archdeacon of Huntingdon since 1543, placed the 

 clergy throughout this county under men whose sympathies were with the 

 reformers. The new Archdeacon of Middlesex was Alexander Nowell, 

 son of a Lancashire squire and one of the best scholars that Oxford had 

 given to the advanced school of the day. As a prebendary of Westminster 

 he had received licence to preach in 1551, and had soon been forced to 

 leave the country. Though an exile in Strasburg and Frankfort he did not 

 join the extreme party," and on Elizabeth's accession he returned to England. 

 His moderation and scholarship recommended him to Cecil, and in 1559 he 

 was one of the two clerics who with twenty-nine laymen visited the dioceses 

 of Lincoln, Oxford, Peterborough and Coventry and Lichfield.*' Thus when 

 appointed archdeacon in 1560 he had a full knowledge of current opinion 

 among the local clergy. 



One of his first proceedings must have been the deprivation of Richard 

 Kingston, pluralist rector of St. Anne and St. Agnes, London,*^ and of 

 Aldenham. Kingston had not subscribed in 1559, but he alone of the 

 Hertfordshire clergy seems to have been deprived immediately. The next 

 victim was John Bartlett, vicar of Bishop's Stortford. Bartlett was probably 

 well known as an adherent of the old forms, for he had been collated to the 

 living by Bonner in 1559 on the deprivation of Richard Fletcher.*' He 



« Gee, op. cit. 96. *2 Ibid. 67. 



*^ Ibid. 102 et seq., where the lists for the dioceses of London and Lincoln are printed. That for 

 London is probably complete, that for Lincoln is certainly defective. There are, however, ninety-five 

 subscribers whose preferment is not specified. 



^ Strype, Annals, i (l), 128-9. 



*^ cf. A Brieff Discours off the troubles begonne at Franckford in Germany. 



*^ Strype, Annals, i (i), 247. ^' Hennessy, Novum Repert. 95. ^^ Newcourt, Repert. i, 896. 



