ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



probably no difficulty, as he satisfied his examiner as to his sufficiency '* ; 

 Mote and Graunte had not prepared themselves for examination,'* and were 

 probably suspended as their names do not again appear in the records of the 

 archdeaconry. Warren, who was ordained by BuUinger about 1568, was 

 reported by the examiner to be unable to answer anything in Latin, yet to 

 have some mean knowledge of the principal points of religion, but not 

 sufficient to discharge the office of a minister." He seems to have escaped 

 sequestration, though he had not obtained a preacher's licence by 1588, 

 when, however, he was described as ' an old sickly man.' "■ 



It was probably in the autumn of 1586 that instructions were issued 

 ' for the better increase of learning in the inferior Ministers, and for more 

 diligent Preaching and Catechizing.'^' These provided that ' every minister 

 having cure and being under the degrees of Master of Arts and Bachelors of 

 Law and not licensed to be a public Preacher ' should by 2 February obtain 

 a Bible, a copy of Bullinger's Decades and a note book. Daily notes were 

 to be made on a chapter of Scripture and weekly notes of a sermon of 

 BuUinger, the notes being forwarded each month to a preacher appointed by 

 the ordinary. Such exercises were closely connected with the ' prophesy- 

 ings ' that were so troublesome to the Government. These ' clerical 

 meetings' were first heard of in 1571, and were generally modelled on the 

 form adopted by the clergy of Northampton." The meetings received 

 episcopal approval, but ' divers mynisters, deprived from their livings or 

 inhibited to preach, for not obeying publique orders and discipline of the 

 church of England, have intruded themselves, in sundry places to be speakers 

 in the saide exercises, and being excluded from pulpits, have in the saide 

 exercises usuallie made their invection against the orders, rites and discipline 

 of the church of England, which hath been a cause to move divers to mislike 

 of the saide exercises ' ^^ ; in the spring of 1574, therefore, Elizabeth ordered 

 the archbishop to suppress them. Parker sent the required notice to his 

 suffragans," but nothing was done in the matter by Sandys as Bishop of 

 London. Whether or no such meetings were taking part in the Hertford- 

 shire parishes of his diocese is not known,^^ but there can be little doubt that 

 they had been adopted in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, for in October 

 of the same year the Hertfordshire clergy obtained the approval of the 

 Bishop of Lincoln's ' regulations with regard to prophesying.' '' The clergy 

 were to meet from 9 to 1 1 a.m. on every alternate Thursday, the members 

 being appointed by the ordinary and bound to accept the constitution laid 

 down by the bishop with whom rested the choice of the moderator. The 

 proceedings were opened with a prayer by the first speaker, who was allowed 

 three-quarters of an hour for his exposition, successive speakers being limited 

 to fifteen minutes ; then came a summing up by the moderator and prayers 

 for the queen's majesty, for grace and for ' truth, unitie, reverance, discretion 



1* Rec. of the Old Archd. of St. Albans, 52. " Ibid. 53. " Ibid. 52. 



I'lbid. 69. 18 Ibid. 53. 



1' The Orders and Dealings in the Church of Northampton ; cf. Order of the Prophesy at Norwich (Morrice 

 MS. [Dr. Williams's Lib.], B, fol. 263). 



20 Cott. MS. Cleop. F ii, fol. 261 ; Morrice MS. B, fol. 267-8. 



^1 Frere, Engl. Church in the Reigns ofEliz.. and J as. I, 186-7. 



^^ No documents of this date exist among the records of the archd. of St. Albans. 



^^ Lansd. MS. 19, fol. 47-9. Bp. Cooper seems to have encouraged the exercises {Line. Efts. Pec. — 

 Bf. Cooper — [Line. Rec. See], p. xi). 



