A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



With this list may be compared one made in July 1586" which gives as 

 preachers the incumbents of Elstree, St. Peter's, Redbourn, Ridge and 

 Shephall, while those of St. Paul's Walden, St. Michael's and Watford arc 

 marked as non-preachers, this probably meaning that they did not even 

 attempt a quarterly sermon. The deanery of Braughing also showed a 

 better state of things, where all were preachers but Thomas Clerk, vicar of 

 Barkway, Simon Williams, vicar of Cheshunt, Francis Rydall, rector of 

 Reed, Evans Offludd, vicar of Stanstead, and Nicholas Compton, vicar of 

 Sawb'ridgeworth," while Tristram Moore, rector of Wymondley, was a 

 preacher but not admitted by the bishop.*' 



The review of the county may be completed by a reference to the 

 return for the archdeaconry of Huntingdon made at about this date.*' Here 

 a different policy seems to have been carried out. While thirteen graduates 

 were licensed, ten men of equal standing had no licence to preach, and this 

 fact suggests that a certain discrimination was used in this archdeaconry ; 

 all are said to be conformable, but the weight of the return on the point is 

 modified by this remark being also appended to the name of Richard 

 Chambers, vicar of Hitchin, who in another part of the document is 

 especially mentioned as a 'recusant.'" Besides these ten, fifty-six of the 

 clergy were not Hcensed, while of four more no details are given. 



Further instructions as to preaching were issued by the Bishop of 

 London in 1588, when ministers, if preachers, were 'urged to make some 

 exhortation every week ' at the time of prayer,"* while ' strait charge ' was to 

 be given to the ministers ' that they have not above one Sermon on any one 

 day.'" The synod of December 1586 had thought fit that certain articles 

 should ' be put into execution by the Bishops, though not a judicial act by 

 authority of Convocation.' '^ These articles provided for the attendance at 

 the exercises of such graduates as refused to preach after admonition by the 

 ordinary, for the preaching of twelve sermons yearly at the least by every 

 licensed preacher and for itinerant preachers, ' so that there may be in every 

 parish one Sermon at least every Quarter.' " These provisions seem to have 

 formed the basis of the action taken by the Archdeacon of London in 

 January 1586—7,'* but nothing was done in the archdeaconry of St. Albans 

 until the following winter. In the return then made it was reported that 

 under Mr. Thomas Wetherhead was a Mr. William Dyke, who ' preacheth 

 at St. Michaells but hath no cure, he is of no degree, he is only a deacon, 

 and licensed ... as he saith.' " From the first Dyke had been suspect," 

 but he had powerful friends and was maintained at St. Michael's by the 

 widow of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had prevailed on Cecil to recommend 

 him for a licence to the bishop." As the parishioners ingeniously put it in 



« Visit. 1586 (Lond. Epis. Reg.). 



*'^ Against the name of Nicholas Warde, the preacher here, is written ' aiiit.' 



<^ Visit. 1586 (Lond. Epis. Reg.). *" Lambeth MS. xii, no. 2. ■•' Ibid. 



^"^ Rec. of the OU Archd. of 5t. Albans, ki. "ibid. =2 ibid. 66. " Ibid. 67. 



" Strype, Life ofAylmer (ed. 1 821), 83-4. *5 ;;^^_ „ft^ Old Archd. of St. Albans, 69. 



"' As preacher of Coggeshall, Essex, he had been suspended and imprisoned for non-conformity 

 (Urwick, Nonconformity in Herts. 106). 



'^ Strype, Life ofAylmer (ed. 1821), 104, 202. For Dame Ann Bacon see Diet. Nat. Biog. Many of her 

 letters are printed by Spedding, The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, i. She was a convinced Puritan and 

 rej;arded Whitgift as 'the destruction of our church' (ibid. 112). Though a woman of violent temper she 

 acted with great kindness towards those of the Hertfordshire clergy who met with her approval (ibid. 31*). 



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