A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



eovernment. In March 162 1-2 the archbishop sent a general letter to 

 his suffragans in which he stated that the king had been ' informed that 

 divers Preachers have cast out words in the pulpit, as if there were some 

 danger that Religion should be changed amongst us, which cannot be esteemed 

 less than a seditious speech, and very scandalous unto the King.' ' The letter 

 was forwarded to the provinces, but no action seems to have been taken, and 

 five months later the archbishop addressed a further letter in which complaint 

 was made that 'divers young students, by reading of late writers and 

 ungrounded divines,' did ' broach many times unprofitable, unsound, seditious 

 and dangerous doctrines, to the scandal of this Church and disquieting of the 

 State and present government.'" The letter was accompanied by royal 

 directions which restricted Sunday afternoon sermons to points in the 

 Catechism, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, and 

 forbade political sermons and the preaching to a ' popular auditory = of ' the 

 deep points of Predestination, Election, Reprobation, or of the Universality, 

 Efficacy, Resistibility or IrresistibiHty of God's Grace.' ' These rules were 

 especially framed with a view to the control of the Lecturers, ' a new body 

 severed from the ancient Clergy of England, as being neither Parsons, Vicars, 

 nor Curates.'" The establishing of Lectureships was a recent phase of the 

 Puritan propaganda, and one which was obviously open to much abuse. 

 The ' Directions ' endeavoured to bring the lecturers under episcopal super- 

 vision by insisting that they should be hcensed ' in the Court of Faculties 

 only, upon recommendation of the party from the Bishop of the diocese under 

 his hand and seal, with a fiat from the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and 

 a confirmation under the Great Seal of England.'' It is difficult to say to 

 what extent the practice had spread in Hertfordshire at this date, but the 

 visitation of the archdeaconries of Middlesex and St. Albans in 1628 ^ gives 

 the names of preachers other than incumbents or curates at Stortford, Standon, 

 \Vare, St. Albans and Watford. Ware and St. Albans had both two of 

 these additional clergy, who in each case are characterized as schismatics. 

 At Widford and Wymondley appeared clergy of whom some suspicion was 

 entertained as to their being in fact lecturers, though put forward as curates, 

 but no evidence has been found to show whether further action was taken 

 in the matter. Laud as Bishop of London was fully alive to the importance 

 of keeping control over the lecturers, but he could not make his subordinates 

 appreciate his anxiety. There seems to have been considerable neglect in 

 the archdeaconry of St. Albans. In September 1630 the archdeacon had an 

 interview with Laud, who was seriously annoyed at the failure to certify the 

 names of the lecturers and their conformity to the royal directions. The 

 result was an urgent letter to the commissary that forms a curious comment 

 on the administration of affairs under Laud. ' What more particularly the 

 Official or you are to certify,' wrote the archdeacon, ' I doubt not but you 

 shall find in my Lord of London's Letter .... concerning that business. 

 I make no question but he was careful enough in the keeping of the Letter, 

 so that I hope you shall soon find it among his papers. Let me entreat 



2 Rec. of the Old Archd. of St. Albans, 147. « Ibid. ' Ibid. 149. • Ibid. 



' Ibid. 149-50. 



* Visit. 1628 (Lond. Epis. Reg.). 



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