ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



your care that we hear no more of it, for the displeasure upon further 

 neglect will fall heavy upon whomsoever.' ° 



As the visitation of 1628 ^^ was the first held by Laud as Bishop of 

 London it is particularly regrettable that no returns exist beyond a bare list 

 of names. Against these, however, occasional notes have been made, and 

 the degrees of each man are noted as well as cases of absence from reasonable 

 cause. The incumbents of Hunsdon, Great and Little Hormead, Stocking 

 Pelham and Bishop's Stortford are noted as schismatics, together with the 

 curates of Stortford and Standon and also Thomas Owen," one of the two 

 curates of Ware under Charles Chauncey. It is remarkable that with a single 

 exception the beneficed clergy thus singled out held their livings until their 

 death.^' In the case of Nathaniel Morris, M. A., rector of Stocking Pelham, no 

 entry in the episcopal registers occurs for his immediate successor, and it thus 

 appears probable that Morris held the living until the Commonwealth period." 

 If so he must have become more conformable, though special inquiries were 

 directed to be made in the metropolitan visitation of 1636—7 concerning the 

 incumbents of Stocking Pelham, Furneux Pelham and Albury." 



The enforcing of ecclesiastical order both on clergy and laity rested 

 with the courts of the bishop and archdeacon. Various efforts had been 

 made towards reform, but the officials stood in the way," and the courts 

 gradually lost their effective power, the tendency being either to bring to 

 bear personal influence or to appeal to the Court of High Commission. 

 The position of the Consistory Courts is exemplified by the case of certain 

 parishioners of Walkern who petitioned Archbishop Laud in 1637. Their 

 rector, John Gorsuch, D.D., had some trouble at Christmas 1636 over the 

 question of communicating at the altar rails, and on the eve of Good Friday 

 Thomas Humberstone and his wife went to Dr. Gorsuch ' and acquainted 

 him with their purpose of receiving the Holy Communion on the next day. 

 They paid him their accustomed offerings on Good Friday, and drew all of 

 them out of the church into the body of the chancel, and there kneeling 

 desired to be partakers thereof, but were refused by the Doctor and his curate, 

 unless they would come up to the rail.' They then applied to Holdsworth, 

 archdeacon of Huntingdon, who saw Gorsuch on the subject, and wrote ' a 

 persuasive letter to them to reform their carriage.' Thereupon they addressed 

 a petition to Williams as Bishop of Lincoln, begging his intervention. The 

 bishop, whose views on the position of the altar were widely known through 

 his book. The Holy Table: Name and Thing, at once took the part of the 

 parishioners, saying of Gorsuch that it was ' a bold part in him and more in 

 his curate to deny the communion upon such weak foundations,' and 

 requiring him ' to warn a communion and to administer the same to as 

 many of those parties as shall present themselves, in any part of the church, 



» Rec. of the Old Archd. of St. Albans, 155. i" Visit. 1628 (Lond. Epis. Reg.). 



^^ Thomas Owen may have moved into the diocese of Lincoln, for one of that name was curate of 

 King's Walden in 1630 (Urwick, op. cit. 667), of Datchworth in 1635-40 (ibid. 574). He was given the 

 living of Bramfield in 1643 {Commons' J cum. iii, 134), was ejected in 1660, complied, and was presented to 

 Sandridgein 1661 (Urwick, op. cit. 332). Thomas Leigh, curate of Stortford, apparently remained there 

 (ibid. 124; cf. 696, 699 n.). 



^ Newcourt, Repert. i, 836, 838, 840, 896. ^' Ibid. 857. 



1* S. P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxxix, 53 ; ccccli, 100. By order of Laud a special charge was sent to the 

 Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's that they should take better care of their peculiars (ibid.). 



1' cf. Rec. of the Old Archd. of St. Albans, 1 19-21. 



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