A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



of St. Albans in May 1662 by the ejected William Haworth and interrupted 

 by the soldiery with fatal result aroused indignation which could only be 

 expressed for an exceptional occurrence.* 



Conventicles of the Independent persuasion were reported in 1669 as 

 being held at St. Albans, Sawbridgeworth, Rickmansworth and St. Paul's 

 Walden, but the preachers mentioned were undistinguished, and indeed some 

 of the most notable of the ejected had either died or left the county.' One 

 of the licences' granted to Independents in 1672 under the Declaration of 

 Indulgence was to an ejected minister. Nathaniel Eeles remained at 

 Harpenden after his ejection from that curacy until the passing of the Five 

 Mile Act,' when he himself moved to Bovingdon, leaving his wife and 

 children at their old home. In 1672 he obtained a licence for his house at 

 Harpenden,* and with the help of an assistant preached there and at Codicote 

 until his death in 1678.' 



From this time organized Nonconformity became a recognized fact, 

 though its legality was not ensured until 1688—9, when the Toleration Act sus- 

 pended the prosecuting laws in caseswherc Nonconformists attended an assembly 

 certified under the Act and took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance.'" 



A return of 17 15 speaks of Independent congregations at Bendish, 

 Bishop's Stortford, Barnet, Cheshunt, Hertford, Hitchin, Royston and 

 Theobalds ; that at Bishop's Stortford was said to have a congregation of 

 600 persons." Dissent had by this time a firm hold on the county, and the 

 Bishop of Lincoln noted " that among the parishes under his care Willian " 

 and Digswell alone were unaffected. At Harpenden there were 130 

 Dissenters, at Hertingfordbury about a quarter of its eighty-nine families, 

 at Totteridge fifty out of a hundred did not conform, while at Walkern were 

 eiyhty-four Dissenting families.'* 



Congregationalism continued to hold its own in the county, and between 

 1852 and 1884 no less than twenty-three new chapels were registered as 

 belonging to Congregational or Independent bodies." 



Presbyterianism, with its unccmpromising discipline, had never been 

 popular in Hertfordshire. The most distinguished leader in the county was 

 undoubtedlv Edmund Staunton, some time rector of Bushey, and from 1648 

 to the Restoration President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. '° On his 

 ejection from Oxtord in 1660 he settled at Rickmansworth, receiving there 



* See Cilamy, op. cit. ii, 300 ; Unvick, op. cit. 174-8. 



' Turner, Orig. Rec. of Er-rl-: Sonc:':/. i, 92 ; Urwick, op. c\x.. passim, e.g. Isaac Bedford, late vicar of 

 Willian, died in 1667 (Calamy, op. cit, ii, 315), Jeremiah liurwell, late vicar of St. Andrew's, Hertford, in 

 l6t)S (ibid. 308) ; Nathaniel Ball, late vicar of Royston, had settled in Essex (ibid. 311). 



"" The rest were to Mr. Jonathan Pitman's house in Theobalds ; Mr. Hill's house in Aybrook (Cross- 

 brook) Street, Chesh.im (Cheshunt) ; the house of Mr. Cusors (? Ewers) at Ponsbourne ; the house of 

 \^'idow Heath at Preston ; Mr. Thomas Polhil's house at ' Chesham ' (Turner, Orig. Rec. of Early Nonconf. i, 

 284, 304) ; the house of Thomas Morrice at Aihwell (ibid 319) ; the house of Sarah Adams at Hit hin, 

 of \\"il i.im Eeles at Flamstead, of — Cox at Hertford, of John Wheeler at Royston and of Robert Pembcrton 

 at St. Albans (Bate, DeiLrulion of Indulgence, App. vii, pp. xxxi, Lsix). 



' Stat. 17 Chas. II, cap. 2. ' Ctil. S. P. Dom. 1672, p. 237. ' Urwick, op. cit. 419-20. 



1° Stat. I \M11. and Mar}-, cap. 18. Cases still occurred of prosecutions for absence from church fir any 

 other place of public worship (Quarter Sess. R. [Hert;. Co. Rec.], ii, 24, 30), and schoolmasters teaching 

 'gr.iir.mar ' were still required to produce episcopal licence (Visit. 171 5 [Lond. Epis. Reg.]). 



" Add. MS. 32057, fol. 83. 12 'Speculum Dioecesis' (Alnwick To'.ver, Line). 



1' But in January 1714-15 licence was applied for for the house of John Necdham here as a place of 

 worship for Protestant Dissenters (Urwick, op. cit. 629). " 'Speculum Dioecesis' (Alnwick Tovscr, Line). 



" Urwick, op. cit. 834-7. " Mayo, Life and Death of Edmund Staunton, 16. 



