A HISTORY OF SURREY 



A cardinal misconception in the minds of modern writers of strong 

 religious prejudices is the supposition that the majority of Enghsh people 

 between, we will say, 1529 and 157° were either Romanists or Protest- 

 ants in the commonly accepted sense of the words as used to-day. There 

 were a few saints and there were more fanatics, and there were clear- 

 sighted men who saw from the first whither arguments and divisions 

 tended. To support the king's or the queen's government however was 

 a more generally operating desire than any preference for this or that 

 theological opinion. In certain parts of England there were reasons why 

 real religious opinions should be stronger than they were in others. In 

 more backward and primitive counties the influence of the monasteries 

 and of the clergy in general was strong, and the clergy were generally 

 conservative, and the monasteries were, while they lasted, absolutely 

 opposed to the royal supremacy and to all religious change. In the 

 trading towns and in the trading counties round the sea coast from 

 Norfolk to Sussex religious opinions from the Netherlands and Germany 

 came in the tracks of commerce, and foreign sectaries themselves were to 

 be found. Surrey was not exactly in either of these categories, but was 

 probably a fair epitome of the rest of England. The more remote 

 country places were primitive enough to share old-fashioned opinions. 

 The places along the Thames were open to London influence, In the 

 course of time the places where the cloth trade flourished, Guildford 

 Godalming and the neighbourhood, were touched by new opinions. The 

 glassmakers of Chiddingfold and Alfold — in the latter place French glass- 

 makers, probably Huguenots, were buried in the churchyard — and even 

 the workers in gunpowder and iron manufacturies were open to the 

 influence of foreigners. Most of the foreigners in England, from Edward 

 the Sixth's time onward, were Calvinists or Anabaptists. But the 

 religious influences of London were not strongly marked among the 

 population of the Surrey suburbs. Southwark, Bermondsey and Lambeth 

 were a stronghold of great ecclesiastics and religious houses, upon whom 

 a multitude of people depended for employment. Two archbishops, two 

 bishops and five abbots had houses there, besides the local monasteries. 

 The rest of the population along the riverside, and perhaps some of this 

 ecclesiastically - dependent population, was so notoriously disreputable 

 owing to the sanctuaries and separate jurisdictions which hampered 

 justice, as to be quite outside any religious opinion whatever. 



The number of persons who died for their religion in Surrey was 

 inconsiderable and most of them cannot be taken to represent local 

 opinion. Frequented highways were a favourite place of execution, 

 when no newspaper reporter existed and the vigour of government 

 required a public advertisement. St. Thomas' Waterings on the Kent 

 road was a good place at which to hang a denier of the royal supremacy 

 because so much of the traflSc from the southern counties to London 

 Bridge and back again passed by it. But it is no more certain that 

 because a man was hanged there he belonged to Surrey than it is that a 

 man hanged at Tyburn belonged to Middlesex. Be that as it may, Surrey 



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