A HISTORY OF SURREY 



I have not found any repugning to the ordinances of the realm concerning re- 

 ligion, neither the ministers dissenting from the same, but conformmg themselves as 

 it was required of them, and in testification thereof have subscribed to the declaration 

 for uniformity of doctrine. Nevertheless I have found many absent, and many 

 churches destitute of incumbents and ministers. 



He found little defiance of the law, but some evasion of an answer 

 to his visitation inquiries ; and, above all, many parishes not served. 

 Thirty years of revolution had at any rate produced a state of inefficient 

 ecclesiastical administration. The machinery had been set right so often 

 that it naturally was working badly. 



A complete view of the condition of every single parish during 

 these thirty years would in many cases yield only negative results. The 

 institutions recoverable from the bishop's registers generally tell no story 

 of changes on account of opinion. Those for certain parishes however 

 have been selected, and are set out in an appendix to this article, partly 

 because in them there were suspicious deprivations or resignations, but 

 partly because some of them give rather remarkable instances of want of 

 disturbance. Summing up the cases here quoted, we see that in the Surrey 

 livings, and separately served chapelries, rather over 140 in number," no 

 indication of religious opinion strong lenough to lead to resistance to the 

 law, or to self-sacrificing resignation, is to be observed among the greater 

 number of incumbents. Some of the forty-two cases set forth below are 

 selected to show the want of religious zeal in cases where such feeling 

 might have been expected, being parishes where a man instituted in the 

 moment of victory of one set of opinions continued holding his benefice 

 during the victory of the opposite view. Others show that changes in a 

 critical year were caused by death vacancies. There remain six cases in 

 which dislike of Edward the Sixth's policy may have led to resignation 

 or deprivation ; sixteen cases in which Gardiner's return to power under 

 Mary may have been the cause ; one deprivation of unknown date, in 

 Great Bookham ; and eighteen cases in which Elizabeth's settlement might 

 have been the cause. But of this last set only eleven are deprivations, 

 and there is strong reason for thinking that some of them, especially in 

 Peperharow, one in Shalford, and one in Witley, were not on account 

 of recusancy. It must be added, to qualify the completeness of the 

 comparative view of changes at different times, that Poynet's Register 

 seems to be incomplete, and that the latter half of Gardiner's restored 

 episcopate is missing.^ It would not be fair however to double the 

 number, sixteen,* of deprivations, resignations and ^(?yW vacancies, which 

 probably mean deprivations, to arrive at the total of those in his time 

 caused by differences of religion. The first fourteen months of his 



^ S.P. Dom. Eliz. xvii. 23. 



« The parish of Cuddington was extinguished, two in Southwark were united in 1 538, some 

 chapelries were destroyed, some separately provided for. Perhaps 142 was the number of incum- 

 bencies which should have existed at Elizabeth's accession. 



» Both Gardiner's (restored) Register and Poynet's are only copies of the originals. Mr. Baigent 

 of Winchester considers them of James the First's time. 



♦ The resignation of Roger Norwode at Carshalton, instituted by Gardiner in 1553 and resigning 

 that year or early in 1554, cannot be taken into account as a resignation on the ground of religion. 



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