A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



and here again we read of no refusers of the oath or articles. On i8 and 

 19 October they sat at Manchester, the visitors now being Sandys, Harvey, 

 and George Browne. On the first of these days they heard a case of adultery 

 between George Holme and Elizabeth Robinson, and on the last day they 

 visited the college of Manchester. Instead of appearing, Lawrence Vaux, 

 the warden, sent a deputy, Stephen Beshe (Beck), who stated that Vaux had 

 gone to London.''' John Coppage, a fellow of the church, appeared not. 

 Robert Erlond (Ireland), another fellow, appeared and subscribed. Robert 

 Prestwich, a stipendiary priest, appeared and also subscribed, but was 

 threatened with suspension if he frequented taverns any more. Richard 

 Hart, another fellow of the college, appeared and obstinately and peremptorily 

 refused to subscribe the articles."* 



The rest of the visitation concerns the county of Chester. In the whole 

 diocese the visitors only made one institution, viz. the church of Langton in 

 Yorkshire ; in Lancashire they specify (counting Winwick and Wigan as one) 

 only eighteen clergy as absent (non comparentes) as follows : — 



Leyland Deanery. — Croston, Thomas Lemyng, vicar ; Leyland, Charles Wainwright, 

 vicar ; Eccleston, John Modye, rector. 



Warrington Deanery. — Winwrjck, Thomas Stanley, non-resident ; Wigan, the 

 bishop of Sodor and Man, non-resident ; Prcscot, Robert Nelson, curate ; Aughton, Edward 

 Morecroft, rector ; Halsall, Richard Halsall, vicar, and Henry Halsall, curate ; Sefton, 

 Robert Ballard, rector ; Ormskirk, Elizaeus Ambrose, vicar ; Walton, Antony Molyneux, 

 rector. 



FuRNEss Deanery. — Hawkshead, Richard Harris, curate (afterwards appeared) ; 

 Thomas Syngilton, stipendiary priest; Richard Ward, stipendiary priest (afterwards ap- 

 peared) ; Hugh Kellete, stipendiary priest. 



Manchester Deanery.— Prestwich, William Langley, rector (afterwards subscribed) ; 

 Rochdale, John Hamson, curate."" 



Of the seventeen non comparentes only Hamson of Rochdale was deprived. 



To these should doubtless be added Vaux, the warden, and Coppage, a 

 fellow of the college of Manchester. James Hargreaves, the noted ' papist ' 

 rector of Blackburn, was not deprived until 1562. In the absence of any 

 further notes of deprivations or resignations the presumption is that the rest 

 of the Lancashire clergy quietly acquiesced in the Elizabethan settlement. 



The visitation thus described is to be regarded as a purely temporary 

 outcome of the powers given by the Act of Supremacy to the queen to 

 appoint commissioners who should exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction. A more 

 permanent outcome was the fixed ecclesiastical commission sitting in London 

 which in Its first orm was created in July, 1559, and which began to sit in 

 the November following It was to this body that the temporary provincial 

 visitors as just described bound the recalcitrant clergy to^ppear Quite 

 different from both royal commissions were the episc^al visftations which 



^iJaS tt'icir::rrSher^ --^ ^p- of . 



Barlow of Barlon' HaU. " ^^^ ^^^'^^l assigned to the care of Alexand 



the 

 ex 



The commissioners took from him a reco!>nirqn<-». nf r,rs . j 

 I^ndon [before the Ecclesiastical Commission] r/oTo^^^^^^^^^ »>" »PPe-nce .r 



It was also presented to the commissioners that at Radrllffi- T„l, n\. . 



not read the Gospel, Epistle, &c. according to T. PrSama^^i Th '"' ^^l^u^"^' '^^ ^""'^' <^° 



presentations of non-residence and dilapidations tL r«^i? u"""''^ ^"^" ^""^^'^^ => ^w 



Manchester and two of the feUows, the viLnorRochdale and I '° .'''"' ''"° '^^^ "^^ -"den of 



their benefice,. " ^°'='''^='''= ^""^ Lancaster, and perhaps one or two others lost 



50 



