ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



of the type of the movement as well as its more immediate founder. He 

 protected his diocese from the harsher repression which was practised in the 

 south,''' and it was doubtless on his initiative that the attempt was made to 

 establish regular exercises in Lancashire. The device was a state device, 

 imposed from above, and its object was to promote the evangelization of 

 the county with the idea of stemming the rising tide of Roman CathoHc 

 reaction.''' The following is an example : In February, 1585-6, exercises 

 were to be held on successive Thursdays at Prescot, Bury, Padiham, and some 

 place north of the Ribble, four of the neighbouring parsons being moderators 

 in each case. 



We have it on Neal's authority that the attempt was abortive.''* If so, 

 it could only have been because the type of Puritanism in the county was too 

 moderate even for such an institution."^ The general type of Puritan clergy 

 there at this time was that of the painful, godly, but conformist kind, men 

 who resided and preached diligently and whose Puritanism showed itself 

 mainly in their attitude towards the Sunday sports and immorality of the 

 people. The scattered State Papers which describe the want of preaching 

 ministers in the county towards the end of Elizabeth's reign emanate from 

 these men ; mainly, probably, from Edward Fleetwood the rector of Wigan."* 



Under the first Stuarts the religious history of Lancashire enters on a 

 period of apparent quiet. But under the surface of that quiet a decisive 

 change was slowly accomplishing itself. On the one hand the Roman 

 Catholic reaction which had been inaugurated by the missionary zeal of the 

 Elizabethan seminary priests lost its force and the Catholic interest decayed. 

 On the other hand the forces of Puritan nonconformity gathered strength. 

 The proof of the first of these assertions consists in the figures of recusancy 

 and in scattered statements by justices and others as to the state of the county."^ 

 Even as early as December, 1604, the justices of Lancashire, in a petition in 

 favour of the Nonconformist ministers there, state that as a result of the 

 preaching of these men the county, which in the beginning of Elizabeth's 

 reign was overgrown with Popery, is now so reformed that many are become 

 unfeigned professors of the Gospel and many recusants are yearly conformed.'" 

 In 1609 Sir Edward Phelips reports to Salisbury his proceedings on the 

 northern circuit, testifying to the quiet state of the four northern counties, 



'*' Brook, Lives of the Puritans, iii, 509. 



^ The scheme of these exercises is printed in Strype, Annals, ii (2), 547-8. 



^ Hist, of the Puritans, i, 301. 



'" With the eiception of Midgeley, who was himself by no means extreme, there is hardly a provable 

 instance of nonconformity. When William Langley, rector of Prestwich, was summoned before Bishop 

 Chaderton in July, 1 591, he made his submission. And again when Edward Walshe vicar of Blackburn was 

 questioned at Chester in Sept. 1 596, for the surplice, he did not refuse to wear it. Midgeley's own resignation 

 in 1595 was apparently quite voluntary. He gave up his rectory to his son. 



^ S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 122, No. 21 ; ibid. vol. 31, No. 4.7 (wrongly calendered under the date 1563) ; 

 vol. 266, No. 138 ; this latter printed in Lydiate Hall, 262, and the paper from the Tanner MSS. 

 144, p. 28, printed in Chet. Misc. vol. v. The signatures to this last-named paper probably give us the 

 measure of the Puritanism of the county under Elizabeth. It has sixteen names of rectors, vicars, and others. 

 Their names, otherwise comparatively unknown, are a guarantee of the non-militant and moderate type of the 

 Puritanism of the county ; and such continued to be its characteristic throughout the remainder of Elizabeth's 

 reign. It speaks volumes for the wisdom, not merely of the bishop, but also of the Privy Council, that the 

 reign closed without any further attempt at disturbing them. 



^'' Under James the practice of making grants to individuals of particular persons' recusancy fines was 

 resorted to frequently. For the particulars of such grants relating to Lancashire see Cal. S.P. Dom. Jas. I, i, 

 383-4, 389-90, 394, 416, 419, 486, 530, 587, 621 ; ii, 440 ; i i, 150. 



'»» S.P. Dom. Jas. I, vol. 10, No. 62. 



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