A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



^ where only . 3 persons have been ^^^^'f^^ltZTon^ 



ternal cause for such decav was "'^'^^^b^^'lly V^t^^^rrn sTionl^y the Jesuits - 



themselves consequent -P°V^\''P'ri °hn/vS th^dos^^ of Eliza- 



a division which rent asunder the whole body from the closmg u ; 



he.r Burof these dissensions we catch few glimpses m Lancashire. 



'"Nvhi't lltn CathoHcism in the county was thus e-ermg on a pe 



of decUne, Puritanism was slowly g-^^g^ -^g^ p'^ fs outZd^ of 

 process is ^'^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



!j:Sr^SSeS:Sl^l^i^^^^ of La.. Wheth^r 



or not any of the Lancashire clergy advocated the Millenary Petition at the 

 adven of James we do not know. But incidental -f -^ j^/^^"; 7,^ 

 made in the Hampton Court Conference itself. On the third day of the 

 "nf rence, 18 JanLy, 1603-4, Lawrence Chadderton, ^-self a Lane h 

 man, requested that the surplice and the cross in baptism might not be urged 

 sime^odly ministers in Lancashire, particularly instancing the vicar of 



o J , ,. , , A _1_1_!_1 ■\X7"U«<-rvi H- coin t 



R^hrief ry^u^' ;r MidgSey. Archbishop Whitgift said that he could 

 not have moved for a more unlucky instance, because of his irreverent admini- 

 stration of the Supper not many years before.- In spite of the archbishop s 

 uncompromising attitude James consented that the bishop of Chester should 

 be written to to give the ministers time and to confer with them with a view 

 to induce them to conform. The conference was followed in March 1604, by 

 Tames's proclamation enjoining conformity to the Prayer Book and by another 

 proclamation of 16 July, 1604. Later in the year,«^ 10 December the Privy 

 Council wrote to the bishops to give order that on the expiry of jhe time 

 limited for conformity of ministers the refusers were to be deprived.'""' Two 

 months later the judges stated their opinion to the Ecclesiastical Commission 

 on the question of the legality of depriving such ministers.'"' It is not easy 

 to construct a clear account of what followed. Neal says"'' that after James's 

 proclamation of July, 1604, there were twenty-one Nonconformist or non- 

 subscribing ministers in Lancashire. This has been magnified by later writers 

 into a statement that the whole twenty-one were deprived. The discoverable 

 evidence does not bear out the statement. On 3 October, 1604, the bishop 

 of Chester (Richard Vaughan) summoned before him at least nine of the Lanca- 

 shire clergy. They duly appeared, were admonished and ordered to conform 

 before 28 November following. On that day they were to appear again and 



'^ S.P. Dom. Jas. I, vol. 48, No. 2;. 



•* The Jesuit missions, which at first had been governed hy vice-prefects resident in England, were 

 erected in 1619 into a vice-province, which three years later was divided into twelve districts or ideal colleges, 

 certain revenues being allotted to each as the nucleus of a later coUcge when the times should favour it. In 

 1 62 J the English vice-province was erected into a regular province and Father Blount became the first 

 provincial. Of the twe've quasi-coUeges which had been outlined in 1622 only three came immediately into 

 existence, viz. those of London, Lancashire, and South Wales. The Lancashire district was known as the 

 college of St. Aloysius, and up to the year 1 66 1 it included Lancashire, Cheshire, Westmorland, and Stafford. 

 In that year Stafford was divided from it and made into a distinct residence, and subsequently in 1672 into a 

 college (St. Chad). 



'^^ Stnpe, L:fi ofWhit^ft, ii, 499 ; Barlow, 'Sum of the Conference,' printed in the Phoenix, i, 176. 



"^ S.P. Dom. Jas. I, vol. 10, Xo. 61. 



*" It would 3ppe.ir to be this order which produced the petition of the Lancashire justices to the king 

 which has been quoted in the text. 



'^^ S.P. Dom. Jas. I, vol. 12, No. 73, 13 Feb. 1604-5. ^" Hist, of the Puritans, i, 418. 



60 



