4 



Facts relating to Marlborough. 



in the Churoh at Awborno, and therovpon his highness hath required me to take 

 p u scnt order therein. —These are to let you know that both according to the 

 Iniuncions giuen out in the Raigne of Q,ueene Elizabeth for the placing of the 

 Communion Tables in Churches, and by the 82 Canon agreed upon in the first 

 yeare of the Raigne of King James of Blessed Memory, it was intimated that 

 these Tables should ordinarily be sett and stand with the side to the East wall 

 of the Chauncell. I therefore require you, the Churchwardens, and all other 

 persons', not to meddle with the bringing downe or transposing of the Comunion 

 Table as you will answere it at your owne perill. — And because some doe 

 ignorantly suppose that the standing of the Comunion Table where Altars stood 

 in time of Sup.stition has some relish of Popery, and some p. chance may as 

 erroniously conceiue that the placing thereof otherwise when the Holy Comunion 

 is administered savs ,s of Irreuerence : I would haue you take notice from the 

 fore named Iniunction and Canon, from the Rubricke pr e fixed before the 

 administracon of the Lord's supper, and from the first Article not long since 

 inquired of in the Visitacon of our most Reuerend Metropolitan, that the placing 

 of it higher or lower in the Chauncell or in the Church, is by the iudgment of 

 the Church of England a thing indifferent, and to be ordered and guided by the 

 only Rule of Conuenientie. 



Now because in things of this nature, to iudge and determine what is most 

 couenient, belongs not to priuate persons, but to those that have Ecclesiasticall 

 authority ; I inhibit yo u the Church Wardens, and all other persons wha* soeuer, 

 to meddle with the bringing downe of the Comunion Table, or with altering the 

 place thereof at such times as the holy supp. is to be administered, and I require 

 you herein to yeeld obedience vnto what is already iudged most conuenient by 

 my Chauncellor, vnless vpon further consideration and viewe it shall be other- 

 wise ordered. Now to the end that the Minister may neither be ouertoyled, nor 

 the people indecently and inconueniently thronged together when they are to 

 drawe neire and take the Holy Sacrament, and that the frequent celebratio. 

 thereof may never the lesse be continued, I doe further appoint, that thrice in 

 the yeare at the least, there be publique notice giuen in the Church, for fower 

 Comunions, to be held upon fower Sundaies together, and that there come not 

 to the Comunion in one day, above two hundred at the Most. For the better 

 obseruation whereof, and that euery man may know his prop, time, the Curate 

 shall diuide the Parishioners into fower parts, according to his discretio., and as 

 shall most fittingly serue to this purpose. And if any turbulent spirits shall 

 disobey this our Order, hee shall be proceeded against according to the quality 

 of his fault and Misdemeanor. — In witness whereof I have hereunto set my 

 hand and Seale Episcopall, this seventeenth day of May, 1637, and in the yeare 

 of our consecration the sixteenth.*" 



St. Peter's Church. — This is a Rectory, and had in it (2 Edw. 

 6, 1548) a Jesus service, 1 of which John Burdsey was the Priest ;| 



» This injunction is referred to by Archbishop Laud in " Laud's speech at the censure of Basterwick \ 

 in his works vol. 2. p. 80, and will be printed in the Oxford edition of Laud's works, edited by th^ 

 Rev. J. Bliss, M.A., vol. 6, p. 60. 



1 The " Jesus Psalter," as used at the present day in the Church of Rome will 

 be found in Bishop Challoner's " Garden of the Soul" above referred to. This[ 

 Psalter consists of fifteen petitions, and, the name of jesus being repeated tei 

 times before each of them, the repetition is made thrice fifty times. 



