LIFE OF LORD SCUDAMORE. 
81 
In a MS. book at Holme Lacy, containing the names of persons, who compounded for their 
Estates during Cromwell’s Usurpation, in the following entry : 
“Scudamore, Lord Viscount John, and James, his son ... ... ^1690 ” 
which may very possibly have been the composition fee without the charges of Sequestration. 
On Lord Scudamore’s return into Herefordshire, the condition of public affairs had greatly 
changed. The King had just been surrendered by the Scotch into the hands of the Presbyterians, and 
was a prisoner at Holmby House in Northamptonshire : the Presbyterians ruled the Parliament, 
which was in high dispute with the army: Laud had been executed ; the Bishops were set aside ; 
and the clergy everywhere oppressed. In the city of Hereford and in his own neighbourhood the 
Cathedral and the Churches had been defaced and mutilated, and all the most faithful Ministers of 
the Church had been ejected from their livings to make way for the “ Preaching Ministers ” appoin¬ 
ted by an Ordinance of the Commonwealth for the City and County of Hereford, March 28th, 1646. 
He thus found many of those friends he esteemed most highly, in great distress, and as far as his 
own circumstances would allow, was most kind and charitable to a great many of them. His house 
at Holme Lacy was always open to them ; and he gave “ Annual Pensions to some of the Canons, 
Prebendaries , and Vicars Choral of the Church, and divers of the Parochial Clergy of the Diocese of 
Hereford: viz., to some of them ten, to others eight, to others six Pounds a Year.” 
(Gibsons “ Dored &c., p. 111.) 
In later years he sent considerable sums for distribution to sequestered Ministers of the Church 
in other parts of the kingdom. 1 Fuller in his “ Worthies of England ” speaking of his Lordship 
says “ During the Tyranny of the Protectorian Times he kept his secret loyalty to his Sovereign” 
(Fol. 4 - 7 ) : h e s P ea k s of his kindness to loyalists in prison: and then gives the following 
examples of his Lordship’s “Charity to the distressed Clergy, whom he bountifully relieved.” 
Among them were some of the highest Order and Dignity in the Church. “To Dr. Wrenn, 
Bishop of Ely, his Lordship gave sometimes f^o, sometimes ^100 at once”: to Dr. Bramhall, 
Bishop of Derry, he also gave liberally: “ to Dr. Stern (afterwards Archbishop of York,) Chaplain 
to his friend Archbishop Laud, and attendant upon him at his Martyrdom, he always allowed Twenty 
pounds a yeard Dean Fuller, Dean King, and the names of upwards of twenty others, are also 
given by Gibson, as receiving contributions from him. “The arrears of the Llanthony Tythes 
formed part of the fund out of which the distressed Clergy were so bountifully relieved during 
the tyranny of the Protectorian Times. In 1652 his Lordship charged himself with ^1200 from 
this Source. It was spent every year in gifts and pensions to poor ejected Bishops and inferior 
Clergy.” (Gibsons “ Dore,” Cfc., p. 168.) Thus Bishops, Deans, Canons, and Parochial Clergy in 
their distress were indebted almost for bare sustenance to the kind munificence of Lord Scudamore. 
“ I am but a Steward ” he would say, if any one alluded to his generosity. 
To the Cathedral at Hereford, and to the Cathedral Clergy, he was always generous. He gave 
^100 at one time : timber for the roof of the buildings: and many valuable books to the Cathedral 
Library, after it had been ransacked by the rebels in the Civil War. 2 To several of the Cathedral 
1 Among the Scudamore MSS. at the British Museum, is a letter of thanks from Dr. Hammond, for ;£ioo sent by Lord 
Scudamore to him, to relieve the distressed Clergy. 
2 Among the same MSS. at the British Museum, is also an Acquittance of John Clarke, Custos of the College of 
Hereford, for an Act Book of the Dean and Chapter, preserved, and restored by Lord Scudamore after the Usurpation. 
