336 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Not content with taking away its emoluments, the unfortunate 
vicars were actually compelled to pay up the yearly sum hitherto 
reserved to the patrons on presentation. 
The letters patent of Elizabeth, dated 20th February, 1572, 
recite that the Vicarage of Plymouth was in arrear to the Crown 
£112, payable out of the same vicarage, as being parcel of the 
Priory of Plympton, &c. ; that the revenues of the aforesaid 
vicarage, so burthened with the annual payment and arrears, were 
unable to maintain a vicar to perform the said cure, and that on 
account of the small annual value of the said vicarage no incum- 
bent could be found to undertake the said cure, and that neither 
the arrears could be raised, nor the pension paid by any incumbent 
out of the same ; and then the Queen granted to the mayor and 
commonalty the arrears of the said pension, the advowson of 
the vicarage and church, and the annual pension, the mayor and 
commonalty and their successors for ever finding a fit person to 
serve the cure, and supporting a free grammar school within the 
said town of Plymouth, and so on. 
And thus, somewhat ignominiously I think, concludes the story 
of St. Andrew's church and its connection with old Plymouth. 
And yet, in spite of the confusion,, charity was not altogether 
dead, nor men's hearts entirely hardened, by what was going on 
around. John Howe (not the last Prior of Plympton, he was 
enjoying his annuity in peace and quietness at Exeter College, 
Oxford) gave some church vestments to John Eord and John Derry, 
to be sold, and the produce to be distributed among the poor 
according to their wisdom and discretion. This was in 1563. We 
have no knowledge as to who John Howe was ; but he was proba- 
bly a priest connected with some of the religious establishments 
in the town. 
During the disturbances in the reign of Edward VI., and again 
during the Rebellion, all the churches of Devonshire suffered to a 
very great extent, and many of the crosses and images both inside 
and outside the churches were destroyed. Indeed, there can be no 
question but that comparatively little injury was done to the fabrics 
of those churches which were suffered to remain at the time of the 
Reformation. The greatest part of the mischief was the handy- 
work of the Puritans in the 17th century. It is said that the 
marks of the bullets fired at the images of saints in the niches of 
the tower can be seen at the present moment. 
