THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^<"' v< v.^- I *.f\ ■::..■:■: ... -■'; ■ ;.- Kj:^'','"";,-'-."' ■■■,'•■ %■ '' "^'■' ■■' ■ ,V':'^.'^■;■ THOMAS KEN, D.D. ATTFR THK VORTRAIT FXGRWKD BY VlBTrK. irrint Room, British Museum.) THE LIFE OE THOMAS KEN, D.D. BISHOP OF BATH AND JFELLS By E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. DEAN OF WELLS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. IVHYMPER " Of whom the worhl was not worthj*." Isti sunt triiiniphatores et amici Dei, qui, contomnentes jiissa prinoipum, meruLTunt prasinia icterna : Modo coronantur et accipiunt palmam. Isti sunt qui venerunt ex magna tribulatione ot laverunt stolas suas in sanguine Agni : Modo Coronantur et accipiunt palmaiu." IX TWO VOLVMES VOL. I. §cconb ^-Iiittou '2lcx1i^o^ WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS TO QUEEN MARY AND OTHERS LONDON AVm. I SB I ST KU Limited 15 & IC TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN 1890 WELLS CATHEDRAL. A.D. 1710. Weary ami worn, and bc-nt with years and pain, A pale form kneels upon that altar-stair ; Long years have flown since from his pastoral chair, — Hot thoupht-i, low .sobs, hnlf-choking protest vain, — He stepped, nor tliought within that glorious fane, Once more to tread, and breathe the words of prayer, Or hear sweet anthems floating on the air. T\wn was it hard to balance los.s and gain : Now all is clear, and from his Pisgah height He sees the dawning of a brighter day. And le»l(. d to print forty-eight, as compired with Bowles's twelve. On the otht'r hand the letters are given without a single note to explain their connexion with Ken's life, and without any attempt to fix the ytar in which they were written, where Ken, as was his custom, h;id given only the month and day. In many cases, as will be seen on a comparison with the etquenre in which they are placini in these volumes, he gives them in what is demonstrablv a wrong order, and thus involves the reader in almost inextricable confusion. ' When Mr. Bowles published his first volum*', the only letter of Ken's of whii.h he knew anything was that to Dr. Nicholas (No. I. in this volume^. In PREFACE. ix man " (whom I am now able, with the permission of his family, to name as Mr. John Lavicount Anderdon), pos- sessed merits of a far higher order. It was the fruit of the loving labours of many years, and of research, which, as far as his opportnnities went, was accurate and thorough. While liowlcs had lamented, when he entered on his work, that there was only one letter of Ken's known to exist, Mr. Anderdon, in his second edition, published in two volumes in 1854, not only incorporated some of the forty- eight published by Mr. Eound in the work, above mentioned, but added, in whole or in part, others which he had found in the liodleian Library at Oxford, and elsewhere. But that edition was out of print. It was not easy to get copies at second-hand booksellers. And in the interval that had passed since its publication, the labours of the Historical MSS. Com- mission, of which Mr. Anderdon knew nothing, and of the authorities of the Bodleian Library and the British Museum, had brought to light many others in the Long- leat, the Dartmouth, the Morrison, and other private collections.^ Our own records in the Chapter Ads of Wells supplied also some new and interesting materials. Facts communicated by others enabled me to tc^ll the the interval which followed he became acquainted with tliose to ^Irs. Griggo in the Malet MHS. ; with those to Hooper in Mrs. Prowsc'a MS. nicinoir of h.r father ; and with the copious correspondence with Lloyd in the Williams MSS. Of all ihcse, however, he only jirints twelve, and niake.s no attempt to trace out witli any fulness the history which they suggest. lli« chief contributions in addition to these are (1) some fairly copious extracts from Mrs. Trowso's Memoir, and (2) a copy of Ken's Will. Neither he nor Round ihouglt it worth while to give an Index. 1 Anderdon, in his second edition, prints only twenty-four letters. The ROrond edition of the present volmncs contiiins ninety-one. His firKt editu.n, like Bowles's Uj'c, was without an Index, but the want was bupplied in the bccoiid. X PREFACE. talc of some iutorosting episodes in Ken's life, notably those in chapter xxiv., liitlierto Ijiit littl(! known. And HO in tlic mituiini of 1SS| J entered on my work, and wrote on till I had hr()U<;ht my story to the Bisliop's arrival at W(>lls, and the part \\v took in connexion with the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. Then my labours were, for a time, suspended. On taking a survey of the tasks I had in hand, I came to the conclusion that another, on which I had been engaged, off and on, for twenty years, had a prior claim on me. I was unwilling that it should be said of me in regard to that work, '' This man began to build, and was not able to finish." AVhen, however, my Dante labours were completed, I lost no time in resuming those on the life of Ken, and on the self-same day which brought me an early copy of the second volume of the one, I sent off to the printer the first chapter of the other. The delay which has thus been interposed between the beginning and the completion of my work has had one result, not contemplated when I began, on which I think I may congratulate myself, i.e. that it has brought the publication of these volumes to 1S88, the bi-centenary of the trial of the Seven 13ishops, and of the devolution, of which that trial was the starting point. I can conceive no better contribution to the commemoration of that bi-centenary than a fairly adequate presentation of the life and character of one who was foremost among the leading actors in it, who was also foremost among the chief sufferers from it.^ 1 Strictly speaking, of course, there has been no commemoration of either of the two events. Even in the proceedings of ihe I^mbeth Conference, where one mii;ht most have expected some recognition of the worth of the Seven Bishops, and which held ita first solemn meeting on the anniversary of the Trial, I have PREFA CE. xi How far I Lave succeeded in producing such a pre- sentation it is, of course, for others to judge. I will content myself with words which were once used by one who entered on the like task of narrating what seemed to him a great and glorious revolution, " If I have done well and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired ; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto." I have felt, I need scarcely say, the difficulty of dealing with a period of history so full of the strifes of parties, so critical in its bearing on the life of the English people. I cannot flatter myself that I shall be able to satisfy the prepossessions of those who, though far removed from that great drama in point of time, have yet inherited, on either side, the principles and emotions which were then dominant. I have found myself unable to offer incense on the altar of Macaulay's apotheosis of William III. While I rejoico in the results of the Eevolution of 1688, I cannot look upon it as "glorious" as regards either the chief actors in it, or the means by which it was brought about. As with the parallel case of the Eeformation, I see a great good effected by men of very mixed motives, often imscru- pulous and base in their use of means. And the view which I take of that great good is not altogether the traditional one. I cannot simply exult in our final sever- ance from the historical continuity of Latin ChristcMidoiii, though I admit that this was inevitabl(\ 1 find in it something more than an onward step in the triumph of failed to find a single word spoken referring to the issues of that faloful day. One could scarcely find a more striking iiiRtancc "f ihc nnilabilitics of history. xii PREFA CE. Whig, or Lil)('ral, or democratic principles. The gain of the Refonn:ilii)n was that it saved England prospectively from the dominion of Jesuitism ; that of the Revo- lution was that it put an end then, and one may hojio for ever, to the long struggle which Jesuitism had made to regain its ascendancy. But Avitli the gain there was also loss. The Revolution, like the Refonnation, has left its wounds, as yet but partly licalcd, in our own ecclesiastical and religious life in England. It left to the Church the inheritance of a cold and sceptical Erastianism, of a worship in which then^ was little of the beauty of holiness, of a theology which was neither Evangelical nor Catholic, of a rivalry with Dissent in which she has not always had the advantage. And here also, as before with the gains which are to be set on the credit side of the account, I distinguish between the system and the men. The Society of Jesus has produced saints and martyrs of whom the world was not worthy. The system of Jesuitism has exercised a baneful influence, wherever its power has been felt, on the lite- rature, the art, the politics, the nu»ral and spiritual life, of Europe. Among the lessons which the recol- lection of 1G88 ought to teach us, one, at least, is the danger of once more coming under that influence. Englishmen should learn not to build again the things they have destroyed, and to resist the temptation to "please themselves in the chikLren of strangers." * 1 The mottoes which I have placed at the head of each chapter will remind not a few readers of a time when the great leader of the t>xford movement, which, for good or evil, has so largely affected the theology and the worship of the Church of England during the last half-centiiry, !>eemed to have learnt Irom the history of the period that followed I he Restoration, both in England and abroad, the lessons which Ken learnt from ihcm. I have ahown in the closing PREFACE. xiii Xor can I hope tliat I shall altogether satisfy those who have been contented to accept the traditional estimate of Ken's character. I do not own to bi'in*?, by one jot or tittle, a less reverent admirer of his saintliness than my predecessors, but I see that saint- liness from a different point of view. They dismiss the four volumes of Ken's poetical works, including two epics, with suj)ercilious indifference. I have found in them an almost priceless store of material. I accept as authentic, and as throwing light on his character, works ascribed to him in his own time, which they summarily reject as utterly unworthy of him. I can only say, by way of apologia, that when I entered on my work, I shared in the jirejudices — the prcejudlcia, judgments formed prior to investigation — ^^'llich I inherited from them, and that the conclusions to which I have been brought have been formed slowly and deliberately, and, as it seems to me, on adequate evidence. ^ It remains that I should acknowledge my indebted- ness to those who have contributed to the completeness chapter of my work how largelj' Cardinal Newman's reverence for Ken entered into his thoughts and feelings in those memorable years of which we have tha narrative in the Apologia. The more I read of the poems in the Lyra Apostolica, in which he gave utterance to his deepest emotions, the more they soomed to me to reproduce, with infinitely greater power, what Ken, in his time, muflt have felt and thought. We may mourn that, later on, the parallelism bccunio the gentry of the county. In wliat relation Ken's father stood to the last repre- sentatives of the direct line, tlie dauf^liters and co-heiresses of Christopher Kenn, there is, so far as I have heen able to trace, no direct evidence to show,' but we can believe, without much risk of error, that the fact that Lord Poulett, who married one of them, took the Royalist side in the disputes between Charles I. and his Parliament, and afterwards suffered severely for his loyalty, would predispose the London branch of the family, so far as they believed themselves to be connected with him, in that direction. The occupation of Ken, the father of the Bishop, who is described as being of Furnival's Inn, and at once an attorney and a member of the Company of Barber Surgeons,- indicates that he belonged to the pro- fessional middle class, but of his life we know little or nothing beyond these few and not very suggestive facts. On the mother's side, however, we meet with a name of somewhat greater interest. lon^ Chalkhill, her father, occupied a not unworthy place in the goodly company of poets that were the glory of the Elizabethan period. He was the friend of Spenser ; Izaak Walton quotes two of his songs* Refpstry at Wells connected with his Episcopate, and is frequent in contemporary publications, and even on the title-pages of his books alter his decease. The name appears in Ken (or Caen) Wood, Harapstcad (Peck's Hist, of Hampstead). ' See Note A on Ken Genealogies at end of Chapter. ' Probably, as with other City Companies, membership had then, as in later times, ceased, partially or altogether, to be connected with professional occupi- tion, and was sought as a means of obtaining the freedom of the City and other incidental advantages. The registers of the Barbers' Hall record the admis- sion of Matthew Kenne in 1583 ; of Thomas Keene. son of Matthew Kene, in 1607 ; of Ilumfridus Kenn in 1629. The variations of spelling show how little can be inferred in any case from the form of the name. The records of 1576 show that Matthew Ken and William Wyso, another member of the Hall, had u quarrel, which ended in the latter "giving a breakfast to the Companie," and "so they shook hands and were made friends." ^ The name seems to have been more than a more variant of John. Both John and Ion appear in the list of the Bishop's brothers. The latter name is spelt " UyoD " in the Register of Baptisms at St. Giles', Cripplegate. (See p. 13.) * " Oh I the sweet contentment The countrjman doth find." I. ch. V. " Oh ! the gallant fisher's life. It is the beat of any." I. rh. xvi. A.i). 1G37— 41.] KEN'S lURTIIPLACE. 3 in the Complete Ancjlcr, and one of the latest employments of his life was to bring out, in 1678, an edition of Chalk- hill's Theahna and Clearchun, in the preface to which he speaks highly of the poet's character, as honourable, refined, up- right, and of which he clearly hoped that it would hand down his half-forgotten fame to a future generation. The memory of the poet-ancestor was, we may well believe, hold in honour in the family traditions, and may have tended to stimulate the energies of one who, though not endowed with the highest gifts of genius, might yet have had fair reason for saying in his youth, Anrh' io son poefa. The future bishop was born at Great or Little Berkhamp- stead, in the county of Hertford, in July, 1637,' but as the register of the former parish contains no entry of the name of Ken, and those of the latter were destroyed at some time or other, early in the eighteenth century, we cannot say how long the family remained there. It seems probable that it was only a temporary place of sojourn,^ The death of Ken's mother, in 1641, prevents our attribut- ing to her any large share in the formation of his character ; but a child's memory, even at the age of four, especially the memory of such a child as Ken must have been, may well recall, in after years, the first steps in the training by which his mind and character were fashioned, the first dawning of the light which was, in his after-life, to shine more and more unto the perfect day. And such a recollection of those infant years 1 So Hawkins. The Winchester register of his election states that he wiis thirteen on October 20th, IGoO; but this may have been ba.sed on thi; date of liis bai)tismal certificate. AVriting on Juno 23rd, 1707 (Letter LXXII.), Ken .says that he " will be in his seventieth year next month." - A solitary anecdote of later years suggests that Ken's father may prol)ably, at one time, have re>idcd at Berkham])st6ad. " ily father," he is reported to haA-e said, " was an honest farmer, and left me £20 a year, thank God." (Southey's Omniana, i., 206, 1812.) Did he .settle in the country in the later years of his life? An indenture of Edward II. gives the name of Kichard lo Ken of Kerk- hampstead [Rev. F. IJrown, deceased]. The AViiiclustcr registers give simply Berkhampstead, as also does Hawkins. IMost biographers give Little Herkhamp- stead, probably as an inference from the name not having been fouTid in the registers of the larger parish. The question is discussed by the Rev. J. W. (.'olib in two lectures on the IJistonj and Antif/uitirs of licrkhanijntfad (p. 3, «.), 1883, and decided in favour of the smaller patish, the registers of which, prior to 1712, are lost. H 2 4 FAMIf.y AM) < HILhTTOOT). [chap. i. wo may find, if I mistake not, in fho counsels which, as hishop, ho pavo to tho " poor inhuhitants" of his diocese, and which, for their exceeding beauty and tenderness, it is worth while to print iu e.rfcnso: " T oxliort all you who are parents to instil good things into your children as soon as ever thoy begin to speak ; let the first words they uttor, if it bo possible, be these— ' Glory bo to God : ' accustom them to repeat these words on their knees as soon as they rise, and when they go to bed, and oft-times in the day; and let them not eat or drink without saying ' Glory be to God.' " As their speech grows more plain and easy to them, teach them who made, and redeemed, and sanctified them, and for what end, namely, to glorify and to love God ; and withal, teach them some of the shortest ejaculations you can, such as these — " 'Lord, help me, Lord, save me.' " ' Lord, have mercy upon me.' " ' All love, all glory, be to God, who first loved me.' " ' Lord, keep me in thy love.' " Within a little time you may teach them the Lord's Prayer, and hear them say it every day, morning and evening, on their knees, with some one or more of the foregoing ejaculations ; and by degrees, as they grow up, they will learn the Creed and the whole Catechism. " Be sure to teach your childi'en with all the sweetness and gentleness you can, lest, if you should be severe, or should over- task them, religion shoiUd seem to them rather a burden than a blessing." ' I own that to rae it seems absolutely impossible not to see in this passage the elements of an unconscious autobiography. I see the Hannah and the Samuel of those long past years, the sweet and gentle mother with her hand on his brow, and the devout and reverent child kneeling by her side, lisping that " All glory be to God," which, when he was old and greyheaded, was to stand at the head of well-nigh every letter that he wrote. What we read is as much, I believe, the tribute of a filial love and reverence to Ken's mother as were Cowper's well-known lines to the memory of his. ' Dirtftioiit for Frayer iu Hound, p. 341. Sec ii. 17o. A.I). 1651.] KEN'S FATIlEn. 5 It was not given to the boy who had thus lost one parent in earliest childhood to enjoy the guidance of the other for more than a few years. His father died in 1601/ probahlv before liis son had become a Scholar of Winchester, and the boy's home training fell into other hands. We have no formal record of what he thought and felt as to his father's influence. But here also the element of an unconscious autobiography comes in. The counsels from which I have quoted may refer to the father as well as to the mother. In a poem which, as we shall see, bears largely and more deliberately the character of self- portraiture, I find other words which are distinctly an utter- ance of personal thanksgiving. " E'er since I hung upon my mother's breast, Thy love, my God, has me sustained and blest. My virtuous parents, tender of their child, My education, pious, careful, mild." Uijmnotheo,- p. 140. It lies in the nature of the case that in a household such as that of Ken's father while he lived, and yet more afier his death, the part played by an elder sister, who hud gifts and character for this work, in the training of her orphan brother, could not fail to be an important one. All that we know of Anne Ken leads us to think that she possessed those gifts in a more than average measure, and that she did not fail to use them at once with wisdom and with tenderness. In 1G46, five years after her step-mother's death and five before her father's, she had married Izaak Walton, then fifty-thioe, and ' lie dcscrihcs liimself in his will, dated April \'2\h, 1 6.) 1, as " a citizen of Lon- don, and member of the ancient Gild of Biirl)cr-ChirurgO"n8." The will bojjins after the manner uf the time : " First and j)rincii)ally. I bequeathe my soiil into tbo hands of Almighty God who gave it mc." The formula was jwrhaps too common to allow us to infiT much from it as to his personal i)icty. 'I'he fad that ho leaves to his son-in-law, John Symonds, "a place in the circiiite of South Wales to the value of 40 marks," implies a good professional i>o«itii>n. One wonders whc^ther his work in South Wales brought him into contact with iho Kemeys family. (See Ch. xxiv.) - One may compare* Marcus Aurelius, i. 17. "From the Gods I have had good forefathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good domealics, good friends, all, or nearly all, of them." (C J. P.) f) FAMILY AXh (1111.1)11001). [chap. i. slie herself, haviiij; been born in IGIO, was seventeen years younger thun her husband and twenty-seven years older than her brother, and thus served as a connecting link between the two, the disparity of wliose years might otherwise have tended to obscure tlie brotherly relation by which, through this marriage, they were connected with each other. If I hud anything like the ariistic skill wlii(;h we admire in works like Joint IiKjIa^ant, or, loiigo inicrcallo, the l)i(n->/ of 2Ianj I'oicdl, I should portray her as entering alike into her husband's angling and her boy-brother's studies, hearing the latter say his Creed and Catechism and Collects, as his mother used to do, training him with all the " remarkable prudence " and the " great and general knowledge'' which her husband a^-cribes to her/ into the pattern of that " primitive piety " of which she was herself so bright an example ; going with him, while yet she could, to church services^ and communions; and then, when the "Westminster Directory had taken the place of the Prayer Book, and those who still worshipped God after the manner of their fathers had to meet, as it were, in the dens and caves of the earth, contenting herself with keeping up, in ' The Epitaph in Worcester Cathedral is worth copying i;; exttnso. Ex. Terris. D. M. S. *' Here t.yetii dvried so mvch as covld die Of AKXE, the Wife of IZAAK WALTON. Who was a Woman of kemaukakle Prvdence, Axi) of the runiiTivE Piety, Her great and general Knowlepge Being aporned with svch trie Hvmility, And blest with soe much Christian Meekness, As MADE her worthy OF A MORE MEMOKAHLE iloNVMENT. She dyed (alas I that she is de.\d 1) The 17th of April, 1662. Aoed 52. Stidy to be like her. The D. M. S. (I^iix Manifiu.i, or, perhaps, Difevon, Cumberland. (J. Esdiiile, Xotts of Charters, kc.) • His will was proved in 159G ; his widow's in 1G2S. •* Ktport of Soin. Arch. Societi/, 1881, p. 55. * The arms will be found on the cover of this volume. Technically they are described as " erminf, three crescents, ffiiUs." The same arms, with a diffe- rent cre*t, are given in Burke's General Armoury as belonging to the Kenns of Longfurd. A.D. 1025—47.] BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AXI) DEATHS. 11 that they may have brauehed off before 1500. lie notices, among other things, the unusual frequency with which the name Thomas occurs in the pedigree of the Kemis of Kenn Court. One of them, a Thomas, son of Thomas, son of Thomas, is described as a mercer in London, who was twice married and was living in 1643, which is tantalisingly near in point of time, but tlie Bi-shop'sfatlier's wives (ho also was married twice) bore names wliicli are not those of tlie Thomas of the Kenn pedigree. A Tliomas Ken appears in 1642 as one of the clerks of the House of Lords, but I have not been able to connect him with either branch.' lie may possibly have been Ken's father. There was also a John Ken, Mayor of Bridg- water, circ. 1686. The register of St. Olavo's, Silver Street, London, gives the marriage of Thomas Ken and Martha Carpenter, in December, 1625. Ion Chalkhill, in his will, dated August 1, 1615, simply names his "daughter Martlia." Presumably Carpenter was her first husband. She was Thomas Ken's second wife. Elizabeth Ken, widow, of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, the grand- mother of the Bishop, gives legacies in her will, dated October 6, 1628, to "Thomas my son," and to "his children, Tliomas, Ion, Anne, and Jane," and then one to " Martha, the wife of my sou, Thomas Ken." It would appear from this that there was a sou Thomas by the first marriage of the Bishop's father, with Jano Hughes, who must have died young, and that the name was given by him, as was not uncommon in such cases, to a son by the secuiul marriage. (See p. 13 «.) It may be noted, as illustrating the variations of spelling, (1) that the register of St. James's, Clerkenwell, gives on April 23, 1647, the marriage of Mr. Isaak "Walton to Anne Keene : (2) that Caen Wood, Hampstead, appears in documents of the hist ccntHry as Ken Wood ; and (3) that the Churchwardens' accounts at Frome (1764) call the Bishop Dr. Can. (See p. 170.) The Registers of Baptisms in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, give names and dates as follows. All are described as cliildren of "Mr. Tliomas Kenn, gentleman: " — 1626, Jamiary 1st, John; 1628, Juno 23rd. IMartha; 1629, February 23rd, Mary; 1631, ]\Iurch 26th, Margaret; l(i32, 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. v. 08. An Kdiniiiul Kcnno apiu'iirs as 11 iirisoiur in the Floet in 1635. He petitions the Trivy Council for roUiLso. His <.fl"fnoc wa.s •' unadvised behaviour at election of Kniglits of the Shire and seandalisint,' Sir Robert Phclipps of iMoutacute." It is probable, therefore, tiiat he wius of tlio Somerset branch. (II. M. C. Rrp. i. o7.) 12 FAMif.Y AM) cinr.hinxn). [CMW. I. m 'A c; -^ i _C -^ 13 ^n 4^11 III-- ~ jl'Zi> O x ^ >-> ^ O ^■ c s O H-l O) a "3 z -^ i, D ^ s ^ r' ^ *^ •^ hi C C "-^ a M ^t^ X ^ i w . Giles' I', of t with tl CO § X r 5 •^ ., , V .^ ■*j 7) Z — > ^ 1 1 1 ■' a e s) >;:.2 '-' 3 C.2 cO — 3^ r. ^ S r -• — o - s X . o to c .0 o ^ -e s . = ^ 5= O --t-i X — i •— i ^ ;_ O — 3 *5 c 2 -• — c S i5x A.D. 1020-40.] IiEX'S BROTTFERS AXD SISTERS. 1.3 July 10th, Hyon ;» 1035, April 14th, Elizabeth ; 1038, August 17th, Marj; 1640, March 16th, Martin. It may be presumed that the younger yiavy replaced tlie elder. as was also the case with the younger Tliomas. Tlio mother diephere which he tliere breathed, and by the bocks wliich he read there. I find in Walton's Lires the unconscious pro])hccy of all into which that life was, as it were, destined to develop, in proportion as it followed the vocation which was thus conveyed to it. I doubt indeed whether any but a few students of English "social or church history have formed any adequate estimate of AD. 1037—83.] IZAAK JT'ALTOX'S FRIEXDS. 15 the position wliich Walton occupied among the leading eccle- siastics and men of culture of the time. "We think of him as a " sempster " (something, I presume, in the hosier or linen- draper line), a middle-class tradesman whom his friends of a higher rank [e (j. Bishop King) used to address, somewhat con- descendingly, as "honest Izaak ; " who went out for his holiday walks by the New River, and angled for his trout in the Lea, the Itchin, or the Dove. We forget that there was scarcely a theologian or man of letters with whom he did not corres- pond on friendly and familiar terms ; that the list of those friends included such men as Archbishops U.ssher and Sheldon, and Bishops King, of Chichester, and Morlcy, of AVorcester and Winchester, and Sanderson, of Lincoln; and Donne and William Chillingworth, and Hammond, and Hales, the "ever memor- able," and Sir Henry Wotton, and Abraham Cowley, and Dray- ton, of the Poli/olhion, and the Elias Ashmole, to whom Oxford owes its Museum.^ He was, in the Church life of his own generation, in spite of his very different social position, what Evelyn was to that which came next, and Robert Nelson to tlio next but one, what Joshua Watson and Sir Robert Inglis were within the memory of our more immediate fathers, or Mr. Bercs- ford Hope within our own. If he was not, as men then deemed, a man of letters, he had, at least, associated with those who were so. If he was not the rose, he had, at least, cauglit something of its fragrance by living among the roses. Into such a companionship Ken was brought in early boyhood, and the friendship continued unbroken till little more than a year before Ken was consecrated, when he was forty-six, and Walton fell asleep at the ripe age of ninety.^ I do not imagine that Ken was ever a proficient in tlie art whicli we associate with Walton's name. If he had bei-n, we should probably have found some notice of him, if not in Wal- ton's own work, at least in Cotton's Supphmcut to the Com- 1 Walton's first wife, Rachel Flood, was a prent-niece of Archbisliop Cranmer. This probably put him in the waj- of clerical companionship. He chose his early friends well, and they rose to eminence in aftor years. (Zouch, Life of Walton ; Jesse, Lift- of JFa/tou.) - I cannot resist quoting the words in which Cotton speaks of M'liltor. : *' tho worthiest man, the best and truest friend any man over had. who gives mo leave to call him fatlier." IG KJ<:N AM) fX.iJh' UAJ.TOX. IdiAi-. ri. picfe Atnilc)'} lie did not become an expert in barbel lishinp^ like Sheldon, or think of anf^ling hours as " idle time not idly spent " like Sir IF. Wotton, or find in it, as did Georfje Herbert, a " season of leisure for devout meditation." We may perhaps fancy that the boy shrank with the refine- ment, the sympathy, the unwillingness to cause pain, which afterwards characterized him, from handling the ground-bait, or impaling his frog on the hook as " though he loved him." But not the less may those walks by the Lea have been useful in building up the boy's character — the character of the future bishop.'"' They stamped upon him the love of nature and retirement, rather than of courts and crowds. To live procul neyotiiH, to pursue the falloitiH scmita riffp, instead of " seek- ing great things" ' for himself, became in this way the great ideal of his life. Beyond this those walks brought him into contact with nature, and taught him to observe. They gave him the open eye to see the actual plitcnomena of things as they are, which is the necessary condition of the higher spiritual vision that reads the parables of nature. In that sphere the companionship of such a man as AValton was invaluable. Every page of the Angler shows how he watched the habits of everything that lives, the adaptation of their structure to their environment, their instincts of self-preservation or aggression, the things in which they foreshadow the self- seeking, or the altruism, of humanity.* I am drawing no ' Tliis conobision is, perhaps, traversed by a passac:e in one of Ken's Pam- pfnasfx of Horace, where one of the joys of the retired life is described : " Where he dclie^hfs, in his own Siream, Tu Angle for Trout. Pike, or Bream." li'orkx, iv.. p. .5.3.3. I incline to look on the raraphrnses as belonjiing' to Kfn's schonl or college days. - Comp. an interesting dialogue between Stillingileet and Frampton, on the Amiisrmeiitii of Cfertfi/mrii, in which the former argues against live bait, in Over- ton's Lift- in the Eiiplixh Church, p. .316. 1886. (C. J. P.) ' The words of Jer. xlv. 5, Et tit qiierrh tihi prandial Xoli qu(tr«re ; were afterwards, as we shall see (p 139). Ken's favourite text, written by him in his Greek Testament, and other books iii daily use. * I nrite a few examples from the CompUtf Anglrr — (1) of the song of birds, " Loid, what music hast Thou provided for the saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such mu-^icupon earth ?" (2) " Doubtless cats talk and reason one with anfdhor." (3) The pet dog named Bryan, probably after Bryan Duppa, A.D. 1637— 83.] KEX AS AX OBSERVER OF ITaTURE. 17 imaginary picture in assuming that these influences contributed to Ken's after character. His tenderness of feeling towards animal life is seen in the fact that in the portrait which he draws, in his Hymnotheo, of one with whom, more or less consciously, he identified himself, he brings to light one of the obscurer traditions of St. John : — " The youth, of David's mournful cell possessed, Allured a widowed dove with him to rest, Like Jolin wlio, when his mind lie would unbend. With a tame partridge woidd few minutes spend." ' Works, i., p. 79. His sense of the teachings of nature is seen in another pattern of the saintly life, the Sophronio of his Edmund : — ^ " Three volumes he assiduously perused, Wliich heavenly wisdom and delight infused, God's works, his conscience, and the Book inspired." Works, ii., p. 76. His habits of observation, in which he seems almost to have surpassed his master, find their fullest, though not their only, example, in the account he gives of the habits of the ant. It will be admitted, I think, by those who are experts in such matters, that it may challenge comparison, in its minuteness and accuracy of detail, wath what we find in the works of Huber, or Sir J. Lubbock, or Romanes. The whole passage is somewhat too long for insertion, and 1 content myself with a few extracts. "Walton, it may be noticed, contents himself (I. c. i.) with speaking briefly of the " little pismire who, in the summer, provides and lays up her winter provisions." — " In multitude they march, yet order just ; No adverse files each other stop or thrust. They have presensions of the change in air. And never work abroad but when 'tis fair ; Bishop of Winchester. (4) The taminc: of an otter by Nicholas Seagrave, of Leicestershire, and of a lamprey, by Hurtonsius. (6) Miscellaneous notes on hers, hawks, carrier-pigeons, and the longevity of pikes. 1 The storj' is told by Casaian, Cnllntt. xxiv. c. 2. * Did Walton stand for Sophronio '; vol,. I. C 1 8 KEN A NT) IZA . I K WA L TON. [cuap. ii. Tln-y tnko iidviintaf^o of tlir> lunar lif^lit, And only ut full moon.s th(!y work l*y niglit >> I And 80 he p^oes on to paint the whole order and polity of the ant community : how some are seen nipping the grass, and others carrying it to thoir barns ; how they bring it out to dry when it liii.s been wetted by the rain ; how they lay up " trien- nial stores; " how they clean their feet as they enter the gates of their city, and erect a bastion round it to prevent inunda- tions. Lastly he notices, what has sometimes been questioned, sometimes announced as among the most recent discoveries, the burying habits of the ants, in his sketch of the structure of the ant-hill, intersected as it is by a long street from end to end : " That Square ihoy for their Cometcrj' keep, Where with dead Parents their dead Children sleep ; The teeming females in this space remain, And there the youth they up to labour train ; The granary is there . . . ." Ilymnothco, b. i. ; Works, iii., p. 11 — 13. Nor ought wo to pass over the advantage it must have been to a studious and thoughtful boy to have the run of a library such as Walton's, or to listen to the conversation of the friends — such as those named above — who came to visit him, attracted by the conspicuous cheerfulness of his home, or seeking refuge there from the strife of tongues that raged around them. There, on those shelves, he would find, to say nothing of the books which Walton does not name, the works of Donne and Bishop Hall, of George Herbert, Christopher Harvey (author of the Synngogite, which is often bound up with Herbert's Temple, and belongs to the same school of devoutly meditative verse), and Du Bartas, and Josephus, and Montaigne, and Plutarch's Lives, and Dean Nowell's Catechism, and the Devout Considerations of John Yal- desso, which Herbert commends so warmly, and Sibbes' Bruised Reed and Soul's Conflict, and Cowley's Davideis, which after- wards served as the model of Ken's own epic, Edmund, and Fletcher's Purple Island, and Camden's Britannia, and Mendez 1 The parallelism -with Dante (Furg. iii. 12), is worth noting, as also that vrith Shakesi)eare on bees in Henry V. (i. 2). A.v. 1637—83.] JOITN DOXXE. 19 Pinto, and E. Sandys' Travels, and the works on Xaturul History by Gessner and Rondeletius (botanists, whose names sur- vive in the genera of Gcssiien'a and Rondelctia), and Topselius' History of Serpents, and others, quce nunc j^erscrihere longiim est. But more than all the books that he thus had the opportunity of reading were the traditions of which Walton, as belonging to a previous generation (he was, it will be remembered. Ken's senior by four - and - forty years), was the depository, and of which his Lives are the treasure-house.* To have been the inti- mate friend of such men as Donne and Wotton, to have at least seen Herbert, to have known and reported the ascetic saintliness of the life ot Nicholas Ferrar, at Little Gidding, was enough to rivet the attention of the thoughtful boy as he listened to the old man's manifold reminiscences. There is scarcely one of those lives (I am tempted, as I write, to alter that "scarcely" into "absolutely not one") in which I cannot trace, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the influence which it exercised on his character, facts which were actually reproduced in his own after-life, Donne may have been his first master in what has been expressively, though not very accurately, described by Johnson as the " metaphysical" school of poetry, modified in this instance by intense per- sonal devotion, the pattern after which, with the exception of the epic of Edmund, in which he followed Cowley, nearly all his own poetry was fashioned. It is not unreasonable to con- jecture that Walton's selection of Hart Hall for his brother-in- law's residence at Oxford, while he was waiting for a vacancy at New College, was determined by the fact that it was there that Donne had studied. Even in the last-recordod act of his life I trace a distinct reminiscence of what he must have loiirnt from Walton. Donne, according to his biographer, when he knew that his end was near, had himself wrapped up in a winding- sheet, and gave instructions to a sculptor to represent him on his tomb as he thus appeared. Ken, in the same spirit, but without the theatrical element which slightly mingled with Donne's act, when he learnt from his physician that he had but ■ The Life of Donne was published in 1640, that of Wotton in 1651. These were reprinted, with the Lives of Hooper and Herhert, and dedicated to JSJorloy in 1675. c2 •20 Ki:X JXh IZAAK U'ALTOX. [ciiAr. it. a few hours to live, tuuk tlic Hhroiul which ior years before he had always carried with him iu his portmanteau, put it oil with his own hands, and so cabnly hiy down to await the end.^ The continuity of spirit which united the two men, and the channel through which that continuity was maintained, was not without a fitting symbol linking the three together. Donne left by his will to a few special friends a gold signet-ring, in which was seta heliotrope, i.e. blood-stone, with a figure of the Cruci- • fied One, not on the cross, but on an anchor, as the em- blem of hope. One of these rings he left to "Walton ; from him it passed on to Ken, who wore and used it to the latest years of his life.^ Plis will was sealed with it. In Sir H. Wotton, Ken had before him a pattern of a different type ; a man reared in the diplomacy of courts, skilled in the speech and literature of France and Italy, whose maxims of social wisdom, upright statecraft, and ecclesiastical moderation were often on Walton's lips, as they were afterwards recorded in his Life of his friend. Here too the friendship affected even the outward facts of Ken's life. "Wotton had been trained at the two St. Mary "Winton Colleges, and almost the last fact that AValton narrates concerning him is his visit to Winchester, in 1639, two months before his death, and the touching memcvries of past years which that visit brought back to^im. There were the same scenes, the same school-rooms, cloisters, playground, almost, it might seem, the same boys, as "he had known in his youth, and it was pleasant to look back on those days as a time of hope and purity and promise, which had not altogether failed of their fulfilment. "With the impression of that former inter- course upon him, we can well enter into the feeling which led AValton, as the friend and adviser of the Ken family, probably after the death of the boy's father, to select "Winchester, rather than Eton or Westminster, as the school to which his brother-in-law was to be sent.^ When in after years his own son ' II. '202. Herrick, who wrote a charming little poem, To His Winding Sheet, did the same. (C. J. P.) - One such spal is now at Longleat. A smaller seal, with the same design, jrobahly that referred to in the text, also used by him. passed to Miss Hawkins, the dnu)?hter of his great-nephew, and is now in the possession of the Rev. Wyndham Merewether. It i.s from this that the woodcut is taken. 3 Ken's uncle, John Clialkhill, however, was, as has been said above 'j). 12), a A.D. 1637—83.] GEORGE HERBERT. 21 travelled under that brother's care to France and Italy we may think of him as giving them, at second hand, the maxim of Vm sciolto, peusicri stretti, with which, as we know, Milton had been fortified by Wotton for his wanderings among a strange people and the members of an alien church, 80, in Hke man- ner, amid the strifes of tongues and hot debates that raged around him Ken would call to mind the golden saying of which Wotton had said that all that he desired to have written on his tomb was that he was its author, Disputandi pruritus, eccleminon scabies, and it would keep him, and did keep him, and almost him alone, of all the divines and prelates of his time, from preaching polemic sermons and writing controversial treatises.* In George Herbert, as in Donne, the young Ken would find a spirit like-minded with his own, calm, meditative, musical, finding in quaint, devout verse, the natural channel for the thoughts that were working in his mind, and singing hymns to his lute, and in all these points we may think of Ken as a kind of Herbert red i rims, taking that life for the pattern of his own. They started indeed from a very diiferent point. Herbert belonged to one of the noble families of Kng- land ; Ken was the son of a reputable citizen and attorney. All the more would he be likely to reverence one who presented in his Cambridge life, before he took orders, the ideal of what an Englishman of high birth might be. When Ken came into contact with court life, as it was in the days of Charles II., with all its foul profligacy and godless rowdyism, it was some- thing for him to remember that the aristocracy of England had, at times, at least, produced examples of a nobler life. It is not, however, in any of tliesc respects, only or cluefly, that I point to the life of George Herbert as having influenced Ken. It is in the Bishop's work as a parish priest that I trace Herbert's influence most distinctly. The Cotinfri/ Parxon might almost seem to pass from precept to practice, from the Fellow of Winchester, and his oldest brother, the iirst ThonKi,-*, hud, probably, been there before him (p. i:!, n ). ' Two more maxims of Wotton deserve notice, as illustrated by Ken'8 life and character: (1) that in which he summed up his experience as a statfsm.in, Aiiiiitds Jieri sapicutiorex quicacciido ; and (2) the motti> wliirh ho chn.si.- for his lit Mcntorlani rin^s to the FiUows of I'^tim. .Ininr unit niiiniii. ;< '. A. I'.j 22 KEN AND IZA Ah' WALTON. [chap. ii. abstract to the concrete, as we see Ken in his parochial and other labours. I will not anticipate the details, which will find their natural and fitting place farther on. It will be enough to note here one or two striking instances of parallelism. Docs Herbert lay stress on the importance of training boys and girls to be confirmed and become communicants at an earlier age than was then, or is now, customary, as soon, in fact (to use his own words), " as they were able to distinguish sacramental from common bread, at what age soever " (c. xxii.) ? "We find Ken, in his Manual for WincliPHter ScJtolarH, assuming, at a time when boys left school sooner than they do now, that many of them would be, or ought to be, communicants. Is Herbert's Country Parson one who, while open-hearted to all real sufiering, is chary of giving to " beggars and idle persons," lest by so doing he should do more harm than good ? It is Ken's first care, as we shall see, on coming to his diocese, to endeavour (not, as it chanced, successfully) to work out the scheme of something like a Charity Organization Society (p. 252), and the echo of Her- bert's teaching on this matter is found in the picture of an ideal king in Ken's Edmund, of whom he says that in his kingdom — " No sturdy beggars in his lands could lurk, But were in proper houses forced to work." WorJcii, ii., 50. Does Herbert dwell on the duty of daily service ? Ken made that service his rule as a parish priest, and enforced it as a bishop, however small might be the congregation that could be brought to attend it. All that we know of his life as rector of Little Easton, and, practically, chaplain to Lord Maynard, is based upon the lines which we find in the Count ri/ Parson (c. ii.). I close ray induction with the noticeable fact that Her- bert lays special stress (c. xi.) on his Parson inviting the poorer members of his flock to dine with him on Sundays, to sit down with them and carve for them, and that this was precisely what Ken did, even as the occupant of his palace at Wells (p. 252). Passing from Herbert to Hooker, it will be obvious to every one who studies Ken's character as a divine, that his theology was essentially on the lines of the Ecclesiastical A.D. 1637—83.] MBS. KOOKER. 28 Polity, Anglican, as distinguished from the two extremes of Romanism and Puritanism, with, as will be seen here- after,^ a leaning to a wider hope as to the extent of the love of God and the work of Christ than we find in his master ; and that this was so at a time when Hooker's work was comparatively a recent book, not as yet recognised in bishops' examinations or university lectures. We note further that Ken's thoughts habitually turned, as did Hooker's on his death-bed, to "meditations on the ministry of angels." But, if I mistake not, the chief influence which Walton's Life of Hooker exercised on him must have been negative rather than positive. I fancy that the story of the great mistake of Hooker's Life, the one instance in which he was not "judicious," must have been often told at "Walton's table, and we can enter into the feelings of a boy even then, in one sense, precociously ascetic and devout, as he listened to it. That picture of the author of the Etclesiasticul PoUtij, as he sat tend- ing his sheep in a common field because his servant was gone home to dine, or rocking the cradle, while the harsh nagging voice of his wife was heard, calling " liichard, Richard," in dictatorial tones ; the feelings of the old pupils, George Cran- mer and Edwin Sandys, the former connected with Walton by marriage,^ who, unable to veil their impressions in silence or conventional courtesies, were constrained to offier him their con- dolences " that he had not a more comfortable wife ; " all this must have seemed to the young student sufficiently humiliating. One who was naturally of what we may call the celibate tem- perament, disposed, in regard to the other sex, to friendship rather than love, could scarcely fail to say to himself, on hear- ing such a tale, " If that is what a man may sometimes get in the lottery of marriage, I for one will choose the other i)art, and not that." The outcome of his thoughts, over and above the fact of his choice of celibacy, may be found in two lines, written in after years — ' Hooker had insisted on the salvahility of Papists {Sn-m. II.). Kon included the Heathen who lived according to tht-ir light within his ho}.e8. (See ch. xxviii.) * See Note, p. 15. The other pupil wcs a son of .Vrchbishop Sandys, of York. The two visitors sought another and quieter lodging for the night. 24 KEN AND IZAAK JVALTON. [cuap. ii. *'A virgin priest tlio altar host attends; Our Lord that btate commands not, but commends." J'Almund, b. ix ; Worls, ii., p. 239, That may have boon the startinj^ point of what was after- wards a matter of mikl pleasantry among the Bi.shop's friends, that ho made a vow every morning as he rose, that " he wouldn't be married that day,"^ I am disposed to think, from the stress laid on promissory vows in Ken's Exponition of the Catechism, that he may have had some such resolve present to his thoughts at his ordination, if not before. The last of AValton's Lives, that of Sanderson, belongs to too late a date (1677) to be numbered among the influences by which Ken's character was fashioned, and Sanderson himself had loft Oxford before Ken entered it. The latter, however, may have heard Walton's account of his interesting conversa- tion with Sanderson in 1655. All that need be said under this head, therefore, is that the " casuistry" (I use the term in its truest and noblest sense) by which Ken was guided in the intricate labyrinth of questions which the political crisis of the time brought before him, a casuistry as unlike as possible to that of Jesuit confessors or time-serving statesmen, was, as will be seen hereafter, precisely what might have been expected from one who had laid the foundations of his ethics under the teaching of Sanderson. It led him to be faithful, at whatever cost, to the supreme authority of conscience, and when he was in doubt and the scales were nearly balanced, to decide in favour of the conclusion which brought least of the profit and pleasure by the hope of which most men allow their judgments to be biassed. One point more remains to be noticed, and then I have com- pleted my case as to Izaak Walton and his influence on Ken's life. The will of the former contains, as was common with devout persons of that period, a confession of his faith, and the confession runs thus : — " Because the profession of Christianity does at this time seem to be subdivided iuto Papist and Protestant, I take it to be at least lonveniont to declare my belief to be, iu all points of faith, as the Church of England now professeth, and this I do, the rather because * Southry's Omnianc, p. JOG. A.D. 1637—83.] WALT02^S FRIESDSmrS. 25 of a very long and very true friendship with some of the Roman Church." 1 I do not quote these words wholly or chiefly on account of their striking parallelism with Ken's own confession of faith, which will find its proper place at the close of this biography, though this is singularly suggestive, but for the fact to which the last words point. Roman Catholics, we may well believe, as those words show, of the higliest and best type, were among Walton's cherished friends, and may well have been frequent visitors at his house. One who was brought up in the midst of such surroundings may well have learnt to shrink from the hot anathemas and pra^ternatural suspicion with which ordinary Englishmen looked upon a Papist. His personal experience must have given force to that other maxim of Sir Henry Wotton's, that " men were surely in error if they thought that the farther they were from Rome the nearer they were to truth." To have known and loved men of what we regard as an alien or corrupted Church, though it does not take away the sadness of controversy, at least deprives it of its bitterness. This helps also to explain the attitude consistently maintained by Ken in the midst of the unhappy divisions of his time. It accounts for the hopes of James II. that he might even win the most loved and honoured of English bishops to his side, and for the suspicion which ever and anon dogged Ken's foot- steps that he really inclined to Rome. Looking at his charac- ter all round, I know nothing that more helps one to under- stand it than the portrait that has been drawn, with a master's hand, by Mr, Shorthouse, of one more or less of the same type, though growing up under more directly Romish in- fluences, in his JoliH Iiigh'stnif, and worked out with a more subtle analysis in the Introduction to his edition of George Herbert's Poems. 1 I conjecture that amonp these mny have been (Ira-shaw, the poet, Cliris- topher Davenport, better known as Francis a Sanctd Clara, an ( (xford convert, who wrote a treatise more or less anticipating Cardinal Newman's IreaLnient of the Thirty-nine Articles in Trael XC, and Hni-h Seronus do Crts,Hy, whom Mr. Shorthouse brings (chap, viii., xix.) into his Jo/m Iiif/lcsaut. (St-o pp. 106, 275). I find works by the first two in th.' catalogue of Kt-n's books at Lonif- leat, and by the third among those whith he b^ft to the Cathedra) Libniry at Wells. (See ii. pp. 299, 300.) 26 h'KN AND IZAAK JV ALTON. [citap. n. TIow far tlmt ])ortraifure is a satisfactory representation of tlie tyi)(> after wliich I believe Ken to have been fashioned — how far the analysis of character, which seems to Mr. Short- honse u sufFieient, account of George Herbert's excellence, is adequate — are (juestions which may admit of more or less differ- ence of opinion.' It may, I think, be contended that Mr. Short- liouse has laid too exclusive a stress on the refinement, the gentlemanliness, as it were, of the religious character of the Laudian, or so-called Anglo-Catholic school, of which the Oxford movement was a revival. Doubtless that was prominent in it. It accounts, in part at least, for the almost invincible antipathy with which the middle-class Englishman, tradesman, or farmer, — the " Philistine " of Matthew Arnold's classifica- tion — has from the first regarded it. It seemed to him an aristocratic form of religion, and therefore, over and above his suspicion of its Popish tendencies he opposed it and disliked it, as he disliked other aristocratic characteristics. It accounts also for the fact that that school of thought has never as yet exercised, as Wesley and Whitefield exercised, a power over those of a yet lower social stratum — the artisans and the working-men of England — outside the range of agricultural labourers. The sweetness and light and tenderness of the Country Parson might win individuals, but it was lacking in the intensity of power which can wield at will the multi- tudes of a spiritual democracy, and move the miners of Corn- wall or the colliers of Bristol, as AYesley moved them, to the tears of penitence. But there was with all this refinement, this love of music and of song, this union of the temper of the ascetic and the man of letters, a certain heroism of conscience in Ken and his fellows which is not, I think, portrayed in John IiHj/csant, or recognised adequately in the introductory analysis of Herbert.^ ' See article by the Rev. H. Wace, D.D., Principal of King's College, London, in the Churchman of May, 1883. * I venture, with Mr. Shorthouse's permission, to reproduce part of a letter on this chapter as it stood in my first proof: — " I do not think that any one could suppose that I meant John Inglesant to stand as a typical churchman of his day, seeing that he was brought up by a Jesuit in a most exceptional man- ner ; but what is infinitely more important than any reference to my writings r.in be, is an f.xpression, which I fear may be misunderstood, in what you say A.D. 1637—83.] TEE SIDE OF TUE MINORITY. 27 These men might have wide sympathies on either side — might feel that there was much in the system of Rome and in the lives of Romanists which they could admire and love ; but they did not, when they had to make their choice between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, halt between two opinions. They saw the thing that ought to be done, and they did it, regardless of consequences. If they had a weak element of character in this respect, it was that their fear of following a multitude to do evil led them almost instinctively to start with a bias to the cause that was not the multitude's. They would not tune their voice according to the time to gain the favour of princes or of people. There are men, not with- out a certain measure of honesty — men who would not con- sciously descend to baseness for the sake of gain and honour, and who rise to the high places of the earth in Church and State amid the plaudits of their fellows — who seem to act on the rule given to inexperienced whist-players, " When in doubt, take the trick." Most of Ken's contemporaries belonged to this class. They passed from regime to regime, from one form of worship to another, unconscious of reproach. They took oaths, about the antipathy of the middle- class Englishmen, tradesmen, and farmers, to the Anglo-Catholic School. I fear this may be understood by some peoj)lo to mean 'antipathy to the Church of England.' If it means only antipathy to those called ignorantly and vulgarly ' Ritualists ' it may be true to a certain extent, but, in this case, it is not applicable to my Introduction to Gtonje Herbert, because all I claim of refinement there refers simply to the Church of England as a whole. I expressly point out that Herbert hini.solf was not even a Laudian, neither were any of the men I mention — Donne and Wotton, and George Wither, Francis Quarles, and Henry Vaughan. Keligion is a 'refiner's fire,' and that religion which is coarse and vulgar is so far an imjierfect religion, though it may be a real one. Sly experience has led me to note a wondei ful refinement in those of the working classes who have been brought undt-r tho influence of the Church of England. I shoiild regard it as a national mis- fortune, should it appear, by any misunderstanding of a single phrase, that you thought that the Church of England was not attractive to, or had lost touch with, the lower, or working, classes, though, of course, a Church which main- tains a lofty standard cannot compete with all uaturr.s and at all time$ with such as avowedly descend to a lower level." Another friend (K. C. H.) writes : — " Is not the Philistine hatred to Anglo-Catholicism rather called fnrth by the true democracy of the Church, tho witness which she bears against tho mean estimate of their poorer brethren which the midillo-class too often take? .... Surely, Herbert's ploughmen at Benierton and tho Holborn arti.'^ans who attend St. Alban's were, and are, not inaccessible to refined and refining religious in- fluences. " 2R h'F.X AM) /X.t.lA' WALTOX. [chap. ii. from tliat of the Lcii^nio Jind (Jovciiaiit, under tlie T.on^ Parlia- ment, 1() that of ahjuration under (iuecn Anne, with a facility wliich reminds one of Talleyrand's ' aside ' when he swore alle- giance to Louis Philippe: " It is the thirteenth; Heaven grant it may he the last ! " With Ken and his fellows it was just the opposite of this. The rule on which they appear to have acted was, "When in doubt, take the losing side. Follow the path which leads, not to wealth and honour, but to loss, privation, contumely." We can think of them as giving thanks, as Mr. Maurice did in the later years of his life, that they had always been on the side of the minority.' The inquiry which has furnished the materials for this chapter has at least taught me something over and above its immediate object. As I have dwelt on that home of Walton's, retaining its calm and cheerfulness and even mirth in the midst of the confusions of the age, I seem to myself to have under- stood, almost for the first time, what it was that led the poet of our own age whose spirit was most akin to Ken's, to fix on it as an oasis in the dreary wilderness of controversy. The succession of the witnesses for a higher and serener life seems, at first, a somewhat strange one. First St. Jerome, and then St. Louis, and, to complete the series — " A fouler vision yet ; an age of light — Light without love, — glares on the aching sight ; who can tell how calm and sweet, Meek Walton I sliows tliy green retreat, When, wearied with the tale thy times disclose, The eye first finds thee out in thy secure repose ? " • > Life, by Col. Maurice, ii. 69. * Christian Year, Adveut Sunday. CHAPTER III. SCHOOL LIFE AT WINCHESTER, A.O. 1651 — 1656. " Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour, Bright dreams, and fitncyings strange ; Blessings, when reason's awful power Gave thought a bolder range." /. H. Xewman. The analysis of the elements in the surroundin0 — 1G08), formerly Pro- fessor of Greek at Oxford and Prebendary of Winchester, was a' member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, appointed by Parliament in 104v?, by which those two documents were framed.^ The AVarden, however, then as now, exercised only a general superintendence over the College, and the actual in- struction of the boys was in the hands of the Infornintor, or head-master, Mr. Pottenger (1651), and ^Mr. Burt (10-54), who became Warden on Harris's death in 1658, and Mr. Phillips, the OsfioriuH, or second master. In the absence of adequate data of information as to the school-life of England during the period of the Commonwealth, one is left in some measure to construct for this period of Ken's life an ideal biography ; but assuming the average conditions of boy nature, it is probable enough that the strife which had rent asunder the social life of England reproduced itself in the school at Winchester, and that the boys whom Ken found there on his admission were ranged under opposing banners as Roundheads and Cavaliers, each trying to assert itself against the other. Under such circumstances a boy whose antecedents were like Ken's, who still said his Collects in the dormitory and observed fasts and festivals, would be likely enough to find himself pointed at as a formalist and prelatist, as a Papist or a " follower of Canterbury," even if this were not followed up by more * At Sherborne, f.'7.,the captain of the Parliamentary forces, after taking the cnstlo in 1660, compelled the governors of the school to remove the royal arms. They were of course replaced at the Restoration. ^ I am told, however, that the College accounts show that a musical service, of some kind, was kept up during the Parliamentary and Commonwealth regime. ^ There is no evidence, however, that Harris entered even a single appearance at the 1163 Meetinsjs of the .\ssembly. Neal (ii. 702) says that he took the Cove- nant and 80 remained in his office. (See Masson, Life of Milton, ii. p. 519.) A.D. 1651—56.] SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS. 81 active persecution.^ Even then the young Philothnm (I use his own term for his ideal Winchester scholar) may have had to pass through some of the trials that were as the training for that suffering for conscience' sake, which was afterwards, even if we think that he suffered for an unworthy cause, the glory of his later life. If the child is the father of the man, and if, therefore, we may idealise backward from the Bishop to the boy, it may be that he found among the boys of the other side some whom he could learn to love, pure, devout, truthful, and whom I can picture him as protecting from the rough handling of his Cavalier playmates. In these trials it is probable that he found a friend and companion, probably also a protector, in Francis Turner, afterwards Bishop of Ely (one of the seven bishops who shared Ken's deprivation), with whom he was united in after years in the bonds of a lil'e- long friendship of the David and Jonathan, or Pylades and Orestes type, or, to take a parallel from the more recent records of Winchester, like that which bound together Lord Ilatherley and Dean Hook from their earliest boyhood at that school to their death.^ Other school friends were Jolm Nicholas, elected in the same year with Ken, afterwards, in succession. Warden of New College and Winchester, whom we shall meet again (p. 124), and, for his last two years, Edward Young, afterwards Fellow of the College and Dean of Salisbury, 1 So, in a later generation, the boys of "Winchester arranged themselves as Jacobites or Hanoverians. — Adams, IVykehamica, p. 112. - Turner will meet us so often in the course of this narrative that it may be ■well to give the principal facts in his career. He was born in 1()3G, and was therefore a year older than Ken. His father was successively chaplain to Charles I. and Dean of Rochester and Canterbury. He went to New CoUci^e a year before Ken. In 1664 he was presented to the living of Thcrfield, in Hert- fordshire ; in November, 1670, ho was elected Master of .St. John's College, Cam- bridge, where ho was the intimate friend of Peter Giuuiing, who had brought him to Cambridge (1666) with a view to his succeeding him in the Master- ship, and whom he succeeded also in the Bishopric of Ely, in 1684, having in the meantime been chaplain to the Duke of York, Dean of Windsor (February. 1684), and Bishop of Rochester. (See Baker's llinlonj of St. John a, 1G8'J, p. 273.) Like Ken, he was a poet, and wrote hymns. Ho also published a life of Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Uidding. His later life will come before us once and again, as closely connected with that of his old schoolfellow. In many ways he and Ken had much in common, but he was more vigorous and impulsive, and their friendship rested on qualities in which each was complementary to IIjo other. .12 sen ()()!. LIFE AT ]V IM' II ESTKll. [chap. iir. who was tho tiithcr of the uufhor of llie Ni(jltt Titouijlifx, and ])reuchcw College as Scholars, and were admitted, after two years probation, as I'fllows, but practically were known as FellowM from the time of their election. VOL. 1. U 84 SCHOOL LIFE AT WlXCllEHTKIL [vuxv. iir. loft on a mind like Ken's. It was, pcrliaps, believed that the old Latin morning hymn — Jam lucis orto sidere, had been composed for the scholars of Winton.* There was, perhaps, the Du/ce domiun, dear to the heart of all Wykehamists,^ with its cheery verses — " Mum ! libroa mitte, fenm ; Mitte pensa dura, ^ Tho statement has, I need hardly say, no historical foundation, but it is given Ly Bowles (I. 16), who was an old Wykehamist, in his Life of Ken. The hymn, Jam lucis, belongs to the fifth century, and was, perhaps, written by St. Ambrose. It had been used from an early date in the Roman office for Prime and, therefore, had been sung daily at Winchester to the time of the Reforma- tion. It would seem to have held its place in the School Services in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to have been disused in the eighteenth. A scholarly Warden, like Harris, was likely, I think, to combine its uae with the West- minster Directory. Its occasional use has been recently revived. It can scarcely, at any rate, be questioned that Ken's Morning Hymn for hisFhilotheus was an echo of what he had learnt at Winchester in his own boyhood, and I therefore submit the Jam lucis itself, and a translation, to the reader who may wish to compare the two : — Jam Lucis orto sidere. " Jam lucis orto sidere, " Lo ! sunrise floods the world with light, Deum precemur supplices. Let us to God as suppliants pray Ut, in diurnis actibus, That He will guide our way aright, Nos servet h nocentibus. In all we think or do this day. " liinguam refraenans temperet, " May He our heedless lips restrain, Ne litis horror insonet: Thatstrife'sloudclamoursoundnotthence; Visum fovendo contegat May He hide from us all things vain, Ne vanitates hauriat. And veil our eyes with innocence. " Sint pura cordis intima; " Pure let the heart's deep fountain be, Absistat et vecordia. And idle sloth be driven afar ; Camis terat superbiam In all we eat or drink may we Potus cibique parcitas : Tame lusts that with the soul make war. " Ut, cum dies abscesserit, " So, when the day shall vanish hence, Noctemque sors reduxerit. And on it falls the gloom of night, Mundi per abstinentiam May we, made pure by abstinence, Ipsi canamus gloriam." Praise Him, His glory and His might." ' I speak with some doubt. Adams ( JTi/k: p. 410) says that it came into use between 1675 and 1700. Bowles (I. 18) says it was used before the Reformation. John Reading, who composed the tune to which it is now sung, was organist, 1681—9. A.D. IGol— .>G.] ''DULCE DOMVUr 36 Mitte negotium, Jam datur otium, lie tnea mittito ciira. ** Ridet anntis, prata rident, Nosque rideamus; Jam repetit domiim Daulias advena ; Nosque domum repetamusy ' For one who in later years idealised himself under the name of Hymnotheo these fragments from the music and hymuulogy of the past must even then, I take it, have had an almost price- less value.^ They were witnesses of something better than the jarring strife of tongues and the bitter mutual anathemas in the midst of which he found himself. Even if, as is possible under the Puritan ascendency, the Latin hymns were no longer sung, they may still have lived in the traditions of the school. He would read the warning words, Aid Disce aut Dincede : Mattel sors tertla, crrdi.^ The motto of William of Wykeham — was still the watchword of the college. His statutes — which ' I venture here also on a translation of three verses, including the twu given in the text. I owe the last two lines to the Bishop of Bath and Wells. " At last the hour is drawing near, Hour of joy and pleasure, After months of wear and tear Comes the longed-for leisure. " Away with tasks, away with books, Away with toil and sadness, Our holiday no lesson brooks ; After care comes gladness. " The year, the fields, with smiles are bright, Let smiles, too, deck our faces ; The swallows homeward wing their flight, Seek we, too, home's dear places." * Yet earlier traditions may have come before him. In his epic of Edmund he identifies Winchester with the Arthurian Camelot. The whole poom is full of interesting reminiscences of Winchester, traditions of Arthur, St. Kwithin, and the like. ' The motto is given by Christopher Johnson (Ilrad-Mnster lfi60-71}, in a Latin poem quoted in Wordsworth's CnUeqr of St. Mnri/, ff'inton, p. 2',i. d2 36 SCHOOL LIFE AT WL\('J1J:STER. [r.uw. in. contai'ncfl for juniors this rule, " prrvfrrfis ohtcmpcralo" and for j)rii>po8tor8, " /cf/ifitn^ itnperato," and for both, " uterque a memlaciis, osfrnfatioiiibus, j'urf/iis, ptKjnix, of furtin nhHtinrto " — must have been impressed on Ken's mind as a counsel for the guidance of his life. The strange symbolic figure of the Trusty Servant, familiar to all "Wykehamists, could scurcoly fail to be interpreted by a mind early trained to understand parables.^ In the Manual for Winchester Scholars, which he wrote in after years, in the directions which he gives to his young Philotheus (the choice of the name for the ideal scholar is singularly suggestive) for morning prayers in the chapel "between the first and second peal," to avoid the inter- ruptions of the " common chamber " or dormitory,^ and for evening prayers as he went Circum;^ for reading "before second peal " " some short psalm, or piece of a chapter out of the Gospel or historical books, because they are most easy to be under- stood ; " for listening devoutly when Scripture was " daily read in the hall before dinner and supper ; " for profiting by the hymns and psalms which were " sung so frequently in his chamber, in the chapel, and in the hall ; " for preparing for the " blessed sacrament " and " rightly approaching the holy altar ; " by withdrawing into his chamber or the chapel, and there " communing with his own heart," we may legitimately trace, in part (making due allowance for the changes caused in ' The present painting dates from the early part of the eiirhteenth century, but the figure is known to have existed in 1560. — Adams, Wyk., p. 42. * I may note, as a feature in the school-life of the time, that the scholars of "Winchester then slept in truckle-beds on the floor. They owed their bedsteads to Bishop Trelawney, who succeeded Peter Mews in 1707. At 5 a.m. the pre- fect of the chamber gave the order to rise. The boys said some Latin psalms befnre dressing, combed their hair, and made their beds (till 1540 they had only bundles of straw), and said their private prayers — (Adams. Jf'i/k., p. 83). Tre- lawney substituted 6 a.m. for 5 a.m. during the winter half-year. ^ The phrase refers to the practice, now discontinued, of a procesaion round the cloisters, to a bench in the ambulatory, where the boys sjiid their prayers before they went to bed. (Adams, IVi/k:, p. 39.) Bishop Charles Wordsworth, in his Colkgc of St. Mary, Wiiiton (pp. 42-46), prints two P^alm8 for morning and evening use by the scholars of Winchester, in cubiculo, which were printed at Oxford (1616) in a volume of Prercn, &c., compiled by Dr. Hugh Robinson, then Head Master. They are mainlv Irom the Vulgate Psalms. They may have been continued to be used under Htirris. WartoD,Head Master from 1766 to 1793, states that they were still used then. A.D. 1651—56.] FFN'S CONFIRMATION. 87 Bome of these matters by the Puritan discipline), what had been his own practices in striving after the higher life, in part also, perhaps, his recollection of the omissions through which ho seemed to himself to have fallen short of it.* I must not close the story of Ken's boy-life at Winchester without touching on the fact, familiar as it is, that he left one outward and visible record of his presence there. On the stone buttress of the south-east corner of the cloister we still read the name " TIIO. KEN. 1656." ^ It was the last year of his sojourn there. It was probably, as it were, his farewell to the school, to which he then little dreamt that he should ever return in another character. We speak sometimes harshly of that English name -cutting habit (not exclusively English though) which leads boys or men thus to commemorate their existence. We are shocked, as Ken must afterwards have been in his own cathedral,^ to see the stately monuments of prelates and nobles disfigured from head to foot with the initials or names of nobodies ; but there are instances in which, as the walls and desks of all our public schools show, we look on the graven letters as with a strange fascination. The hand that cut them > A question meets us which 1 wish I wasaMc to answer. Confirmation is so important an epoch in a boy's religious life that we should gladly learn when, and by what bishop, Ken was confirmed. Under the Puritan regime it is obvious that it could not have been at Winchester. Even Evelyn {Dianj, Juno 7, 1657) had to get his child baptized in secret by Jeremy Taylor. Bishops llail of Norwich (died 1656), and .Skinner of Oxford, however, continued to ordain diirinj? the Commonwealth, and probably therefore confirmed also. It is likely enough that Walton may have had Skinner or other episcopal visitors in his house in Staf- fordshire, and one of them may have laid hands on Ken. Hall published a Tna- tise on Cuxfirmation (1645), in which he complains of its being generally ne- glected in all the reformed churches, Engbtnd included. Devon and Cornwall, curiously enough, are named by him as counties in which the common people still desired it. The Bursar's accounts at Winchester show that Holy Com- munion was administered, when Ken was there, at Christmas and Foster, and on All Saints' Day. A choral service of some kind was also kept up. ''■ The name is also fo\md in the north-western corner of the cloistf r, aa is that of Ken's friend, Francis Turner. The initiuls, T. K., also occur twice in the Biime positions. If the second name on the S.E. buttress be Ken's— though less clear than the first, Mr. \VTiymper is, I think, right in so engniving it, — it would show that ho had revisited the school in the year after his election. ^ I find on the monuments of Bishop Rjilph of Shrewsbury, and Bishop Beckyngton, in Wells Cathedral, names and dates which carrj' the practice back to 1676 ; but there are probably earlier undated instances. 38 SCHOOL LIFE AT WIXCHESTER. [chap. in. there wielded afterwards the pen, the sword, the pastoral staff, and did great things with it. The rough carving becomes an uncoDficious prophecy. The boy left his mark in the school, the man will leave it in the world. ®^,'^--i; NAME IN CLOISTEKS, VSINCHEbTEK. CHAPTER IT. OXFORD LIFE UNDER PARLIAMENTARY VISITORS, A.D. 1647—1660. '•Few though the faithful, and fierce though tlie foe. Yet weakness is aye Heaven's might." /. H. Xfvmam (p. 76). Herb again, at Oxford a5 at TTinchestpr, our first step towards any clear apprehension of Ken's education must be to realise the fact that university life with him was very different from that life as we commonly picture it to ourselves in the present or the past. Here also the Puritan revolution had triumphed, and when Ken entered on his career at Oxford, there had been a great upturning of all things. The colleges had, as is read in every history, devoted themselves, with rare exceptions, loyally and heartily, to the King. He had held his courts and parlia- ment within their walls. The younger members had enlisted in his army, under Prince Pupert. College plate, flagons, salvers, cups, that would now be of priceless value among the treasures of South Kensington, were cast into the melting-pot to supply his treasury.^ His bishops and chaplains, the high churchmen of the school of Laud and Montague and Hammond, the staunchest preachers of the divine right of kings and of passive obedience, were then of paramount authority. But a change had passed over Oxford. The King's cause waned as that of the Parliament waxed strong, and the University had to pay the ' I note, as a fact, whii^i, as ret, I cannot explain, that Xew College, though conspicuotisly loyal, does not appear in the ILst of the contrihut-'T*. (Gutch, i., 2"27.) The plate was coined into money at New Inn Hall, and the coins bore the legend, " Exsurgat Dcu4 : dissipfHtnr immiei" — Cromwell's prayej, we remember, before Dunbar — and was commonlv known .-is ixfuraat money. — [C. J. P.] 40 I'Ain.IAMKXTAl:]' VISITOHS. [nwr. ir, jx'iiiilty of its devotion. After the battle of Naseby, Fairfax liiid siege to Oxf(jr(l, iuid the town and University capitu- lated. It is no part of uiy work to trace the details of even that corner of the great history of the rebellion. It will be enough to note, in briefest outline, that the Lords and Com- mons assembled in Parliament had, on May Ist, 1G47, passed an ordinance for "the Visitation and the Reformation of the Uni- versity of Oxford, and the several Halls and Colleges therein." As the first step of this decree twenty-four Visitors were ap- pointed, fourteen laymen and ten Puritan divines, with Lord Pembroke at their head (appointed Chancellor in Feb., 1648V with all the wide authority of what one might almost call a roving commission. The whole power that had before been vested in the Visitors recognised by the statutes of the several colleges was transferred to them. They were to enforce the solemn League and Covenant, the " negative " oath, and the observance of the Westminster Directory, and further to " inquire and report upon all such persons as had borne arms against the Parliament." As a Court of Appeal and Direction a standing Committee was appointed, consisting of twenty-six lords and fifty-two members of the House of Commons. The Visitors were for the most part men of little mark, but one or two deserve special notice. The chairman was Sir Nathaniel Brent, who as Vicar-General of England, and Judge of the Prerogative Court, as well as War- den of Merton, had at first been a strong supporter of the Royalist cause, but had afterwards joined that of the Parliament, had taken the Covenant, and, as a consequence, been displaced by the King from his Wardenship to make way for William Harvey, the King's physician, and famous to all ages as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. On the surrender of Oxford to the Parliamentary forces Brent was reinstated in his office, and now took his place at the head of the Visitors in a smarting and vindictive temper.^ With him were WiUiam Prynne, of Lincoln's Inn, whose Histriomnstix had marked him out as a man of omnivorous erudition, and Thomas Cheynell, of Merton, who had worried Chillingworth on his ' He is said to have taken down the rich altar-hangings of Merton Chapel and used thtni for his bedroom (Ant. a 'Wood in Andcrdon, p. 21). A.D. 1048.] POLICY OF '^TEOROUGnr 41 deatb-bed in prison, and at bis funeral bad anatbematised his Religion of Profesfanfs as tbat "cursed book," tbat "corrupt, rotten book," wbicb " had seduced so many millions of souls."' The rest, as I have said, were nobodies ; but it may be assumed of most, if not all, of those who belonged to the University, that they had winced under the Laudian regime, and now felt that the hour of revenge had come. The Committee of Lords and Commons included nearly all the best known names of the sup- porters of the Parliamentary cause, but, as there is, as far as I can trace, no record of those who, from time to time, took part in its proceedings, it will be enough to note the name of Francis Rous, who bad been prominent in the House of Commons under James and Charles, and was almost its leader in the Long Parlia- ment. He was one of the lay members of the AVestminster Assembly of Divines, and had been made Provost of Eton by tho Parliament, was the chief " Trier of Preachers," the author of the Scotcb Paraphrane of the Psal))tH and one of CromwtU's " Lords." His name appears as its Chairman at the foot of all the resolutions of the Committee. I must not enter fully on the tale of the way in which tlio Visitors began and carried on their work. At first, as was natural, they were, as far as men dared, snubbed and thwarted. Sheldon, as Warden of All Souls, and others, notahly including Sanderson, protested against their jurisdiction and against the League and Covenant. They were treated superciliously by the Vice-Chancellor. burlesqued and satirised in pamphlets, flouted at by undergraduates. These things, however, did but serve to irritate them. They had the irresistible logic of tho force majeure to back them, and they set to work in a " root and branch " style which was as thorough as the " thorough " of Laud and Strafford, on a wider scale of action, had been be- fore them. They expelled right and left with an unsparing severity. Reynolds was appointed Vice-Chancellor. Heads of bouses, and fellows and scholars and commoners, down to the very cooks and butlers and scouts, were summoned to appear ' It is right to add that Chcyndl, who was appointed as I'n nidi nt of St. John's, was expelled for not talking the " cngaRimont " oath. Reynolds forfeit4>d tho Deanery of Chri.st C'hvirih lor tho i Founded in 1282 as Hart Hall, it was chartered as Hertford College in 1740, dissolved from insufficiency of endowments in 1805 ; the site and part of its endow- ments transferred in 1816 to Magdalen Hall, when that institution, founded as a dependency of Jlagdalen College, 1480, and becoming an independent Hall in 1603, was burnt out of its old quarters ; and finallj-, by the exertions of the Princi- pal, Dr. Michell, and the munificence of Mr. Thomas Baring, M.P., it was again charicred as Hertford College, with a splendid foundation for fourteen fellows and twenty -nine Scholars" — (Burrows, p. 117). A brochure by Father Goldie, S.J. , A Bijgoiie Oxford, represents Hart Hall and St. John's Hall (now Worcester College), as places of refuge for Catholics. [C. J. P.] * Wood, in his Colleges and Hallx, gives some curious particulars in 1651 — 3 (C. W. B.). It was full before the Civil Wars began, but the members Ictt Oxford when the King entered it, apparently as being on the other side. A.D. 1G.37— Gl.] KEN AT NEW COLLEGE. 43 three members of it were summoned to appear before \\w Visitors, that it had fallen to a somewhat low level as regards numbers ; and (2) from the immediate and full submission of those three members to the Parliamentary Visitors, that they, in common with the members of all the Halls, who seem to have been in opposition to the majority of the Colleges, belonged to the Puritan party. Of the three who are thus named nothing further is known, and we may conclude tliat they were persons of no special mark.* Our ignorance in this matter is, however, of not much con- sequence. Ken remained at the Hall for a few months onlv, and was admitted at New College to the longed-for fellowship in 1657. I content myself with recording the names of the fellows admitted at the same time, Pichard Parsons, Edward Colley, Ambrose Phillips, Edward Spenser, Christopher Min- shull, William Darell, and John Nicholas, afterwards WardcH of New College, and then of Winchester.^ Here we know more, and what we know is sufficiently sug- gestive. Of all the Colleges in Oxford the foundation of William of Wykeham was that on which the strong hand of the Visitors fell most heavily, and, as we shall see, not without cause. In the early stages of the struggle between the King and the Parliament, its Warden, Dr. Robert Pink, had formed a regiment of militia out of the fellows, scholars, and other members of the society. The College became something like a fortress, and helmets, and pikes, and muskets were routed out and furbished up for use. Scholars were so attracted by the activities and gaieties of military life that they could never be brought to their books again.* I'ink himself belonged to the school of Laud, and his appointment of such men as Isaac Burrow,* Peter Gunning, and Richard Sher- ' lUirrows, p. 11. * The rooms of the scholars of New Collee;o were known by (ri.slinclivo mimon, such as the "Vine," the " Baptism's Head," the " Star." Each chamlxr had four beds and a small study, under the superintendence of a Fellow. Ken was in the " Rose," and his old school friend. Turner, was one of his " chums." 3 A. Wood, Life, p. 13. * Not the famous Isaac Barrow, Master of Trinity Collogo, Cambridffo, but his uncle, afterwards Bi,'(>wl<>s, i. 32. A.D. 1649.] iV^TT COLLEGE AND TEE VISITORS. ^'^ visitatorial authority. Their conscience compelled thcra, at any cost, to refuse to submit. And so one and all, fifty- four fellows and eight chaplains, with the exception of ono solitary fellow (we can scarcely, under the circumstances, though he states that he, too, is *' convicted in conscience " to come to an opposite conclusion, call him an Abdiel among the faithless or an AtJianaxins contra mion/um), thev appeared, protested, and were ejected. They at least had the courage of their convictions, and were content to bear the penalty. The list of seventy-five appointments to the vacant fellowships shows how entirely the whole construc- tion of the college was changed. Stringer was deprived, and, on January 25, 164|-, George Marshall, not a Wyke- hamist, not even an Oxford man, but a clergyman who, after a Cambridge training, had acted as Chaplain to the Parliamentary, Army, was appointed Warden in his place. The muniment room and college chests which had been left locked were broken open, and their contents handed over to his keeping. The college was for the time the most deeply dyed with Puritanism in the whole of Oxford. Edward Clarke, the pseudo-Abdiel referred to above, was well- nigh the only link with the traditions of the past. One touching instance of a reluctant submission was to bo found in the conduct of William Haxney, the college barber, who, after having accepted the jurisdiction of the Visitors un- reservedly, afterwards qualified his assent.' "Sue farre as I may, without breach of my oath, I shall humbly submit to this Visitation." It is touching to think that the tonsorial casuist may have cut Ken's hair or trimmed his beard, if he had one. This then was the college life on which Ken entered in 1 ft-")?,' and it will be admitted, I think, that he must hav(> found him- self in a sufficiently alien element. There, as before at N\'in- chester, instead of the services which ho loved with a love like that embodied in Herbert's words " The Church's prayers — there are none like hers," there were either no services at 1 Burrows, pp. 60, 116. * If the second name in the woodcut of p. 3S bo Ken's, he was prohnMy nt Winchester for the election, and travelled with his toinradts, on foot, like Hooker, oi on horseliatk. 46 r.illL/ AM J:\TAny IISITORS. [chap. IV. all in the College Cliapel which all Oxford men associate with the chants and anthems that have made its fame, as seems probable from the resolution passed by the Visitors in 1(554, reminding tutors that they ought to gather their scholars round theni and pray with them between the hours of 7 and 10 P.M., or, if this was meant in addition to the Chapel ser- vices, only meetings for extemporary prayer after the fashion of the Westminster Directory.* Instead of scholars and theologians whom he could respect, the tutors and fellows were men compara- tively illiterate,^ even as regards the scholarship of tlie schools, and yet more as regards the wider culture with which Walton's library and his friends had made Ken familiar. Hugh Peters and others of a like type, were among the appointed University preachers at St. Mary's. At the risk of seeming to indulge in paradox I venture to express my belief that it was better for Ken, even happier for him, at that period of his life, that this should have been so, than that his student-years should have been passed at Oxford either in the period that preceded the triumph of the Parliament or that which followed on the Restoration. If it seemed hard for him thus to " bear tbe yoke in his youth," by being associated with men with whom he had little or no sympathy, it would, I imagine, have been still harder for a man of Ken's temperament, to tind himself among those who, while outwardly, in their politics and their party-cries, on the same side with himself, were yet, in mind and morals, even more alien from his character. The undergraduate Cavaliers who followed Prince Rupert's standard, and caught the infection of the dissolute roystering manners of his courtier-officers, with » Burrows, pp. 302, 359, 372. * Auderdon (p. 19) quotes some amusing verses from John Allibone : — Conscendo orbis illud decus, Bodleio Fundatore, Sed intus erat nullum pecus, Excepto janitore. " Neglcctos vidi libros multos. Quod minime mirandum ; Nam inter bardos tot ot stultos. There's few could luiderstand 'em." In July, 1654, however, Evelyn records a visit to the Bodleian. Barlow, after- wards Bishop of Lincoln, was then Librarian and apparently active in his office. Probably Allibone's verses were hardly more than a squib. A.B. 1657—61.] ALL FOR THE BEST. 47 their lovelocks and their oaths and their shameless licentious- ness ; the fellows who came back to the places from which they had been expelled in the temper of an exultino;, but too natural, vindictiveness, the type of undergraduate life which was pre- dominant under Charles II., to which all piety was l*uritanism, as afterwards, in the days of the Wesleyan revival, all devotion was Methodism, would, I take it, have been more dista^^teful even than the rigorous Calvinism in the midst of which he had found himself. Wherever there was the element of a true personal religion, the fear of God and the love of man. Ken would find even then, as the kindly relations in which he lived with Non-conformists show that he found in after life, some point of contact and fellowship. We cannot altogether ignore the testimony of Philip Henry, the gentle saint of Non- conformity under the rule of the Restoration (b. l*J;il,d. KJDG), and the father of Matthew Henry, the commentator, that the Oxford men of his time — and that time must have been nearly coincident with Ken's — if they were less scholarly than their predecessors, were also men who led a purer and more devout life.^ He would, I imagine, approve the ordinance by which Owen abolished the scurrilous, and often obscene, railleries of the Terrce Filius at the Saturnaiia of the annual Oxford Act, or Commemoration.^ And it may be added that at the time when Ken became a student at New College the tyranny was in some measure over- past. The axe had lost the keenness of its edge, the " root and branch " work had been accomplished, and expulsions had ceased to be the order of the day, partly, of course, because there were now very few " malignants " to be expelled, but partly also, it must be acknowledged, because the later acts of tlie Visitors showed that they were now striving {circ. 1G04) to raisr tho ' Burrows, p. Ixxiv. Among the " seekers " whom Wood describes tiftor his manner (i^f/s^t. ii.,61), with "mortified eountcnunces, puling voices, uplifttHl eyee, hands on their breasts, and short hair," there must, I conceive, have been some who were neither hypocrites nor fanatics. * On one occasion Owen actually pulled down the TVnvr Filing frnm tlio rostrum, and sent him to the Oxford prison known as Bocardo. Lancelot .Vdilison, Joseph's fath(!r, two years after Ken came up, was compelled to make a formal apology for attacking the hypocrisy of the then rulers of the kingdom. He was but seventeen. (C. J. P.) 48 PARlJ.i.V/:\T.l/n' r/S/TORS. [chap. rv. Htiiiidurd both of .scholarship aud religion. The ordinances to which I have already called attention, together with other resolu- tions establishing sermons and lectures in divinity in several colleges* are sufficient evidence as to the latter. Their zeal in regard to the former was shown in their repeated decrees direct- ing that fellows and students should in their meals in Hall speak Latin or Greek, so that " their ignorance in this matter might not bring discredit on the University in their publique dis- courses with forreignors." ^ Even the regulations against " excesse and vanitie, in powdering of hair, wearing knots of ribands, walking in boots and spurs, and bote hose-tops," which indicate the revival of Cavalier costumes, would probably not be unwelcome to a student of Ken's temperament, to whose influence a like sumptuary regulation after the Restoration was probably in great measure due.^ But above all there was, shortly after Ken's entrance, a relaxa- tion of the rigour which had deprived those who were loyal to the old order of the English Church of that on which they had depended for the sustenance of their religious life. The original commission lapsed in 1652, and a new one, representing the In- dependent rather than the Presbyterian element, was appointed in June, IGo-S.* In that instance, as in so many others — as, e.g. in the wide comprehensiveness of the Royal Declaration (probably drawn up by Laud) prefixed to the Thirty-nine Articles — the old Virgilian quotation comes in aptly enough — Via prima salutis, Quod minime reris, Grata pandetur ah urbe. When Cromwell had triumphed over the Parliament, John « Burrows, pp. 37 4, 382, 390. et al. 2 Burrows, pp. 249, 266, et al. 3 I refer to the letter issued by the Duke of Monmouth to the Fniversity of Cambridge, and reproduced in Latin by Ralph Bathurst (afterwards Dean of Wells), as Vice -Chancellor of Oxford, against the secular apparel which the clergy and scholars were beginning to use. Many Oxford readers will remember like sumptuary regulations in the Laudian statutes. The letter also condemned the indolent and discreditable practice of reading written sermons, and in this also the influence of Ken and of his school may be traced. We have a contemporary MS. copy of Monmouth's letter, possibly written by himself, in our Librarj- at Wells. It was probably among Dean Bathui-st's papers. (See p. 201). ♦ Burrows, pp. 353 — 8. A.D. 1657— Gl.] THE TYRANNY OVERPAST. 49 Owen, his chaplain,^ an Independent of the strongest type, was made Dean of Christ Church, and was the ruling mind on the Board of Visitors. Cromwell himself was Chancellor, and Owen, Vice-Chancellor. It was precisely under the r«'gimo of the latter that there was the first dawn of freedom. Though he himself was so great an enemy to forms, that he wuuld sit down and put on his hat, when the Lord's Prayer was used even by Presbyterian preachers, yet with his full acquiescence, if not approval, Dr. John Fell, afterwards famous as his suc- cessor in the deanery, was allowed, together with Dolben and Allestree, to hold Church of England services, including Holy Communion, in the house of Thomas Willis, Fell's brother- in- law, at Beam Hall, to the east of Oriel College, and opposite Merton Chapel, at which the officiating ministers wore sur- plices, and the order of ritual was at least decent and rever- ential. These services were attended by not less than three hundred members, graduates and undergraduates, from Christ Church and other colleges.^ It would be interesting, could we obtain anything like a roll- call of those who welcomed the opportunity thus aflbrded tliem, after a long privation, of worshipping God after the manner of their fathers, to trace, as Mr. Masson has traced, in his Life of Milton, the history of those who were his companions and tutors at Christ's College during his Cambridge life, the careers of those who were thus associated with Ken during his Oxford years, and speculate on their points of contact, in their previous or their later history, their family or ecclesiastical relationships, with the subject of this memoir. As that opening for research is not given us, we must content ourselves with one or two of the more memorable names among those who were Ken's contemporaries, and who may probably have been thus connected with him. • Owen astonished the University by h costume " hke a yonnR scholar," whi< h might well come under Monmouth's censure. " Powdered hair, snake-bone band stiings, largo tassels and ribbons pointed at the knees, and Spanish leather boot*, with large lawn tops, and wore bin hat cocked." — Wood's Athm. Ojron., ii.p. 738. * Burrows, p. xlvi., a Wood, At/ifn. Oxon., iv. isg, 194. It is ri^'ht to sUt*' that Owen denied the accusation of treatini? the Lord's I'myer with disr<>.H|v>,t. and said that he thought it the most perfect prayer that was over coinjiosed {Sermons and Tracts, p. 619). Apparently he objected only to its. pulpit use The hat seems often to have been worn during sennons, and Owen's act, per- liaps, simply implied that he treated the praser, so u.sed. us p.irt of the ■enuon, [CI. P.] VOL. I. K r,() PARLTAMENTAnr VISfTOn^. [ciiAi'. IV. "W^e can sonrccly be wronji; in assiiiiiiTi{i thut he, at least, wns one of that coiigroj^^ation. John Locke was a student at Christ Church, matricuhited in 1051, but it is scarcely pro- bable, I think, that he would have attended the services in question, or that if he and Ken ever came into contact with each other, they would find many points of sympathy.' Of Robert Boyle, afterwards memorable as one of the early mem- bers of the Ro}al Society and as the founder of the Boyle Lectures, we may, I think, feel sure that he would have been a devout member of that Christ Church gathering, and may believe that he and Ken, did they become acquainted with each other, would find, in much that they held in common, a ground of fellowship and friendship. Of three, however, who were then at Christ Church we have something more than conjectural surmises. There, a year or two younger than Ken, was Thomas Thynne, the eldest son of a family conspicuous for its devotion to the Royalist cause, whose father had suffered for that devo- tion at the hands of the Parliament in the form of a heavy fine, which included, by a singular coincidence, looking to the after relations of the two men, a charge of £20 per annum for the benefit of St. John's Church at Frome, where, after eighteen years spent at Longleat under his protection, Ken was to find his final resting-place. Thynne's education had been directed by Hammond and Fell, and he was therefore pre- pared to sympathise with the young Fellow of New College. There also was George Hooper, fresh from "Westminster School, full of manifold promise of intellectual gifts and high-toned character, of whom Busby, the Master of that school (we may remember that he was Dryden's master also), had said that, unpromising as his exterior might be, he had more in him than any other of his scholars, to whom others bore their witness that he united " all that was most characteristic of the scholar, the English gentleman, and the divine," ^ ' On the other hand, in 1691 we find Ken writing to Mrs. Grigge, who was s cousin of Locke's, and Locke's mother wasdau^fiter of Edward Keene, of "Wring- ton. Keenewasone of the many variants of Ken, and the two facts suggest the possibility of s^ome family connexion. In later years Locke was a visitor atLong- leat, and Mrs. Grigge resided with Francis Turner when he. then a widower, Wii8 Bishop of Ely, as governess to his daughter. See ii., p. 52. ^ Miller, of Ilighclere. Andtrdon, p. 87. A.D. 1657—61] JiTEWS OXFORD FRIENDS. 51 and whose life was to be linked, as we shall see, in its many changes and chances, and in ways so memorable, with that of Ken. There also must have been Francis Turner, senior by a year to Ken at New College, who had been amou^ his chosen friends at Winchester, and who was afterwards to be associated with him in the most memorable crisis of their lives, and in the sacrifices which they had to bear, through many years, for what seemed to the conscience of each the imper- ative obligation of duty. Among Ken's friends at Oxford, and therefore probably a member of the congregation who thus worshipped after the ritual of the Church of England, we mny also note John Fitzwilliara, Fellow of Magdalen, whose life- long intimacy with him will meet us again more than once in this history.^ Among his contemporaries were many men more or less famous, Wilkins (afterwards Bishop of Chester), Dr. Wallis (the mathematician), Seth Ward (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), William Petty, and Christopher Wren.^ The mitigation of the rigour of the Puritan regime indi- cated in these services at Christ Church, was seen in other matters in which Ken was more or less a sharer. Evelyn visits Oxford in July, l(j54, and reports that he finds the ^ A few facts in Fitzwilliam's life may fitly find a place hero. In 1651 he entered Magdalen College as a servitor, and was elected to a demyship in 1656. At the Restoration, according to Antony h. Wood, ho " turned about " and " became a great complier to the restored Liturgy." IIo vras Follow of Jlagda- len IGGl — 70, and Librarian in 16G2, being at the same time Uuivei-sity Lecturer on Music. In 1604 he was Chaplain to the Earl of Southampton, father of Lady Eachol Russell, and there began the fricndsliip of which their later correspon- dence is the record. Ho puldished a Thanksgi\-ing Sennon after tho discovery of the Rye-IIoiise Plot, which led, it will be remembered, to William, Lord Russell's execution. lie was Chaplain to Bishop INIorley, as also in IGCG to tho Duke of York, and succeeded Ken at Brighstone in 1GG9. Uo was Vicar of Tottenham and Canon of Windsor, became a Non-juror in 1000, and dii d in 1G99, leaving Ken as his executor, with a life interest in £.300, which ho bequeathed to tho library of his college. lie was also a friend of I/,a;tk Walton's, who sent him presentation copies of his works. Like other students of the tiiuf, like Ken him- self, he often wrote his favourite texts or mottoes on tho fly-leaves of his Iwoks. Two of these are specially characteristic. " RnUlfuda est ratio villitatioiii.n tiim as a Student of Seirnce. — My attention haa been called, as these §heet« are passing through the press, to the Catalogue of the Aylesford Library (Christie's, 1888), which contains a copy of Agricola De He Metallicd, given by Ken to Sir Heneage Finch, August oth, 1707. For other traces of a like line of study, see p. 201. The Longleat Catalogue gives Galen, Gassendi, Galileo, Ray as among his hooks. NOTE TO CIIAPTER IV. Diu Ken write " Expostulatouia ? " Within two months after Ken's death, a small volume appeared with the title of " ExjtoKtiilatoria, or the Complaints of the Church of England against (1) Undue Ordination, (2) Loose Prophanenesn, (3) Unconscionable Symony, (4) Encroaching Pluralities, (5) Careless Non-residence, now reigning among the clergy. By the Right Rev. Father in God, Thomas Kenn, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells." It was printed and sold by J. Baker, at the Bluck Bo)', Paternoster Row, 1711. It is of r2mo size, of about 120 pages. The Editor states that " the sjiirit of devotion which shines through the whole is enough to convince the reader, if he has any knowledge of the late Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Kenn's, composures, that he is the incomparable author," but that his own opinion is that it " was written some years since." He assures the reader that " it is genuine, and taken from a manuscript lately presented to one of our Universities by a Person of Learning and Quality." The editor then gives a life of Bishop Ken, not without errors, giving IGJo aa the year of his birth instead of 1G37, 1659 for his election at Winchester, and 1662 for that at New College ; but he obviously knows something of his subject, and reports, though without names, the whole of the Zulestein story, which had not then been pnblished, though it is given by Hawkins in his Life of Ken in 1713. It ends with quoting, as applicable to Ken, and written, indeed, as his portrait, Dryden's Character of a Good Parson, based on Chaucer's Poor Pemoiie of a Toune. The contents of the book are sufficiently startling. I give a few extracts under each head. The Church is introduced as lamenting over the evils of the time ; she can vindicate her doctrine, discipline, constitution, ceremonies, but she cannot justify her sons and ministers : they are guilty of the sins stated in the title- page. (1) Undue Ordinntinn. — Orders have, " through inadvertency, been bestowed on the Young, the Unlearned, the Debauched, the Profane. We hive young ministers unstable in all their ways, impudent in their carriage, weak in their discourses" (p. 31). "Are you not afraid," the writer asks, aa the mouth- piece of the Church, " to ascend that pulpit which Luther said he never came into without fear and trembling ? " (p. 32). He complains that " men have been ordained who have been expelled from College for licentiou^ine83" (p. 34) ; that the clergy were for the most part " unlearned ; " that religion has been " exposed to a prophane world" by the "ridiculous impertinence" of men "zealous, but not according to knowledge." "What empty discourses do I hear?" (p. 36). The Church could but sigh when she saw "so many weak shoulders, such unwashed hands, such unprepared feet, such rash heads, such empty souls " (p. 40). (2) Sranda/oi/.i Prnphaiiciirsii.- — "Oh! your carelessness ; Oh I your intlifferoncc in matters of religion." And then, after dwelling on other scandals, he namoB, as too often seen, that of " a minister, and yet given to wine " (p. 44). (3) Uncomrionnble Si/iiioiii/. — ^He quotes the Statute of 31 Elizabeth against simony, and adds, " Yet still you truck for livings, you market fi>r benetiees ; still you buy and sell in the Temple" (p. 46). The Church may well ask," Have 1 no true ministers, but a generation of Demases ? " (p. 47). 50 DID Kl-y WHITE '• EXPOSTULA TORT A f " \v\\.kv. iv. n. (4» Kiinoiichiiiii riaralitiex. — Ho contrastH the pn.Hfnl with the; paat. " Once each parinh hud ita own minister, .... now two or three cannot suffice you .... Why is that preferment enprodscd by one which might maintain twenty ?" (p. JJ4). *' Must nil the indiiMtrioiiB miniHU^rs be 8tir»«ndiarieij ? . . . . "Our fatherH, in 632, divided England into pariHhes Our times unite those parishos agitin " (p. 58). (6.) Noii-Rr.sidrnre. — " Tho Chur( h," we are told, " mif^ht almost say with Augustus, wlion ho hoard of tho defeat of Varus, ' Itedde legione» ' " (p. 6-i). " The luirveat is great ; the prebends are many, tho priests are many, the impropriators are many, the labourers arc few " (p. 6.5). " You say, 'we have curates, and they perform our dulios.' Curates ! What new generation of men are these curates 't " p. 67). ' The book ends — after a quotation from Gildas, de Excidio Britannia, " Inimici Dei, non saccrdotes ! Licitatores malorum, non Font\firt» '. Traditoret et non Apostolornm successores !" — with the statement that of rj,000 livings in the Church 3,000 were impropriate, and that 4,165 suffered from non-residence (p. 71) All this was, as I have said, enough to startle men as coming from a Bishop of the Church. William Hawkins, Ken's great-nephew and executor, inserted advertisements in the London papers {The Pout Boy, May 29th, 1711), denounc- ing it as spurious. It was only a reprint of a book that had been first printed under the title of Jchahod, in 1663, and afterwards in 1691. Heame at first speaks of it in his ZJf'nrv as an " infamous book."* " Nobody of understanding and honesty could think that Ken wrote it." He accepts Hawkins's statement that it was a reprint of a " fanatical book " entitled Jchahod. A few days or weeks later, he modifies his judgment. The book was " far better done " than he had thought, it was but "too true a representation of the condition of the Church." It was "writ in the style of Bishop Ken," and though he still "questioned whether it be rially his," he thought it " very well done," and saw "no hurt why it may not bear so great a name." It is obvious, therefore, that, in the judgment of one of the most learned of Ken's contemporaries, the book, as far as internal evidence went, might well have been his. I am able to state that that judgment is confirmed by the opinion of the late Rev. W. J. Copeland, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxfird, closely connected, aa such, with the leaders of the Oxford movement in our time, pre-eminent as an export in Anglo-catholic litera- ture, and by that of Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln, both of whom were inclined to accept it "as probably an early piece of Ken's."' I incline, with very little hesitation, to adopt that conclusion myself. If the question were one whirh affected only the genuineness of a work, published as Ken's after his death, it would find its fit place under the general head of ' Ken Bibliography.' But its identity with the Lhabod of 1663, reprinted in 1689 under the title of Laehrymiiis " chanced to meet with it, and thinks it likely to be iiselul," so that Ken was not responsible for the republication, and apparently was not known to be the author. GH hi I) Kl.y niUTK " EXPOyj'i'L.l TO I!/ A ,^" [chai'. iv.«. 'Vhv rrpiKliiition of th*; Exponliilntonn, by William Hawkiri", in, of course, a H'TiouM (litli<'uliy ; Imt it Ih truvcrHed I think by two ctjDsiderations : (1.) The a;^<*«l liinhn]) wan not likely to talk much of that unucknowlt;iJged episode in bis life to hiH younn grent-iiephtjw. UuwkinH'H di!ni\ to whom be kiny the present writer iii his Lazanii. A.D. IGGO— 61.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 ing that biographers have quoted some of the Hues which have been given in Chapter I. as describing Ken's own boyhood. From my present point of view, the passage, both evidentially and otherwise, is of sufficient importance to be quoted more at large. Hymnotheo loquitur : — " E'er since I hung upon my mother's breast, Thy love, my God, has me sustained and blest; My virtuous parents, tender of their child. My education pious, careful, mild, My teachers, zealous well to form my mind, My faithful friends and benefactors kind, My creditable station and good name, My life preserved from scandal and from shame, My understanding, memory, and health, Eelations dear and competence of wealth ; All the vouchsaf ements thou to me hast shown, All blessings, all deliverances unknown, — To hymn thy love my verse for ever bind, And yet thy greatest love is still behind." Hynmoth. V. JForks, iii., p. 140. It is Hymnotheo who observes and describes the habits of the insect world, as quoted in p. 17. On his restoration he passes through a process of discipline in the dwelling of Eccksia, which reminds us of the Bed Cross Knight of the Faerie Quecne in the House of Holiness. And every precept of life is identical with those on which Ken habitually acted. Ferventio, his hermit-teacher, warns him against the peril of a life spent overmuch in books : " Know, son ! 'tis not bare reading I commend ; You must choice hours in meditation spend." Sophronio, another teacher of a calmer type, perhaps an idealised Walton, tells him of the threefold revelation of nature, conscience, and the Word, in the passage already quoted. Vigilio (the names are all of the Bunyan type of allegory) bids him act as Ken afterwards acted throughout his life. " A harp Davidick on his desk was placed ; Witli tliat awiiv he "rhostlv slumber cliii^rd." 62 JIYMXOTm-O'S TEMI'TATIOX^. [chap. v. For liiin the tree of knowledge, which was the occasion of man's fall, was none other than the vino which had been the cause of so much misery and shame.' Ilymnotheo, after this discipline, is received back again by St. John and the seven bishops of the Asiatic Churches who had been faithful in per- secution (was there a reminiscence of the seven of whom Ken himself was one?'^), and prepares for admission to the priest- hood by a fast of forty days. The old gift of minstrelsy comes back to him as with a new power of consecration. The apostle comes to visit him, and " "With love divine John warmed Hjinnotheo's heart. Who ne'er without a song let John depart." WorU, iii., p. 284. It is from the beloved disciple that he derives the ideal of the pastoral life which he sought to realise. •' Bless'd Jesus' past'ral love to his lost sheep, Upon his spirit made impressions deep." ^ I hid, p. 285. TTymnotheo finishes his course by leading the Srayrniotes to see in Homer (Ken, in this matter, anticipating a favourite theory of Mr. Gladstone's) the half-conscious depository of the traditions of a primitive revelation, by singing to them the old, yet ever new, story of creation and redemption, and so leading them to find in Homer a " schoolmaster leading them to Christ." He fulfils the ideal of his name, and hymns are the one chief product of his life, and that by which he expects his name to live in the age that was come. It will scarcely be questioned, I imagine, that the features on which I have dwelt are essentially autobiographical. One 8ide at least of the life of the good old man* is seen by us, in its ' Hi/munth., xi., Workt, iii. p. 323. ' It was said that the seven bishops rather rejoiced in Frampton's not arrivin? in tiine to sign the petition before it was presented to the King. They wished to preserve the s.icred number. The sermons, medals, engravings of the time abound in references to the seven angels of the seven Churches of Reveliition i. — iii. ^ We remember Ken's motto for his episcopal coat-of-arms : Pastor botntt d^it animam pro oriAfM. * The poem seems to me of the nature of the retrospect of age, but there aro no distinct passages, as in Edmund, proving a date subsequent to Een'a deprivation. Perhaps even in Edmund these were after-touches. A.D. 1660— 61.] THE RESTORATION AT OXFORT). 63 completeness, as painted by himself. But if this ])e so, is it not equally legitimate and natural to recognise the autobiographical element elsewhere also? And here the framework of Ken's story is at least sufficiently suggestive. In the story of the catechumen, as told by Clement, he simply falls into evil courses and takes to a life of licence and of plunder, like th;ir, described in the first chapters of the Book of Proverbs and of the Wisdom of Solomon. Ken takes his hero toAntioch as the seat at once of culture and of luxury. He drinks of the poisoned cup of pleasure in the groves of Daphne.^ Angels and fiends are contending for the possession of his soul, and through the loving care of the former he stops short of the point at which his fall would have become hopeless and irretrievable. But then, as at all times, the loss, even the partial loss, of purity ot' soul involved also the loss of clearness of spiritual vision and steadfastness of faith, and it is to recover these that the long ascetic discipline was needed. Is it not a legitimate conclusion from all this to infer that in the reaction from the strain of Puritanism which then poured in on the land, in the new companionships that were opened by the return of men of the Restoration stamp, Ken had passed through something of the experience which he thus describes ? The morals and manners of the court of Charles II. were certain, in the nature of things, to aft'ect for evil those of the society of Oxford, and there, or in London, where his vacations were probably spent, he may possibly have felt for a little time, and, as we should count it, in scant measure, the spell of its fascination. It is not necessary, — it is, we may well say, im- possible, — to suppose that he sank, even for a moment, to the level of the swine of Circe, but it may well have been that he too had listened to the voice of the Sirens, and had asked him- self the question which even Milton asked — " Were it not better done as others do, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Nerora's hair ? " ^ It 18 a more or less suggestive fact tliat the groves of Trinity College, Oxford, including a labyrinth, shown in old plans, which, a.-* recorded in Jolm Inrjlenant (ch. ix.), were used as a promenade fur the gay and frivolous, and were known colloquially as Daphne. For the Daphne of Antioch compare *Mhhon, c. xxiii. CA IIYMXorill'jyH TKMl'TATIONS. [<;iap. v. The old habits wliidi ltd liim " To scorn doliglit and live l(il)f)ri()ii.s days " may have been broken down, and his gifts of song and music turned to secular uses, lie too, like Hunyan's pilgrim, may have wandered in the Enchanted Ground, or entered, not altogether as a pilgrim, within the precincts of the Fair of Vanity, or, like Spenser's knight, Guyon, may have passed the borders of the perilous garden of Acrasia, and seen, recoiling when he saw it, how it led on to the valley of the shadow of death. {Fni'rie Qnct'tir, ii. (J.) If such things were, and I think I have shown that they were probable, that other peril of a weakened faith in the Unseen, and of uncertainty of belief in the Eternal, could not be far distant. And this also Ken has shadowed forth in the history of his Hymnotheo. The demons of hell are deliberating on the best means of securing his destruction (the machinery seems to me to make it possible that a reminiscence of the Paradise Regained,^ as well as of the Davideis, was floating in his mind), and Belial rises, as the subtlest of all the spirits of evil, with his suggestion. And it takes a suflicientlv curious form : "liOt latitudinarian spirits strive, All heresies long buried to revive, Atheism to the licentious youth suggest, Urge them consideration 2 to detest, "With opposite religions to comply, And Christ, for gain or safety, to deny." Works, iii.. p. 223. Considered as poetry, there is, of course, something almost ludicrously incongruous in thus bringing the hete noire of the closing years of the seventeenth century into the perils of the first. But for that very reason, looked at from the point of view from which I am now studying it, the passage which I have quoted is all the more significant. The controversy be- tween faith and unfaith, the peril of what, in successive periods 1 I find both Milton's great poems among Ken's books, the Paradise Lost of 1674, the Piirndise Rrganud of 1705. ' I.e., in the hMlf-t€chnical sense in ■which the word was often used, "devout meditation," Homeck wrote a book on The Great Law of Consideration. A.D. lOGO— 61.J RE- UNION OB CHRISTENDOM. 65 of English thought, has been known as ktitudinarianism, freethinking, indifferentisra, scepticism, rationalism, agnosti- cism, was a factor then, as it has been ever since, in the uni- versity life of England, and Ken may have felt, in some degree, the power of its benumbing touch. The memory of that conflict may have been one of the elements, over and above all legal and constitutional objections, which led him to look with suspicion on the simulated liberalism of James's Declara- tion of Indulgence. Was Duessa ^ altogether absent from those years, or, it may be, only months, of trial ? Had the wave of a revived Catho- licism which had set in over the whole of England in the pre- vious generation, and had not yet ebbed, threatened to carry him, as it had carried others, into the deep waters ? We know how eagerly the Jesuit propagandists dwelt, when they came in contact with young minds that were vacillating and uncer- tain, on the assertion that in Home alone was to be found the one refuge of belief, the haven of rest for tempest-tost and shipwrecked souls. For a time they enthralled even the clear intellect of Chillingworth, till he took refuge in the not very accurate statement, however popular as a catchword, that " the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants." That there were such souls at Oxford, longing then, as Ken longed to the end (ii. 209), for the reunion of Christendom and the faith of the undivided Church of the East and West, about the time when he was growing to man's estate, we have one quaint illustra- tion in the gossip of good old Anthony a Wood." It was in IG08, under Richard Cromwell, when Ken was just twenty-one, that a grave stranger, with long beard and hair overgrown, appeared at the Mitre Inn in Oxford. He announced himself (we are not told in what language) as a patriarch, by name Jeremias, of some far-off Eastern Church. He had come to confer with theologians at Oxford with a view to a new " modcll " (tliat was then the fashionable term for wliut we should now call an "ideal") or programme of reformation for his own and for other Churches. It must be remembered tliat the communica- tions which had passed not many years before between Laud and Cyril Lucaris, the patriarch of Constantinople, and lo ' Spenser, F. Q. i. 8. ^ Lins of Llaiid, Htarne, nud Wood, ii., p. 132. vol,. I. K 6fi nYMNOTHEO' ^ TKMVTATJOy?^. [rirAi-. v. ^liirli wo owe our possession of tlic ^Toat Alexandrian Codex rt' tlie LXX. and ^'ew Testanicnt, <,'ave to tlie advent of such a visitor at least u coloural)le credibility. The ' sensation ' 'brough the university was immense. " Divt;rs Royalists" Tppaired to him and " craved his blcssini*' on their knees." In the long absence of a benediction from bishop or archbishop, it would be something to have that of an Eastern patriarch. John TTarmar, Professor of Greek, " ajipoared very formally and made a Greek harangue before him." p]ven Owen, then Dean of Christ Church, and some of the Puritan Canons and students of that house, themselves also probably not without a longing for a wider unity, came to hold conference with him. Suddenly, — as a mutter of fact, through an irrepressible burst of laughter in the midst of the Greek oration, — the bubble burst, and the great theologians and ardent idealists found that they had been the victims of a hoax. The Greek patriuroh was a London merchant of the name of Kinaston. The deviser of the hoax was a William Lloyd, then living at Wadham as a private tutor, afterwards in succes.sion Bishop of iSt. Asaph (and, as such, associated with Ken in the trial of the seven bishops), of Lichfield and of AVorcester. The wrath of the tricked Vice-Chancellor (Owen) waxed hot, and Lloyd, to avert worse fate, had to run away and hide himself. It is, I venture to think, probable, in the nature of things, that a young man of Ken's training and temperament would be among those who were interested in this transaction, possible that he was among its victims. That antecedent probability is strengthened by one or two coincidences not without interest, which it may be well to note. (I.) Ilarmar, the Greek professor, was an old Wykehamist, afterwards head of Magdalen College, Oxford, and, as such, was a man to whom Ken would be likely to look up. (2.) When Harmar died, in .1670, he was buried at the cost of Nicholas Lloyd (also a Fellow of AVadham), who was more nearly of Ken's age (seven years older), like-minded with him, a writer of meditations and prayers which might almost be taken for his, and which, though never, I believe, published, have come before me in MS. But there was a more serious element workinsr at Oxford wliich could hardlv have been without its influence on a cha- A.D. 1660— 61.] ROmSE PROPAGANDISM. 67 racter like Ken's. Strange as it may seem, Oxford, under the Presbyterian regime of the Common svealth, was the centre of an active Romanist propaganda. Christopher Davenport had en- tered at Merton in 1613, and after two years there, went, under the influence of a Roman Catholic priest in or near Oxford, to Douay, and joined the Order of the Franciscans at Ypres. After some time he became a missionary in England under the new name of Franciscus a Sancta Clara.* Under Charles I. he held the post of chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, and after the Restoration, discharged the same functions in the court of Catharine of Braganza. He was known to Laud and Chil- lingworth, and applied to the former for his sanction in printing a work entitled Dens, Natura, Gratia ; and his correspondence with that prelate aflforded some of the materials for the counts of the indictment against Laud, which charged him with Romanising tendencies. " During the Rebellion," say the editors of AYood's Life^ " he lived in an obscure manner, hut was sometimes at Oxford, for the use of the public library." He died in 1680. The Jesuit priest. Father Sancta Clara, of Mr. Shorthouse's John Inglesant, may fairly serve to represent the character and influence of the Davenport of history. It can scarcely be doubted that such a man as Davenport, of singular gifts and attractive presence, would be likely to be on the look-out for all promising undergraduates; and of all the undergraduates then at Oxford few could have seemed so pro- misino' as Ken. Trained in Anglicanism of the Donne and ITer- bert and Ferrar type, brought up in a household in which Romanists were frequent visitors, where Davenport, who was a friend of Chillingworth's, may well have been one of those visitors, it is, I conceive, almost a moral certainty that the two must have come into contact, and that such a contact was not without its peril for Ken's inner life as an English Churclinum. ' See note, p. 25. * Like most Roman Catholics of his time in England, he had to pass, not un- frpquontly, under an alias. Hunt or Coventry. (Wood, ut supra, p. 225.) Daven- port was noted chiefly for a work on the Thirty-nint- Articles [Paraphrasttea Expositio . . .) on much the same lines as Newman's Tract XC. Like most mediating hooka it was condemned fiom very opposite quarters. In England it •was thought Jesuitical. At Rome the Jesuits tried to suppress it and g^t it hurnt. It was, however, licensed at last. The Leut, Xalura, Gratia is among Ken's books al Wells. r2 08 JIYMNOTHEO'S TKMr'/WTIoyS. fcnxp. v. The hj'pothesis, at. least, has the merit of explaining many of the phenomena of his later life. It accounts for the promi- nence in his library of Spanish and Italian devotional books of the ascetic type; * it explains the suspicions of a leaning to Rome which more or less followed him tliroughout his life; it suggests a reason for James II. 's choice of him as chaplain to his daughter, the Princess Mary, at the Hague, and as chaplain to the fleet in the expedition to Tangier ; it furnishes, partially at least, a key to the language used by that king to the Vice- Chancellor and doctors at his visit to Oxford in 1688 : " I must tell you that in the King my father's time the Church of Eng- land's men and the Catholicks loved each other, and were, as 'twere, all one ; but now there is gotten a spirit which is quite contrary, and what the reason is I cannot tell." (See p. 295.) Of all the champions of Duessa there were few so silver- tongued and dexterous of fence as Davenport ; and all we know leads us to think of him as beinof something: more than the average Romish propagandist as pictured by our English imagi- nation. There was an element of real enthusiasm which sus- tained him through the changes and chances of his pilgrimage ; a touch of the poetry of feeling, if not of form, of which we find an illustration (not unlike that of the snapdragon on the wall of Trinity, Oxford, stamped on Cardinal Xewman's memor}") in the feeling which led him to return ever and anon to the old haunts at Merton and in the Bodleian, still more in his dying wish that he might be buried in the churchyard of St. Ebbe's, Oxford, because that was on the site of the old house of the Franciscan Order to which he had attached him- self. Such a man, I conceive, must, if they met, have cast some- thing like a spell of fascination over a character like Ken's.- We know, however, at any rate, that he resisted this tempta- tion as he had resisted temptations of another kind. He was ' Mr. Shorthouse {John Inglesant, c. iv.) represents Nicholas Feirar as having bought many such books. I sometimes wonder, as I look at the catalogue of Ken's books in those languages, whether any of Ferrar's are among them, or whether they were entirely his own choice. See p. 259, and ii. App. ii. ^ It is a curious fact that there was among the writers of the time a John Ken, a Jesuit, who wrote in 1672 a controversial book, The Truth of Rclipton Exiimined, which was answered by Burnet. I cannot asceitciiu whether he wan relited to the Bishop. A.D. 1660—61.] ORDINATION. 69 appointed to the Rectory of Little Easton, in Essex, in 166-3, and this implies that he must have been admitted to deacon's orders in the previous year, when he was twenty-five, and a year after he had taken his degree in IGGl. We can well believe that, as he represents the preparation of Hymnotheo, who was as the shadow of his own personality cast on the cloudlunds of fancy, so he prepared himself for that solemn time by a retreat, perhaps a forty days' retreat, of fasting and prayer, of self-conse- cration and ascetic thought. I have already stated (p. 23) that it seems to me probable that as part of this prcp.iration there was a solemn resolve, if not a formal vow, to devote him- self to the pastoral office by a life of celibacy. That resolve was something more than an accident of temperament and circumstance, something more than the result of an early recol- lection of Hooker's experiences. He deliberately felt that this was, for him at least, though he dared not judge others, the highest and safest life, that in which he could most etfectually follow in the footsteps of St. Paul, and in those of the many saints whom his early training and his later studies had taught him to reverence and love.^ 1 See quotation from Edmund {Works, ii., p. 169), in p. "24. CHAPTER VI. LITTLE EASTON AM) ITS MONK a.. " Noiseless duties, silent cares, Mercies lighting unawares, Modest influence working good, Gifts, by the keen heart understood ; Such as viewless spirits might give, — These they love, in these they live." /. H. Newmnn. Mr. Anderdon has shown, with the painstaking accuracy as to facts which distinguishes his Life of Ken, that he was appointed in 1663 to the Rectory of Little Easton, in the hundred of Dunmow, in Essex, and not, as previous biographers had stated, to a chaplaincy in the family of "William, Lord Maynard.^ Lord Maynard was, however, the patron of the living, and it is natural to ask how the young Fellow of Xew College came to be chosen for this preferment. In the absence of direct infor- mation, we are left to inferences more or less conjectural, but the inference in this case assumes, if I mistake not, the charactt r of a high degree of probability. Lord Maynard, of Easton Lodge, then about the age of thirty- five, a widower with two children, the head of a conspicuous county family in Essex (an uncle. Sir John Maynard, had been impeached by the House of Commons for High Treason in ' Ant. a Wood. Ath. 0.xon. ii. p. 939. So Anderdon quotes the following, which is decisive. "Easton Parva : P. Dunmow, Thos. Ken, 20 Aug., 1663, per mortem Dockley. Wms. Doms. Maj-nard. Br. Easton." (Records of the Diocese of London in the Faculty Office.) The same Records show that David Nichols, of whom I have not been able to learn anything, was appointed to the chaplaincy m IGfrJ. A.T). 1 663— 65. 1 LA D Y MA R GA RET 21 A YXARD. 71 J 647, and was sent to the Tower in 1Gj8'), had just married his second wife, Margaret, a daughter of the Earl of Dysart."-' lu the short account of her life which Ken gives in his funeral sermon, preached in 1G82, we find that she died at the age of forty, and that she was therefore not raore than twenty-one when he first made her acquaintance. Her mother had died when she was eleven years old, in 1654, when the Puritan LITTLE EASTON' LODGE. From a Photograph by Mr. W. Stacty. policy was in the ascendant, and the "priests and service of God were driven into corners," but she had "continued stead- ' I have not horn able to ascortain whether we may reckon among the members of the family, Sergeant Maynard, who waa knighted oy Charles II., and was prominent through the whole period in Parliamentary debates, and who told William III. that he had survived not only the race of kwyers with whom he had started, but '' nearly all law." * Her father had been in exile during the Commonwealth ; her sister, n woman of very different type, was wife of the Duke of Lauderdale, of persecuting infamy in Scotland, and was reported to have been Cromwell's mistress. (Rereshy, p. 116.) ilaynard's first wife was daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Banastre, of Passenham, Northanta. — Bramston, p. 40.5. 72 JJTTT.K J:AST()X AXf) ITH MOMCA. [nwv. vi. fust in tlio communion of thn Church of England," and even at that early ago sJie had " daily resorted, though with great difTiouIty, to the public prayers," "visited and relieved and fed and clothed the suffering Royalists," and set apart a " certain sum yearly out of her income that she might be able to succour them." ^ Among those whoso ministrations, under these con- ditions of dilHculty, she attended, Ken names Dr. Thruscross and Dr. Mossom ; Peter Gunning, afterwards Bishop of Ely ; and Ikian Duppa, then Bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards of Winchester. Each of these names, famous in their day, though now but little known except to students of Church history, presents some points of contact with the life of Ken, and what we know of them may perhaps serve to explain how the living of Little Easton came to be offered to him. Peter Gunning, whose name survives in the records of Anglo-Catholic theology as the author of a treatise On Lent, and who was ejected from Cambridge by the dominant Puritan party, because he refused to take the Covenant, found refuge at Oxford, and had been one of the chaplains of Xew College under Dr. Pink's wardenship. The action of the Parliamen- tary visitors probably drove him from Oxford, and Evelyn's Diary (December 25th, 1657, March 7th, 165|^) shows that he was then in London ; but it is at least probable that he renewed his intercourse with the College after the Restoration, and would thus hear of the devout and ascetic character of young Ken, and see in him one who would carry on to completeness the spiritual training of the high-born girl who had been so promising a disciple. He was a conspicuous patron of Ken's friend, Francis Turner, and brought him to St. John's College, Cambridge, of which College Gunning was Master, Turner succeeding him both there and at Ely. The name of Timothy Thruscross,'^ successively Prebendary of York, Archdeacon of Cleveland, Preacher of the Charterhouse, and Fellow of Eton, * Ken'a Funeral Sermon in Round, pa.tsim. * The name appears in many dififerent forms — Tlirisco, Thristcross, &c. I am indebted for the facts that follow to a MS. Life by the Rev. J. Ingle Dredge. See also Prof . Mayor's Life rf Xicholas Ferrar. Eveh-n (December 9th, 1659) meets him at Gunning's, with other "devout and learned divines and firm con- fesaors." He adds, at a later date, that most of them were afterwards made bishops. A.D. 1663— 65.] LADY MARGARETS TEACHERS. 73 thougli less known in the nineteenth century even than Gun- ing's was, in the seventeenth, sufficiently conspicuous amoiij; the members of the great Anglo-Catholic brotherhood. lie had been the friend of Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Giddin?, and had recorded his wish that such examples of the " common life" might be multiplied in England. Men grouped him in their common speech with Herbert Thorndike and Barnabas Oley, the latter of whom had published Herbert's Country Parson in 1652, and has, within the last few years, been made more familiar to us than his fellows as the friend of John Inglesant in Mr. Shorthouse's historical romance. When the Restoration came they were actually grouped together in a royal mandate directing the University of Oxford to confer on them the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In September, 1600, he seems to have been in London, holding Church services and preaching. In 1660 he was living at Westminster. Such a man was obviously one of those whom all good Churchmen, like Izaak Walton, would delight to honour. He in his turn could scarcely fail to know something of Walton and his sur- roundings. He also therefore may have had opportunities for judging of Ken's character, for helping him on to a position of trust and responsibility. There may have been a yet more immediate link between the two men. Thruscross was of Magdalen College, Oxford, and, though much the senior of the two, may thus have known Fitzwilliam, whose life-long friend- ship with Ken has been already noticed as a memorable fact in the latter's Oxford career. In Dr. Robert Mossom, after the Restoration, Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, and subsequently Bishop of Derry, we have another of the confessors who maintained, as far as they could, the continuity of Church of England services in spito of all pro- hibitions of Parliament or Protector. In 1642 he had been cliap- lain in the royal army at York. In 1649 (March 25th) Evelyn records that he attended the Church of St. Peter, Paul's AMiarf, of which Mossom was rector, and heard (" a rare thing now-a- days") the Common Prayer. It was frequented by "a great concourse and resort, both of the nobility and gentry," among others, we may note, by Sir John Bramston, an Essex baronet and a friend of the Maynards of Phaeton Lodge. The services 74 LITTLE EA^TOX AXI) ITS MOMCA. [chap. vi. were not carried on without occasional interruptions and threats and insults on the part of " Independent " soldiers and other rioters, and in lOOo they were suspended by a more rigorous edict on the part of the Protector, making the holding of such services, or otherwise preaching or teaching, an offence punish- able by exile or imprisonment. After that time we may well believe that Mossom, as the pastor whom she had loved and honoured, was one of those whom the young Lady Margaret helped in their struggles and privations. Last among Lady Maynard's advisers Ken names Brian Duppa, then Bishop of Salisbury, afterwards of Winchester, " an exemplary confessor for the King and for the Church," whom she often visited, and who " seemed to be designed on purpose to be her spiritual guide, to confirm her in all holy resolutions, to satisfy all those scruples, to becalm all those fears and regulate all thosii fervours which are incident to an early and tender piety." ^ The facts which I have brought together seem to me to indi- cate with sufficient clearness that when Ken became rector of Little Easton he was no stranger to either Lord Maynard or his wife. They started with a sufficient groundwork for mutual respect and trust, and the relations into which they were now brought did not end in disappointment. As regards the pro- spects of advancement in the world the two years which Ken spent with the Maynards were not without their influence on his future career. Lord Maynard held an honourable position in the county, " kept good correspondence " with its gentry, and " joyned his interest with theirs in all elections."^ He had been loyal to the cause of the Crown in dark times, had been impeached by Parliament in 1647, took a large part in bringing about the Restoration (for which Charles II. thanked him in a letter still in possession of the family), and through the influence of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Lauderdale, he obtained the honourable and lucrative position of Comp- troller of the Household to Charles II., and was also a Privy Councillor. He appears to us as the type of a kindly, high- ' Duppa, it may be noted, had been with Charle-s I. at Carisbrooke, and was thought to have had a hand in the Ikon Basilike. Charles II. came to see him when he was on his death-bed in 1662, and asked his blessing. ' Bramston, p 40.i. A.B. 1663—6.3.] LORD MATNARD. 75 principled English nobleman whom Ken could justly honour, and who was able to understand and appreciate him. When James II. entered on the fatally rash policy which issued in the Declaration of Indulgence, he tried to secure Lord May- nard's support by promises and threats at a private interview, but was met by a steadfast resistance, such as Ken would have admired, and dismissed him from his office.* Through the influence of Godolphin Maynard obtained a pension, wliich was LITTLE E ASTON CHTRCH. From a Pholograph hy Mr. W. Staeey. continued under William III. till his death in January, 1090. In the crisis of 1688 he voted in the House of Lord.s with Ken for the theory of a regency, as for a king incapacitated from personal sovereignty, rather than for that of a throne which the King had " abdicated," and which was therefore vacant. His position at Court under Charles II. may obviously have contri- buted, combined with other influences, to help Ken's somewhat rapid progress in later years up the ladder of promotion. I }?ramMon. p. '-'"iri. 76 LITTLE TLiSTOX AXI) ITS MONICA, [chap. vi. The chief interest pre.seuted hy llie.so two yeurs ni Little Easton is found, however, in the bearing they had upon Ken's inner life. It was, we may feel quite sure, the first time that the younf^ rector had ever come across a woman of such a type as that which he found in Lady Maynard. When twenty years afterwards he paints her portrait with all the loving- reverence of memory, we can picture to ourselves what she was in the brightness of the earlier years of her married life. The seventeenth century was indeed fruitful in noble patterns of an almost ideal womanhood, of which we have examples in Lucy Hutchinson, Mrs. Godolphin, the Countess of Warwick, and Lady Rachel Russell, and which Thackeray has repro- duced with a master hand in his Lady Castlewood. Such characters may vary in opinions or in creed, according to their political or theological surroundings. What they had as the groundwork of their life was the fear and love of God as a living personal reality, and the intense purity of soul which, even when it comes in contact with evil, as Lady Maynard and Mrs. Godolphin came in contact with it in the court of Charles II., remains untainted.^ And with this there was the wisdom that meets the duties and difficulties of daily life with a right judgment in all things, and the wide sympathy that meets the wants of rich and poor — the poor especially — with loving words and acts. The conditions of undergraduate life at Oxford, as they then were, were not likely to have brought such a type of character within Ken's horizon. Excellent as his sister was in her way, she belonged to the middle, not the noble, class of society, and could hardly have presented the refined culture with which he now came into contact. That sister, too, was now lost to him, and her death, in April, 1662, the very year before he went to Little Easton, must have left a gap in his afi'ections, which would make a friendship like Lady May- nard's doubly precious to him. And he was six years her senior, so that he might well feel that he was able to offer to her, in the somewhat difficult position which she occupied as a stepmother to her husband's children by his first marriage, 1 I suggest the Devout Women of the Court of Charles II. as not a bad subject for a special study in biography, or even, in contnist wth the undevout women, for art. A.D. 1663—65.] THE LADY MARGARET. 77 something of the guidance of an elder brother. Of the im- pression which she made on him, and the relations in which they stood to each other, he has himself told us with sufficient fulness in his funeral sermon. To him she was emphatically the " gracious woman " of whom the sage of Israel had spoken (Prov. xi. 16), "inflamed with heavenly love," full of all inward and outward graces, keeping herself unspotted from the world, in the midst of all the corruptions of the court. Studious and thoughtful as well as devout, able to give a reason for the hope that was in her, writing letters to her friends and relations, that came as a message of comfort and " subtle- paced counsel in distress " — tlie highest ideal of saintly womaTi- hood, such as Ken had read <^'i in Troba and Monica, seemed to be reproduced in her.* ' A confirmation of Ken's estimate, if any n-ere wanted, is found in one or two passages ot the iJiary of Lady Waisx ick, sister of Hubert Boyle, who will 78 LITTLE KASToy AX1> JTS MOXK'A. [chap. vi. To fincli ii soul as tliis it was tlic younf^ priest's privilege to act as guide and counsellor, and he knew more than any one else the secreta of her inner lite. He received her confessions and directed her conscience when she was in doubt, and guided her in her choice of books. Morning and evening she was seen at the daily prayers which he, the first rector after the Restoration, must have introduced in the Parish Church. She observed, with reverential thankfulness, all the fasts and festivals of the Church's order. She took notes of his sermons, and abstracts of them were found among her papers on her death. It is reasonable to assume that the quotations given in the funeral sermon are from letters which she wrote to Ken after he had left the parish, and that he thus continued to act as her spirit- ual guide, as his friend Fitzwilliam did to Lady Rachel Russell, to say nothing of their opportunities for meeting, when they were both in London, during the remainder of her life. And the character of their correspondence may be inferred from some of the passages thus quoted. She was ever " making it her business to fit herself for her change, knowing the moment of it to be uncertain, and having no assurance that her warning would be great." So far from " being solicitous for riches for herself or her children," she looked on them *' as dangerous things which did only clog and press down our souls to this earth." AVhen sorrow and bereavement fell on her she could write : *' Since God gives us all, let us not be sorrowful though we are to part with all ; the kingdom of heaven is a prize that is worth striving for, though it costs us dear. Alas ! what is there in the world that links our hearts so close to it? " She had learnt that " ull blessings are given on this condition, that either they must be taken from us or we from them ; if then, we lose anything which we esteem a blessing, we are to give God the glory' and to resign it freely." Instead of turning to the " varieties and divertiscments which most of her sex do usually admire," her rule of life was that " we are to seek for comfort and joy from God's ordinances and the converse of pious Chris- meet U9 again. She also lived in Essex, and records (in 1663 — 1671) some of her visits to Lady Maynard, in which they exchanged their thoughts on the spiritual life, and held " sweet convcr.-e," as in " the house of God." as friends (p. 151). ' Wc note the familiar plirase of Ken's own letters in his later years. A.D. 1663— 65.] TEE ELECT LADY. 79 tians, and not to take the usual course of the world, to drive away melancholy by exposing ourselves to teuiptutions." It was no wonder that such an one should hear her " pains and sicknesses, which were sharp and many," without " one svmp- tome of impatience." She reflected rather " how ai)t we are to abuse prosperitj'." She asked " where our conforniity is to the great Captain of our salvation, if w^e have no sufferings 'i " she professes " that God, by suffering our conditions to be uneasy, by that gentle way invites us to higher satisfactions than are to be met with here," and acknowledges that " God was most righteous in all that had befallen her, and there had been so much mercy mixed with his chastising that she had been but too happy." Her feeling for her husband to the last was that of the " most affectionate thanks imaginable, for his invalu- able and unparalleled kindness towards her." He allowed her, *' when she was a wife, to retain the accustomed devotion which she had practised when a virgin." For the two children that had been given her she desired that " the chief care should be to make them pious Christians, which would be the best provision that could be made for them." For her son in particular (not, it will be remembered, heir to his father's titk^) her express desire was that "he should be good rather than either rich or great ; " that he should be " bred in the strictest j.rinciples of sobriety, piety, and charity, of temperance and iiinocency of life that could be ; " that he should " never be indulged in the least sin, that he should never be that which these corrupt days call a wit or a fine gentlemen, but an honest and sincere Christian slie desired he might be." And when the end of that saintly life was near, she professed " that there was nothing hard to be parted with but her lord and her dear children ; yet from them she was content to part, for, by the letters she left behind her for them, she ' took care of their souls,' and she comforted herself with an entire acquiescence in the good pleasure of her Beloved, with hoj)js that she should still pray for them in heaven, and that she should ere long meet them."* And this " put her into a transport which makes her cry out, in one of her letters, ' O how joyful shall we be, ' It is suggestive to note the corresponduiice of this iceliiig with Kch'h own teuchiug (p. '1'm 1663 to 166o is said to be very like his. There are many Maynard monumtnts in a mortumy chapel. Easton Lodge is at present occupied by Lady Brooke, granddaughter of Viscount Maynard, who died there in 1865. I am indebted for ihe portrait of Lady Margaret to Lady Brooke's kindness. It has no name on it, but the family tra- dition is that it represents her. * It is not without interest to note that a copy of Ki n's Funeral Sermon, bound in morocco, still lies on the Communion Table in tho chapel of Ilani House, Twickenham, which was occupied, when it was preached, by Lady Maynard's sister, the Duchess of Lauderdale, and still belongs to the Dyaurt fan.ily. I make this statement on the authority of Bishop Alexander. VOL. i. CHAPTER VII. WINCHESTER AGAIN, A.U. 16G5 1675. '* But Tliou, dear Lord, Whilst I traced out bright scenes which were to come, Isaac's pure blessings, and a vt rdant home, Did'st spare me, and withhold Thy fearful word ; "Wiling me year by year, till I am found, A pilgrim pale, with Paul's sad girdle bound." /. H. New)tian. The position in whicli Ken found himself at Little Easton would seem so idealh^ adapted to a man of his temperament, the work so exactly suited to him, that we might have expected that he would have stayed there until there was a manifest call to a higher work and greater responsibilities. As a fact it was not 80. Within two years he resigned the living, and we find him at Winchester. And there was no summons, such as I have spoken of, to account for his resignation. He was not elected to a fellowship at Winchester till December, 1666. He was not appointed to his first living in the diocese till July, 1667. It is possible (for the dates of such appointments are not entered in the diocesan registries, like those to livings and pre- bendal stalls) that Bishop Morley may have ofiered him the post of chaplain, but episcopal chaplaincies were probably then, as now, unsalaried appointments, the holders of which were content to dwell for a while in the shadow-land of expec- tation. I do not say, and I do not imagine, that this last fact would have had much weight with Ken in coming to a decision ; but in the absence of some weightier inducement, a compara- tively uncertain position like that of a bishop's chaplain, was hardly a thing for which a sensible man would resign a parish in which everythinff went well with him. And so far as we A.D. 1665— 75.] PARTING FROM LITTLE EASTON. 83 know everything was going well. There were no parochial troubles, no interruption in the friendship which bound bim to the family at Easton Lodge. In the absence of outward data we are left to look to circumstantial evidence and to the motives which might probably be working on such a mind as Ken's. And looking to the character of that mind, it does not seem to me an extravagant hypothesis to believe that he almost shrank, as it were, from the completeness of the bright and happy surroundings in the midst of which he found himself. In proportion as Lady Maynard met his conceptions of the perfect excellence of womanhood, opening to him, as Beatrice did to Dante, the mysteries of a Vita Nuova, he, in whom the poetic temperament was strong, though he lacked the clear vision and the master-hand of the supreme artist, might come to feel that he was exposed to the risk of finding his rest where he ought not to find it, of dwelling on that fair vision of the beauty of holiness until he became dependent on its presence for the peace and joy which ought to come to hira from a diviner source. To the inward man of such an one in such a state there might come the whisper of the inner voice, *' Arise and depart, for this is not thy rest." And if any outward circumstances came in at the same time, which tended to a change of dwelling and of work, they would appear to one who, like Ken, saw in the changes and chances of life the leadings of a providential guidance, to confirm what might have before been only a vague and undefined feeling, not yet ripened into a purpose. And just at this point of Ken's life there were these outward circumstances. Izaak Walton had lost his wife, as we have seen, in April, 1(j62, and as she was buried at Worcester, though there is no trace of his ever having had a home in or near that city, his biogra])]iors have inferred with a sufficient show of reason that he liad found u refuge in the palace of his old friend Bishop ^lorley, who became bishop of that diocese in 1600. But in KiO'i Morley was translated to Winchester, and he took Walton and his son, Ken's nephew, then about eleven years old, with liim, and his palace there was the old angler's home till his death in December, 1683. Walton was then seventy, and it may well have seemed to Morley that it would be an arrangement that G 2 84 WINCUESTER AGAIN. [chap. vit. would work well for all concerned, if Ken also were to live with him in the palace as liia cliaplain, look after his aged brother- in-law, and superintend the education of his young nephew.^ All the memories of what his sister or Walton had done for him, when he had been left first motherless and then fatherless, would plead loudly for Ken's acceptance of such a proposal, and he was not likely to let any considerations of income affect his decision. lie had his fellowship at New College ; he had made up his miiul not to marry, and what he had was enough for a man who had learnt the le.-hop Sumner, when it was superseded by the Winchtster House in St. James's Square. It stood exactly opposite the present Chelsea Pier. Sumner, Life of Bishop Stunner, p. 138. '' The " Soke " was a signiority or lordship, endowed by the king with the liberty of holding a Court of Tenants or soc-men (defined by Stubbs as "ceorU, free land-owners, not noble "). The " Soke " was free from local customs duties, but could impose ita own. At Winchester it lay outside the walls, chiefly from the N.E. corner, where St. John's parish is situated, to the S.W., and in the seventeenth century had come to be a poor and neglected suburb. (E. W. K. *nd T. F. K.) ' It may be noted that the traditions of the parish of Croscombe. near Wells, report that Ken looked after such cases, when he was bishop, and, where he had the opportunity, baptized them with his own hands. A.D. 1665—75.] B RIG ESTONE RECTORY. 87 The activity with which these pastoral duties were dis- charged marked him out as one who was worthy of a higher and more definite position, and on December 8th, 1666, he was elected unanimously to the position, all but the crownin*; honour of a Wykehamist career, of a Fellow of Winchester.^ This was followed by Bishop Morley's collating him, in July, 1667, to the Rectory of Brighstone in the Isle of Wight, a BRIGHSTONE CHUHCH, ISLE OF WIGHT. From a Photograph by Mr. J. Miiman Bmwn. village about six miles from Carisbrook, which was memorable, in Ken's time, for Charles I.'s imprisonment and attempted escape. Of his work in that parish we have no distinct record, but looking to the fact that the Bishop laid stress, in his government of his diocese, on the observance of the fasts and festivals of the Church's Calendar, and on the rubric as to daily prayers, we have no reason to doubt that his ministrations were conducted on the same lines as at Little Easton. His signature is found ' This involved, of co\irse, his resigning his Fellowship of New College, to which he made a parting gift of £100 towards the New Buildings then in progress. 88 WINCIIEHTER AGAIN. [chap. vti. ill the Parish Uegislers onco only, uccorfling to Bishop Mo- berly, who hehl the living from IHGO to 18(J9, but, as we have seen in the case of Little Kaston, it was not usual at that time for the clergy to sign each entry. A yew hedge at the bottom of the Rectory garden is still traditionally known as Ken's walk, in which, according to local belief, he composed his Morning and Evening Hymns, dividing the historical interest of the place with a pear-tree, under which Bishop Wilberforce, when he was rector, wrote the whole of Agatlto^. A room in the Rectory is still known as Ken's. Jieyond these scanty records we know nothing, with the exception of the fact, not without its interest, that when Ken left Brigh stone, in May, 1G()9, he was succeeded by Dr. John Fitzwilliam, who was also one of Bishop Morley's chaplains, and who had been, as we have seen, one of Ken's friends at Oxford. (See p. 51 and n.) During this period, however. Ken's reputation as a preacher was gaining a wide range. The Diary of Lady Warwick,^ one of the " devout and honourable women " of the period, who was a sister of Robert Boyle, and who has already met us as a friend of Lady Maynard, records her visits to the Old Church at Chelsea in 16G7 — 68,^ and the impressions which Ken's sermons made on her. They moved " her heart to long after the blessed feast " of the holy communion ; to " weep bitterly ; " to " bless God and have sweet com- munion with Him." They stirred her up to speak to her husband " about things of everlasting concernment," to " per- suade him to repentance and to make his peace with God." " "With strong desires and tears," when Ken preached on the words, " Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee," she was " able to beg power against sin for the time to come." We may well believe that she was not alone in these experiences, and that Ken, at that comparatively early age — he was then just thirty — had made his mark as one of the great preachers of the day. There seems good reason to believe, as will be shown hereafter, that he did not read his sermons, but either preached 1 Published in part by the Religious Tract Society, in 1847. The entire MS. is in the British JInseum. - The position of old AVinchcster House in the parish of Chelsea would naturally lead to his preaching in that church. K.-D. 16G.5— 7.3.] SERMOXS AT CHELSEA. 89 extempore, or adopted the then dominant continental practice of first writing, and then preaching them from memory.^ These visits to London would also, in the nature of things, introduce Ken to the notice of some of those in high places, with whom he was afterwards to be more closely connected. Morley had acted as confessor to the Duchess of York, daughter of Lord Clarendon, in her youth, and, though she joined the Church of Home in 16G'J, was still on terms of intimacy with her and with the l)uke. WINCHESTER COLLEGE. In resigning Brighstone, Ken was probably meeting the wishes of his bishop, who was naturally anxious both to pro- vide for Fitzwilliam, and to have the chaplain on whom he most depended nearer to him. In April, 1GG9, Morley appointed Ken a prebendary of Winchester,^ and as a living on the main- 1 This probably accounts, in part, for t)ic fact that onls- throi' of liis sermons are now known to be extant; notes, sketches, and, perhaps, fully-written dis- courses may, however, have been destroyed by him in the first days of liis fatal illness at Longloat. ^ The Bishop's Ref^ster records Ken's appointment to another prebend, on May 29th of the same year. This may have involved some in(rease of income, or, perhaps, a better house. I am indebted to ^Ir. F.J. Baigent, of W'inchesler, for the extracts from the Register which give these dates. 90 WINCHESTER AGAIN. [chap. vii. land was obviously more compatible with bis catbedral duties and his residence as a Fellow of the College than one in the Isle of AVight, transferred him to the rectory of East Woodhay, in Hampshire, vacant by the resignation of Robert Sharrock, his former tutor at New College, on the 28th of May, 1669 — his resignation of Brighstone is dated on the same day — and that living he held till November, 1672,* when he vacated it, in this instance without accepting any other preferment in its place, to make way for another Oxford friend (Dr. George Hooper, of Christ Church), who also was a chaplain of Bishop Morley's, and with whom Ken was afterwards connected in some of the most critical episodes of his life.*^ At present it will be enough to say of him that he was one of the best scholars of his time, with a far wider range of knowledge than either Ken or ^lorley, well read in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, which he had studied under Pococke, and quite up to the highest point of the mathematical science of his time. Morley, who must have known hira in former days at Oxford, had for some time past had his eye on him, and had written to hira in May, 1670, to tell him that he was only waiting for the power to offer him some reasonable provision in place of his studentship and tutorship at Christ Church, to ask him to become his chaplain. This he was able to do in 1672 by giving him the rectory of Havant ; but Hooper found the place unhealthy and suffered severely from ague, and Ken, with his usual disregard for per- sonal interests, made way for him at AYoodhay.^ ' The Register of Woodhay contains the entry of the birth of Rose Ken, daus;hter of Ion Ken, nnd his wife, Rose, daughter of Sir Thomas Vernon, June 23rd, 1670. Apparently, therefore. Ken was visited there by his brothers family. Ion Ken was Treasurer to the East India Company, and his daughter, Martha, married Frederick Krienberg, Resident for the Elector of Hanover in London. In 1707, the Bishop mentions his 'sister Ken,' whose only son had died in Cyprus (ii. 284). Ion appears, as I have said (p. 2, «, and 13), to have been a dis- tinct name from John. ' Hooper, in the meantime, had, at the Archbishop's special request, been made Chaplain to Sheldon, and was admitted to his fullest confidence in matters of Church and State. Morley sent for him to attend his deathbed. ' In connexion with Ken's life at Woodhay, we may mention the facts, (1) that Sir Robert Sawyer, afterwards famous as one of the Counsel for the Seven liishops, then lived at Highclere in the next parish ; (2) that the rector of Highclere, Mr. Thomas Milles, was as much a model priest as Ken himself. Anderdon (pp. 82 — 85) gives an interesting account of him, based on the Life A.D. 1665—75.] ST. JOHN IN TEE SOKE. 91 From 1672 to 1675, accordingly, Ken had no other duties than those of chaplain, prebendary, and Fellow of the College, together with the pastoral charge, which he resumed, of the parish of St. John in the Soke.* Such a period of comparative leisure was one in which a man of Ken's character would naturally strive to work out something of the ideal in which he recognised his own special calling and vocation. And we have seen that in his autobiographical poem of Hymnotheo, he 4* . - ST. JOHN IN TUB SOKE. has shown with sufficient clearness what he conceived that call- ing to be. He felt that it was in him to exercise his gifts of •written by his son Thomas, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, who reports that his father " admired Ken beyond all others in the Church of Christ," and never spoke of him " without raptures of veneration" (p. 119). Of Hooper, Milles used to say that he never know any one who united in equal meaHure " the character of the perfect gentleman, the thorough scholar, and the venerable skil- ful divine" (p. 120). ' A strange story is told in a MS. printed by Anderdon (p. 97) of a boy of St. John in the Soke, who, for the first five years of his life, was subject to fits and never walked or spoke. Ken baptized him by the name of Slatthcw. A few days afterwards one of his playmates called him by what had been his nickname of 92 inXrnESrKR ACATX. [chap. tit. Ronp iind Ills spiritual cxpcrifiKM; ko as to help others forward in the lii<>^lior life. And so, while continuing his unpaid work as a preacher to the poor of St. John in the Soke, his thoughts turned to the "children" of William of Wykeham, of whom he had himself been one, and he wrote for them the Manual of Prayers which has been used by many generations of scholars at Winchester, and possibly' the Morning and Evening Hymns which have made his name famous throughout English-speak- ing Christendom. The Manual, however, deserves a special Appendix to itself; and now that Ken has reached, at the age of thirty five, il mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, it will not be an unfitting time to see him, so far as we can picture him to ourselves, as he appeared to his contemporaries, to ask what were the daily habits of his life, how he spoke and acted. The portraits which are now extant belong, all of them, to the period of his episcopate or his depri- vation, and we have therefore to read backward from what they present to ns to what he was at an earlier period of his life. I seem to see him, " little Ken," the "little black fellow," as Charles II. called him, rather below than above the middle height, spare in frame, with a face in which the lines of asceti- cism were already marked, an expression wanting somewhat of the sturdiness and strength of many of his distinguished con- temporaries, but more than compensating for that defect by meditative dark eyes and a singular sweet courtesy of manner and expression. He wears no beard nor moustaches, and altogether eschews the full flowing perukes which were then becoming common even among the clergy, and his own hair is somewhat thin, is short in front, is allowed to fall in slightly curling locks over the collar of his coat. His life is one of " Tattie," and he, who had never spoken before, replied, " Jly name is not Tattie ; my name is Matthew, Dr. Ken has baptized me." From that time forward he walked like other boys. The story is sisrned by the boy's mother, Sar;ih Cante. Baker, in whose collection the ^IS., now in the Malet M8S. in the British Museum, is found, adds, " This I had from the Master, Dr. Jenkin, who was much with Dr. Ken, in Lord Weymouth's family." Ken himself told the story to James II. in a conversation on alleged modern miracles (Evelyn, Diary, Sept. 16, 1685). The Diary gives " Westminster," but this may be a mistake of Evelyn's (p. 266). 1 I use the adverb advisedly. .Several editions of the Jlaniial were pub- lished from 1674 onwards, but the first in which the three hj-mns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight appears is that of 1695. But see Chap, xxvii. A.D. 1G65-75.] LIFE AND MANNERS. 93 rigorous temperance, probably of total abstinence from wine/ and for him the Church's fast days are very serious realities. lie has trained himself, following Morley's example, to take but one meal a day, and one sleep when he lies down to rest, and he habitually rises at two or three in the morning for prayer and meditation, and begins the day with singing his own, or some other, hymns, accompnnying himself on his lute. At five A.M., as a Fellow of the College, he attends the school matins in the chapel, or else, as Prebendary, waits for those of the Cathedral. The day is given to study, to his duties as chaplain, to correspondence, and to pastoral visits among the poor. More and more he finds in music his comfort and delight, and has an organ in his own room, as almost, if not altogether, his only luxury.^ When evening comes he gives a few hours, weary as the long day has made him, to companionship with the Bishop and his brother chaplains, with his aged brother-in-law, and his nephew, Izaak Walton, junior. The words in which his great- nephew, William Hawkins,^ tells us that, at such times, " so lively and cheerful was his temper that he would be very facetious and entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open," give one the impression of a quiet, quaint humour, sometimes pass- ing into a not unkindly irony, with here and there an apt quo- tation, or a word of counsel and comfort, or the questions of one who seeks to draw out from others what they have seen and known in regions to which he himself is a stranger. The attempt to describe a man's familiar converse is, however, an almost hopeless task for any but a Boswell, and I have no suffi- cient dramatic power to follow Bowles, in attc mpting to present to others in the form of an imaginary conversation, after the manner of Landor, what I seem to picture to myself with sufficient vividness. Something of what I thus imagine, I have seen in Frederick Maurice and John Henry Newman, and there, mutatis mutandis, with all imaginable allowances for * The "forbidden fruit" of the temptation of Genesis iii. is represented in Hymttotheo as the ^-ine. — TForks, iii., p. 323. (See Hawkins, p. 3.) * The organ is mentioned by Thomas Wurton as shown at Winchester in Lib time (circ. 1735), and I have not been able to discover when it disappeared. ' Hawkins, p. 3. 94 WINCnE^TER AGAIN. [chap. vii. difFerences in time, circumstances, character, I must be content to leave it. We are on somewhat firmer ground when we ask what were Ken's studies at this period of his life, what books he read, to what objects he looked forward, how far and in what direction he contemplated authorship ? When he was deprived of well- nigh all other earthly possessions, he kept his library as " a dukedom large enough," and took it with him to Longleat. On his death he divided it by his will as follows : his French, Italian, and Spanish books to the library of the Abbey Church at Bath ; the bulk of the remainder to his host, Lord Weymouth ; duplicates, and such others as he did not care to keep, to the Cathedral Library at Wells. Excluding those which were published at a later date than that of his residence at Win- chester, we may reasonably infer that we have, in the rest, a fair evidence as to what were at that period the favourite objects of his study. ^ What one notes chiefly on looking over the cata- logues is the comparative absence of controversial theology. The works of the great reformers of the Continent, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, of the great divines of the English Keformation, of the Puritan theologians who had published their voluminous commentaries and treatises, are simply con- spicuous by their absence. Greek and Hebrew Grammars show that he kept up his Oxford studies in those directions. Homer, and Horace, and Tacitus, and the younger Pliny, and Caesar, and Isocrates, and Marcus Aurelius, and Plato, and Hesiod and Virgil, seem to have been his favourite classics. Histories of the Council of Trent and the Synod of Dort stand side by side, as do the Dcfensio of Charles I., by Salmasius, and the Defeiisio pro populo AufjUcano of Milton, in reply to it. A Hebrew Old Testament and a Septuagint show that he read that portion of the Bible in the original and in the earliest version. The two most striking groups in his books now at Longleat, and Bath Abbey, and in the Cathedral Library of Wells, are, however, (1) those that are the utterances of devout minds in different communions, tending, some of them in the direction of mysticism, such, e.g., as Luis de Grenada, and Juan de Avila, and Francis de Sales, and Erasmus, and Gerhard, and a Kempis, and Molinos, and Francis of Assisi, and Fenelon, and St. Cyran, ' See ii., App. ii. A.D. 1665— 75.] STUDIES AND AVTEORSmP. 95 and, (2), those which bear upon the early history of England and the English Church, such as Bede, and Spelraan, and Matthew Paris, and the collected edition of the lierum Aiu/Zi- carum Scn'pfores. All these are, I believe, sufficiently charac- teristic, and point to the directions in which his mind was working. Ken was so spare a writer, contrasting in this respect with most of his contemporaries, such as Taylor, and Burnet, and Tillotson, and Barrow, a man to whom silence was as gold and speech as silver, who shrank in his humility from publishing what was in his mind, unless he could recognise something like a special call to publication, pursuing the even tenour of his way and unwilling to expose himself to the temptation, from which even the best and wisest among authors find it hard to escape, of thinking what acceptance his book will meet with, whether it will encounter the rough north-west of censure or the soft south-west of praise, that we cannot, save in scant measure, trace, as we can do with many authors, the connexion between his studies and his writings. In much of what he did write, however, we can trace the outcome of these two lines of reading. The study of the masters of the spiritual life helped him, in addition to his own personal experience, in the preparation of the de- votional Manuals, which seem to have been the only books that he much cared to publish. In the epic poem of Edmund, the King and Martyr of the xVnglo-Saxon Church, we may find the fruit of many weeks, or months, or years, given to the history of that Church. Whether the idea of that poem was even then floating before him, or whether it belonged altogether to a later period of his life, we have no sufficient data to determine.^ When a man dies at the age of seventy-four, having published only three hymns as his contribution to the verse literature of his country during his lifetime, but leaves behind him, as Ken did, a mass of MtSS. sufficient to fill four fair-sized octavo volumes, with no dates, and in most cases with but scanty internal evidence as to their order of priority, it is not easy to say when he first became, rightly or wrongly, conscious that he too had a gift of song. Some writers, such e.g. as Young, who is said to have begun his Night ThougJits after he was sixty, take to poetry late ' Parts of the poem, as will he seen in Chiiptor xxvi., imply a date sub- eequent to Ken's elevution to the ejiiseopate. 90 jriyrrrESTFR AnJiN. [cirAi-. vh. ill lifo. And if wo were to take llie date of the first published edition of the Witwlteiitcr Manual, tliat contained the three hymns for Morninp;, Evening, and Midnight, that of 1095, it might be contended that even they were not written till Ken also had reached the same measure of three score years of age. The few attempts that have been made to fix the dates of any of the poems on subjective grounds show how uncertain all such con- jectures are. I postpone, however, the full discussion of this question till I come to deal specially with Ken's poems as a whole. "What seems to me probable, partly from the autobio- graphical indications suggested in his Ilymnotlico, is that he be- gan writing verse at an early age, perhaps even in boyhood, that the throe famous hymns were written at "Winchester before the publication of the Manual in 1(575, and that he then began the habit of singing them daily to his lute or organ. In the later years of his life, in the enforced leisure of his residence at Longleat, and as a relief in many weary days of suffering, he appears to have looked over all the mass of MSS. that had accumulated in the lapse of years, to have fair-copied what he thought worth preserving, and to have destroyed the rest. On this assumption it is not without interest to note the fact that the presence of Paradise Lost (1674) and Paradise Regained (1705) among his books shows that he was among Milton's early readers. "We can think of him as feeling, when he read the former, that he too had it in him to write an epic, that he would take the period which Milton had at one time contem- plated and then abandoned, as his subject^ ; that, on comparing the blank verse of Milton with the heroic couplet of the Davideis of Cowley, which had been the object of his youthful admiration, he would say "the old is better," and work upon the model which he there found presented to him. Of one book at any rate, the Manual for Winchester Scholars, we know, with absolute certainty, that it belongs to this period of Ken's life, and bears the impress of his character. It deserves, however, and will receive a fuller treatment than can conveniently be given here. ' " Edmond, last king of the East Angles, martyred by Hinguar the Dane," appears as one of the subjects of which Milton had, at one time, thought as lit for such a treatment, ilasaon, Lifn of MiKoh, ii., p. 113. APPENDIX TO CHAP. VII. THE " MANUAL FOE WINCHESTEE SCHOLAES." The fact that this was Ken's first publication was in every way characteristic. There was little prospect of fame or profit from such a book. It did not appeal, as a controversial treatise or volume of sermons might have done, to a wide circle of readers who might be led to see in him the apologist for the position of the Church of England in its attitude towards Popery and Puritanism, or recognise him as one of the great thinkers of the day. It was simply an endeavour to meet a spiritual want which he knew to be a very real one, and to such a work he might well feel that he had a distinct calling. The recollections of his own boy-life at "Winchester, the peculiar sympathy with children which is often the special inheritance of the childless, ^ the feeling that, though he was not a Master in the school, they were, in some measure, a flock committed to his care, the recollection of the Master's words " Feed my lambs," would all work upon his mind and lead him to do what lay in him to make their life a holier, and therefore a happier, one. These motives might have actuated any one, in any time or place, who occupied Ken's position in relation to a great school. But if I mistake not there were some special elements in this case which it is not difficult to discern. Ken's boyhood at Winchester had been passed under the Puritan regime. Whatever drawbacks and defects Ken may have discerned in that regime then or after- wards, it can scarcely be questioned that, after its fashion, wisely or unwisely, it laid more stress upon personal religion than was likely to be found in the families of English country gentlemen and clergy in the years that followed the Eestoration. A change for tiie worse had affected the whole social order. The type of character ' I anticipate an anecdote belonging to a later period of Ken's life, as illustrat- ing what I speak of. Barbara, wife of Viscount Longueville, of Easton-Mauduit, Northamptonshire, was left a widow with seven children in 1704. Ken was requested to pay her a visit of consolation. He begged to see all her children, who were very young. He made them stand before him in a lino and said, '* It was very grateful to him to be able to see so many beings who had never wilfully offended God." The story was told by the late Robert Wilberforce, whose mother was descended from Lady Longueville, to Mr. Anderdon (p. 734) VOL. I. H 98 MANUAL FOR SCUOLARS. [chap, vti., App. which was represented by Walton and Wotton and Herbert had all but passed away. The Cavalier of the days of Charles I. had been replaced by the lower type of the Restoration. The pro- fligacy of the Court of Charles had tainted the fathers and mothers of the rising generation. Households like those of Colonel and Lucy Hutchinson were hardly to be found. Where there was more culture it was drifting into a worldly, latitudinarian in- difference. The very Presbyterians were fast passing into Uni- tarians. Where there was less profligacy, whatever there was of religious feeling in the middle classes too often took the form of " No Popery " fanaticism, rabid against all teaching and practices that seemed to them to tend towards the doctrine or the ritual or the polity of Pome. All these facts we have to take into account when we think of Ken as sitting down to write his Manual. And it is not a little suggestive, as we do so, to find that its opening sentence is a distinct echo of the first words of the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, which has been the backbone of the religious education of Scotland ever since.' Men as different from Ken in their theological position as Carlyle, Erskine of Linlathen, and Frederick Maurice, have seen in those words, stamped as they are in early youth on the minds of the Scotch people, the secret, in great measure, of its strength and excellence. I am not dealing with the Manual as a critic, not even as measuring it by the standard of other like devotional books, but as it shows us what Ken was, what thoughts were in his heart as he planned the book, what cares and prayers were with him in the writing. His choice of an ideal name for the boy-scholar is, obviously, suffi- ciently significant. He is not only a Timotheus, " one who honours God," but a " Philotheus," * one who loves God, who is the friend of God. That, and nothing lower or less than that, is his ideal of boyhood. To keep that in view from the first will make the life safe, consistent, happy. In words in which we may trace some- thing like a personal confession, for which, as we have seen, we, however, can find a parallel in the storj' of " HjTQnotheo," ^ he ' " If you have any regard, good Philotheus, to your own eternal happiness, it ought to be your chiefest care to serve and glorify God. It is for this end Grod both made and redeemed you." — Ken. " The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever." Shorter Catechism. • Philothea occurs in Edmund. Works, ii., p. 340. ' We note this name also as framed after the same pattern. A.D. 1674.] WILLIAM OF WYEEEAM'S ''CHILDREN:' 99 himself being his only accuser, he wishes his ideal boy to be better and purer and stronger than he himself had been. "0 Philotheus, do but ask any one old penitent, what fruit, what satisfaction he hath purchased to himself by all those pleasures of sin which flattered him in his youth, and of which he is now ashamed. Will he not sadly tell you he has found thim all to be but vanity and vexation of spirit P . . . . How bitterly will he, with David, lament the sins of his youth ? " The high-pitched ideal, however, does not lead him into vague generalities when he is dealing with the boys for whose souls' sakes he writes. He realises the precise position of each single boy, as a "commoner," or as a " chorister," or, in the technical language of William of Wykeham's statute, a "child" of the house, i.e. a boy on the foundation. The former are advised to say their prayers in their own chamber, the others, who have a common dormitory, are counselled, for greater quietude, to go to the chapel "between the first and second peal in the morning " {i.e. between 5 and 5.30 a.m.), and to repeat their evening prayers when, in the old Winton lan- guage, they "go circum,'' i.e. when the whole society, at 5 p.m.. Warden, fellows, masters, clerks, scholars and choristers went in procession round the cloisters, returning to a supper in the hall, fol- lowed by evensong in the chapel at 8 p.m. In the absence of fuller information, it may be assumed that there was a short interval be- tween the procession and the supper which the young Philotheus was advised to pass in the cloister or the chapel, saying his own evening prayers. The youngest boy was to learn his catechism without book, not as a task, but as the groundwork of his own faith and practice. Prayers were given for daily use; special meditations on "the Holy Child Jesus " for Sundays and holydays. All were to " sing " (not say) the "Morning and Evening Hymn' in their chamber de- voutly." Those who were old enough to be communicants (the age is not specified, but an early admission to communion, say at twelve or thirteen, after the rule of George Herbert's Country Farsoti, seems implied throughout), have longer prayers and ejaculations provided for them. They are counselled " before second peal " (530 a.m.) to read ' ' some short Psalm, or piece of a chapter out of the Gospel • The words, vhich appear in the first edition of the Manual, sec-m to imply that the hymns were already in existence. They were probably printed separately, with music, and were therefore not reproduced in th« Manual, in which they do not appear till the edition of 1695. Tossibly, however, Ken may refer to some earlier anthems then in use (see Chap. xxvi.). It may be worth noting that the earliest recorded use of Morning and Evening Hymns is found in the Pythagorean Societies of Italy. Porphyry, Vit. Pythag.^'p. 40, in Biggs' Bamplon Lectures on The Chntitan Flatoni.^ts qf Alexandria. — (C. J. P.) h2 100 MANUAL FOR SCUOLARS. [chap, vii., Jpp. or historical books," and, when they hoar it read in chapel, to proparo themselves with sliort prayers that it may give them light and wisdom. Self-examination as to sins of " idleness, or un- chastity, lying, stubbornness, or quarrels," becomes a prominent part of the spiritual exercises at the close of each day. If Philo- theus cannot sleep at night, he is to "guard himself against idle and unclean thoughts which will then be apt to crowd into his mind " by repeating Psalms cxxx. and cxxxix., and by special ejaculations of midnight praise. He is to look to " the receiving of the blessed sacrament," as " the most divine and solemn act of our religion," and therefore is to "approach the holy altar" with devout preparation in his own chamber or in the chapel, according to circumstances, as before. Fuller rules of self-examination than before are given him in relation to sins of thought, word, or deed. If he " finds this examination too difficult " for him, or is " afraid that he shall not rightly perform it, or meets with any scruples or troubles of conscience in the practice of it," his counsellor advises him, "as the Church does," to " go to one of his superiors in this place, to be his spiritual guide." He is " not to be ashamed to unburthen his soul freely to him, that besides his ghostly counsel, he may receive the benefit of absolution : for though confession of our sins to God is only matter of duty and absolutely necessary, yet confession to our spiritual guide also, is by many devout souls, found to be very advantageous to true repentance." I have thought it right (changing only for the sake of uniformity the second person into the third) to give this passage in extenso, as showing the importance which Ken attached to personal intercourse of tliis kind as an element in the right guidance of the inner life, and the consistency with which he acted on this conviction now, as he had done at Little Easton at the beginning of his ministry, as he did afterwards to the closing years of his life. He was not deterred, either by what he may have seen of the evils of compulsory con- fession in the practice of the Church of Eome, still less by any clamour on the part of the representatives of popular Protestantism against the ' abominations of the confessional,' from acting on the rule which had been commended to him by the law of the Church, by the lives of saints, and by his own personal experience. Self-examination is followed in due course by forms of confession, which the penitent is to fill up for himself, and by ' acts ' of shame, abhorrence, and contrition. These in their turn are suc- ceeded by resolutions, and an oblation, or act of seK-dedication, to God's ser\'ice. Petitions for pardon, for gi-ace in general, for particular graces, lead on to what is the crown and completion of A.D. 1674.] EUCHARISTIC DEVOTIONS. 101 the book, its " Meditations on the Holy Eucharist." The language of those Meditations is after the manner of most of the Anglo- Catholic divines of the seventeenth century. It lays stress upon the actual communication, through the outward signs, of the spiritual presence of the body and blood of Christ, without formulating theories, Romish, Lutheran, Calvinistic, or Zuinglian, to explain the manner of that presence. It uses the term " altar " frequently and without reserve for the "holy table," but in its teaching dwells almost exclusively on the commemorative rather than the sacrificial character of the ordinance, on its bringing us into communion with the life of Christ rather than on its being the re-presentation of the one great offering. One passage in the Meditations is noteworthy as having given occasion of offence and having been altered by the author in a later revision. The early editions, from 1674 to 1681, had contained the words, "Help me, then, O ye blessed Host of Heaven, to celebrate that unknown sorrow, that wonderful love which you yourselves so much admire ; help me to praise my crucified Saviour." The edition of 1687 contained a prefatory advertisement : — " Whereas a late Popish Pamphlet' has injuriously affirmed that in a Manual of Prayers for the use of the scholars of Winchester Colledge, I have taught the scholars of Winchester to invocate the whole court of Heaven, citing these words, page 93, ' Help me. then, O ye blessed host of Heaven,' &c., I think myself obliged to decl-ire that bj- that apostrophe, I did no more intend the Popish Invocation of iSainis and Anguls than the holy Psalmist did, when he calls upon the Sun, Moon, and Stars, Fire, Hail and Snow, &c., to praise Gud (Psalm cxlviii.), and to prevent all future misinterpretations, I have altered, not the sense, but the words of that paragraph, and I do solemnly profess that I believe the ' Invocation of Saints and Angels, as it is practised in the Church of Rome, to be B.fond thing vainly invented, grounded on no ivarranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God,' as the Twenty -Second Article of the Church of England styles it, to whose judgment I humbly submit. "THO. BATH AND WELLS." The passage as revised runs thus — " O ye blessed Host of Heaven, who rejoice at the conversion of one single sinner, adore and praise my crucified Saviour, who dyed for the sins of the world ; adore and praise that unknown sorrow, that wonderful Love, which you yourselves must needs admire." * ' I have not succeeded in finding the pamphlet referred to. It was apparently of the same type as the letter addressed to him on his Bath Sermon (see p. '275), and may have been that letter itself. The language of the Evening Hymn was revised afterwards in the same liirection (see ii. p. 213). ^ It will be seen, of course, that the point of the doctrinal charge lies in the omission of tho words " Help 3Ie." That wan a prayer ; " Adore and Praisn," is only an apostrophe. 102 MANUAL FOR ^rnOLARH. {cukv. \\\., App. It will be seon, vvlien we coino to the poriod of Ken's life to which tliis roviHion btdonjj^H, that it was Hytnptoniatio of a more definitely anti-Konii.sh fast of thought, brought about, we may believe, in part by the responsibilities of the episcopate and the imminent perils of the time, and partly by the imprt^ssion made on him by the travels in France and Italy, which will come before us in the next chapter. As the Manual proceeds, devotions are provided for use before and after communicating, and then there come forms of thanksgiving and intercession, the latter including prayers for the defence of " the Church of England from all assaults of schism, or heresy, or sacri- lege," and for the conversion of " all Jews, Turks, Infidels, Atheists and Heretics." If the ideal Philotheus is a " child of the College " in the technical sense of that term, he is to use also a thanksgiving for " our founder, William of Wykeham, and aU other our bene- factors." He is warned not to neglect the " orders or duties of the school " on the plea of devotion; to let "fasting and alms" ac- company his acts of self-examination ; the fasting, however, being limited to abstinence from any additions, such as would seem to have been usual, to the short ' commons ' of certain days in the week, such as Friday and Saturday. Lastly, the Manual concludes with special prayers and ejaculations for a time of sickness, and in the editions from 1695 onward the three Hymns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight, follow as an appendix.' "We ask, as we close our survey of this spiritual guide for boy- hood, how far the ideal which it contemplates was attainable ? Can we think of a life so regulated developing after what we are accustomed to regard as the normal and healthy gi-owth of a school- boy, taking his place in school-work and the cricket field, and mingling cheerily with his companions ? The experience of most schoolmasters would lead them, if I mistake not, to tliink the direc- tions of the Manual too high-pitched for the average boy. That experience would also, I believe, teach them that in each generation of schoolboys there is at least a small percentage who, without being morbidly introspective or ostentatiously devout, after the Puritan or Seminarist type, are yet capable of at least appreciating, and aspiring after, such an ideal as Ken set before them. He him- self, with his own boyhood still clearly present to his memory, in daily contact with those who were then at Winchester, probably himself ' It is, perhaps, worth noting that the editions of the Manual from 1688 to 1709. contain prayers "for our Sovertign Lord, the King." I can scarcelj- doubt thai Ken, irom his position as a Non-Juror, mi ant James II. A.D. 1674.] IDEAL OF BOY-LIFE. 108 acting as spiritual guide to many of them and receiving their con- fessions, did not despair of finding a Philotheus or two among them.' And even for the average boy it is better to have an ideal that is beyond his reach, than to be left to the schoolboy's sense of honour or to his natural scorn of ' sneaks ' and 'snobs ' and ' cads,' a scorn not always resting, it may be feared, on purely ethical considera- tions. I cannot doubt, diflferent as were the religious characteristics of the two men, that Ken, in his day and generation, was acting on the same general principles as those which guided Arnold. He was content if he could influence the few, that so the few in their turn might influence the many. The presence of one Philotheus in a dormitory might be a light shining in a dark place. If there were two they would discern and recognise each other, as by the attraction of an elective affinity, and one would help his brother, and each would, at times, as in the old Homeric words^ keep an outlook on the future for the other as well as for himself. And if one more were added to that brotherhood of souls then would that saying be true, that a " threefold cord is not easily broken." ' Uhi tres, ihi Ecclesia, is a rule that holds good of the world of school as well as of the wider world of Christendom. So Arnold found it, and the life of holiness and prayer to which Ken would have led his ideal boy was probably not more difficult of attainment by those who sought it than the "moral thoughtfulness " which was the ideal of Eugby, and led them to a higher level. The lives of men like Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson at Eton, of Arthur Stanley and other pupils of Arnold's, have shown in our own time, to say nothing of those who, though unknown to fame, have served God faithfully in their generation, that such an elevation of the life of boyhood above the average standard is not impossible. And the results would seem to testify that Ken's aspirations were not disappointed. Edition followed upon edition in rapid succession in his lifetime. The book which had been designed for Winchester was accepted and used widely elsewhere.* When the hymns, which are the groundwork of Ken's fame in Christendom, were added, it gained a yet wider influence. Through generation after generation ' He did not expect too much, however. Compare the tenderly pathetic pjis- sago in Round, p. 427. " Bo not iifflicted, good Philotheus, if you cannot come up exactly to the rules here given you. Believe me, it was never imagined that you would."— (C. J. P.) * Iliad. X. 224—6. ' Eccks., iv. 12. * The Century Magazine for January, 1888, rpc^rds an instance of three dozen copies being ordered from Philadelphia in 17^1. 104 MAyUAL FOR SCHOLARS. [pLKr.xn., App. it served to keep alive the memory of better things than were found in the current ma:timH of the ethic-s and religion of the eighteenth century. The fact that Bishop Moberly, when he was head-master of Winchester, republished the Manual, with a brief but interesting life of Ken, shows that he believed it had not lost its power for good. It is still, I am informed, freely given by the masters there to the boys who are preparing for Confir- mation, and I am not without sufficient evidence that the boys value it and profit by it CHAPTEH Vin. THE GRAND TOUR. " Oh, that thy creed were sound ! For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, By thine unwearied watch and varied round Of service in thy Sa\-iour'3 holy home. * « • • • There, on a foreign shore. The home-sick solitary finds a friend." /. H. Xeicman. In 1676, just after the publicatiou of the Manual, Ken made up his mind, for the first time in his life, to see something of the wider world. His nephew, the younger Tz.iuk Walton, had attained the age of twenty-four, and both his father and his uncle may have thought it desirable that he should enlarge his mind, after the manner of other young men who couM aflFord it, by taking what was known as the " grand tour " of Europe. Their recollections of Sir Henry Wotton's maxims, and of Bacon's Esxa// on Travel, would lead them to adopt Shakespeare's generalisation that " Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits." If they did not seek, as the heroes of the Elizabethan age did, " to discover islands far away," it might yet seem to them that it was well worth while to make their way to the " studious universities " of Europe, and to gather, after the pattern of Ulysses, whatever wisdom was to be gained from seeing " cities and manners of men." With Ken himself another motive was probably at work. He had known many Roman Catholics in England (p. 25). He had studied, doubtless, the arguments of English converts, like De Cressy' and Davenport. He may ^ De Cfrecsy's Ero»nologesis, a work glAnng the history of his own conversion (1663), is found in the catalogue of Ken's hooks left to the Cathedral Library at 106 THE GRAND TOUR. \m\r. viii. have folt some leiinin«i;s towards practices which he recognised as ancient and Catholic in tlie Komish system, and which the popu- lar Protestantism of England had rejected. His old schoolfellow and friend, Francis Turner, was chaplain to the Duke of York, continuing to hold that ofHce in the Duke's household even after the Duke's avowal of his conversion to Rome in 1669, and when Ken compared the characters of the royal brothers it may well have seemed to him that the younger, with all his many sins, was yet the better and more lovable of the two. Though, like Laud, not prepared to make overtures to Rome, or to accept them from her, until " she be other than she is," the question whether a re-union were possible on the basis of mutual concessions and re-adjustment, may well have seemed to him to be one that called for an answer. But this would naturally be followed in its turn by yet another question : Was it not well that he should see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, what Rome actually was, instead of trusting to ex parte statements on either side ? If that purpose formed an element in Ken's plans of travel, it must be admitted that he could not have chosen a more favourable time for such a tour of observation. The year 1675 was, according to the later Roman practice of fixing the festival at intervals of twenty-five instead of fifty years, a year of Jubilee, and the reigning Pope, Clement X., had issued proclamations, which were circulated throughout Roman Catholic Europe, for its observance with more than ordinary splendour. Such a time would serve the inquirer as a kind of crucial experiment. Did the system tend, in proportion as men were under its power, to integrity and industry, to holiness and purity, or to the reverse of all these ? Were the influences which were ever emanating from its centre, and were to be felt there at the maximum of their intensity, favourable or unfavourable to the development of the Christian life ? There is, perhaps, no one period of Ken's life on which we Wells. He had been a Fellow of Merton (1627), Chaplain to Strafford and Falkland, Canon of Windsor, and Dean of Leighlin (1648). He was converted by what he saw of the holiness of the Carthusians at Paris, in 1050, published his book, and was afterwards Chaplain to Catherine of Braganza. — Foley, JltcoiHs of the English Province of the f>ociety of Jesifs, ii. p. 305. A.D. 1 675.] IMA GINAR Y TEA VELS. 107 should more welcome information than this. To know what things he then saw, what lessons he then learnt, would help us to understand much of his after-life more clearly than we do. Unhappily there is no period of which we know so little. Not a single letter or fragment of a journal has come down to us. Hardly a single reference to his travels occurs in his later writings. We may, perhaps, infer from one casual remark of his, that he went to E,orae. A chance passage in Cotton's sequel to Walton's Complete Angler records the fact, that ** young Master Izaak " (Ken's companion) " has been in France, and at Rome, and at Venice, and I can't tell where." In this dearth of information one has to make one's choice between two alternatives. We may simply say nothing, record the bare fact that he thus travelled, and pass on to what fol- lowed on his return to England ; or we may venture on some- thing of the nature of an ' ideal biography.' AVe can, without much risk of error, conj* cture what route the two travellers took. We know what things must have come under their observation in the cities through which they ])asscd. We have a sufficient knowledge of Ken's character to judge what im- pression they were likely to make on him. If we find that judgment confirmed by what we find in his later writings or actions, the chances of error will be almost, if not altogether, eliminated. We may legitimately, I think, under such condi- tions, indulge in this account of imaginary travels as other writers, such e.g. as Walter Savage Landor, have indulged in ' imaginary conversations.' For my own satisfaction I follow this course and not the other. Readers who prefer to confine themselves to a record of actual facts can skip this chapter and pass on. In the work on which I now enter I find myself helped by Bishop Burnet's Letters to R.B. (beyond a doubt, Robert Boyle), giving an account of his travels in France, Switzerland, and Italy in 1685, and by Boyle's account of his own travels in 16'38 — 40, as given in Birch's Life of Boyle ^ pp. 35 — 48, and by John Locke's Journal, as given in his Life by Lord King.^ All ^ Evelyn's Dinnj, 1641 — 1652, takes a wider range, extf^nds over a Innper time, and is written from the standpoint of one who is professedly a connoisseur 108 TUE GRAND TOUR. [mw. viu. these travellers took mueh the same route, and it may easily be inferred that it was that commonly taken by Eiiglisli travellers who started on the " grand tour." Assuming that Ken took it,* we have to think of him as reaching Paris by way of Calais and Amiens, or Dieppe and Rouen. In that city Ken would have an opportunity of seeing what the Court of the Grand Monarquc was like.^ liossuet was at that time forty- eight, and IJourdaloue forty-three, and he may have heard them preach, and have been confirmed by the effect of their eloquence in the habit, which we have reason to believe he had adopted at an earlier date, of preaching his own sermons from notes or memory, and not reading them. At Paris, at this time, he would naturally visit the Carthusian house, the ascetic holi- ness of which had so impressed De Cressy. We have to remem- ber, however, that one great event in the political history of Europe and the religious history of France came between the date of Ken's travels and that of Burnet's. The latter passed through the country the year after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The reformed churches had been ruthlessly dispersed, and their members, of whom we popularly, though somewhat in- accurately, speak as the French Protestants (" Reformed " was the more correct description), had been forced by a propagandism of terror, which had begun in the persecution of the Cevennes and culminated in the outrages of the Dragonnades, to choose between apostasy and exile. Many of them, as we shall see, found a home in England. Others, as Burnet records, were received with open arms by their brethren in Switzerland. When he journeyed from Paris to Lyons, he noted the depopu- lated state even of considerable towns, the abject poverty and in works of art, and is, therefore, I think, less serviceable in its supply of materials. Milton's line of travel may also be compared. Masson's Life, i., p. 700-780. 1 The fact that the other route to Italy by the Netherlands, through Brussels, Cologne, Augsburg, and Innspruck to Venice, was through a country at that time the seat of war, and impassable for ordinarj- travellers, contirtiis, as Ander- don hiis pointed out (p. 83), this conjecture. The greater part of the tour was probably, as was then common, made on horseback. * Among other things he may have seen, or heard of, what Locke describes as Louis XIV. 's levee. The word was then used literally. The king rose from his bed, put on his clothes, and then knelt by his bedside for some time, priests kneeling with him, and 8aid his prayers, the room being full of courtiers, who buzzed and talked all the time. — King, i. 151. A.D. 1675.] RELIGIOUS LIFE IN FRANCE. 109 misery which met his eyes at every turn. His pictures of desolation, his forecasts of evil, are almost as graphic and pro- phetic as were those of Arthur Young towards the close of the following century. But when Ken passed through France the descendants of the old Huguenots were still there, as the very salt of the nation's life, preserving it from utter putrefaction.^ I cannot for a moment doubt that he would feel and act as Cosin had felt and acted before him, that he would admire their steadfastness, their integrity, the purity of their lives, their readiness to suffer for their faith, that he would attend their services and join in their communion.^ The large-hearted, open-handed sympathy which he manifested afterwards to the refugees who sought shelter in England (see p. 243) must have rested on an antecedent and intelligent admiration. He could not regard their position, placed as they were, as schismatical, or their want of episcopal orders as anything else than an involuntary defect. I take it, then, that his first impressions as he passed through France tended to confirm his Anglican convictions, and probably gave them a more distinctively Pro- testant character. Following in Burnet's track, — I do not, of course, take him as representing what Ken was likely to think or feel ; often, indeed, looking to the strong contrasts of their temperaments, I reason by the rule of contraries, — we may think of Ken as he passed through Lyons, visiting the church dedicated to St. Irenaeus, reading the inscription of the heathen husband on the tomb of his Christian wife — " QucB dum nimis piafuit, facta est impia,''^ and asking himself whether that was not a representative instance of the judgment which the world at all times passes on those who are not conformed to it. Aix-les-Bains, Chambery, Grenoble, would follow naturally in the travellers' itinerary, 1 There were, however, premonitory symptoms of the coming persecution. The Protestants of Uzes, Nismes, Montpelliir, had had to pull down their " temples," their 'consuls ' were not allowed to receive the sacrament in their ollicial robes, their consistories lost the power of examining witnesses on calh (Kii)g i., 103 — 110). This was in 1676, one year after Ken's travels. * Life of Cosin, prefixed to his If'orks in Anglo-Caiholic Library. 110 777^5" ORAND TOUR. [chap. viii. and we can hardly think of a man of Ken's temperament look- ing back to the ascetic holiness of the saints of the past, and himself walking in their footsteps, as turning back from the ascent of the Grande Chartreuse, where the ascetic holiness of Rome, which had converted I)e Crcssy, was believed to reach its culminating point. Robert Boyle, who had been a contem- porary of Ken's at Oxford, has left on record a striking account of the effect of such a visit on his own mind.^ The storm and terror and sadness of the place, the " deep raving melancholy " with which its scenery impressed him, the " strange stories and pictures he found there of Bruno, the father of that order," all these " suggested such strange and hideous distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, that, though his looks did little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbidden- ness of self-dispatch hindered his acting it." I do not imagine that what he saw of the Grande Chartreuse or its inhabitants had this eflFect on Ken. He had passed the age at which the spiritual life is ordinarily exposed to this kind of crisis. He would look, we may believe, on the self-denying life which he witnessed with something of a reverential sympathy, but all his subsequent career bears its witness that he was content with such forms of holy living as were compatible with home life .such as he had seen in England. The piety of the Walton and the Maynard households, of the brotherhood of Little Gidding, and of the palaces at Winchester and Farnham Castle, would seem to him of a healthier and safer type. His efforts should be given to helping to strengthen and deepen the religious life of the family in England as he had found it, not to endeavour to impress on it that which was a survival of medisevalism and the inheritance of an alien Church. From the Grande Chartreuse to Geneva was to pass from one extreme of the Christian life to its opposite."'^ We can hardly » Birch, p. 41. ' Anderdon (p. 133) suggests Avignon, Yaucluse, and the Riviera as the probable route. If so, we may conjecture that it brought Ken within the range of the influence of the saintly Nicholas Pavilion, Bishop of Alet, then nearly fourscore, to whose character and life his own presented so striking a parallelism (see ii., p. 274). The fact that one of Pavilion's works (Statuts St/tiodaux du Diocese d'AUt) is found in Ken's library, as are also the works of Jansenius, and the Leltres Chretiennes of St. Cyran, and a translation of the Lettres Provinciaks, — all connected with the controversy in which FaWllon took an active part on A.D. 1675.] RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GENEVA. Ill imagine that what Ken saw there would inspire him with the fervour which animates Burnet in that portion of his travels. The Scotch divine would naturally feel at home in a Christian society which was so closely connected in doctrine and dis- cipline with that of his own country. He was content almost to rest the controversy between Romanism and Protestantism on the test " By their fruits ye shall know them," as applied to the contrast between the two cities which were respectively the representatives of the two systems on the Continent of Europe. On his second visit there he asked and obtained leave from the authorities to hold a Church of England service, which was attended by a large number of residents, including professors and ministers, and on the last Sunday he " gave the sacrament according to the way of the Church of England," to the great joy of the inhabitants, who were glad to take this " opportunity of expressing the respect which they had for our Church " (p. 275). When he left the city it was ** with a concern that I could not have felt in leaving any place out of Great Britain." I do not imagine that Ken's feelings quite rose to this height of admiration. Probably he reverenced the memory of Francis de Sales^ more than that of Calvin, but there was much in the state of Geneva at the time calculated to enlist his sym- pathy. Calvinism was beginning to expand there, as it was ex- panding at that very time among the Presbyterians of England, as it has expanded within the last half century among those of Scotland. Two leading theologians — whom Burnet does not name — -were Universalists, in the sense of teaching an univer- sal, and not a particular or limited, redemption, and these wider thoughts of the Love and Fatherhood of God had not yet passed, as they did afterwards, both in England and Geneva, into TJni- tarianism. And what he saw there of the ** strong hand of the side of the Port Royalists, is, perhaps, in favour of this view. In any case we can scarcely suppose that Ken, in travelling through France, could turn away from the dispute between the Jesuits and Jansenisis which then filled all men's minds in that country. See Note to Chap. xv. for a further account of Pavilion's influence on Ken. ' The Bishop of Geneva's Introduction to a Devout Life is among Ken's works at Longleat. His own Practice of Divine Love is, as will appear in Chap, xv., largely imbued with the spirit of St. Francis. 112 THE GRAND TOUR. [chap. viji. purity " with which the Reformed Church of Switzerland guided lier children, its sumptuary laws restraining prodigality and profligacy, its criminal code inflicting death for a third adultery and the like, would, we can scarcely doubt, enlist his sympathy. It is at least suggestive that when, in his poem of Edmund, Ken sketches out an ideal polity, he introduces laws after this pultcrn as framed by the Saxon king, and reproduces one sumptuary regulation which Burnet singles out for special praise in his account of the constitution of Geneva, i.e. the pro- vision by the Government of a reserved store of corn as a safe- guard against famine, or monopoly on the part of private dealers. So in like manner Edmund's laws against mendicancy are obviously after the pattern of those of the Protestant can- tons of Switzerland rather than of those which were within the obedience of Rome, and in which, as in all cities and villages of Italy, the plague of beggars " for the love of God," or, as then seems to have been the popular plea, " for the souls in purgatory," reigned without let or hindrance.^ I do not think of Ken as caring, as Burnet, the historian of the Reformation, cared, for the letters of the English Reformers, preserved in the archives of Ziirich ; but when he passed on to Chur, on his way by the Spliigen Pass to Italy, one whose studies had led him, as his Edmund shows, to the On'gines of the British and English Churches, could hardly fail to take note of the traditions which connect that city with Lucius, the first Christian British King, who was said to have left his fatherland to become the apostle of the Grisons. From Chur, if Ken followed the normal line of travel, he would pass to Milan, and thence to Padua and Venice. I do not care to indulge in any sensational rhetoric on the first feelings with which Ken, with his poetic tastes and scholarly culture, may have looked down on the fair plains of Lombardy or sailed on the waters of the Italian lakes. To be in the land of Virgil and Horace and Livy, of Dante and Petrarch and Tasso, to walk among the monuments of the great dead, and over the battle-fields of mighty armies, was, doubtless, for him, as for most of us who have known it, a thing never to be forgotten. I confine myself deliberately to the more limited > Edmund, Works, ii. pp. 49, 50. See i. 22, 336. A.D. 1675.] MILAN AND VENICE. 113 region of his thoughts as a student of Church history and a seeker after truth, applying the law that systems, like men, are to be known by their fruits, and seeking a basis for that knowledge in as wide an induction as lay within his reach. In matters of taste and feeling he would probably look on many things with very different eyes from Burnet's. He would scarcely dismiss the Duomoat Milan with saying that " it hath nothing to commend it of architecture, being built in the rude Gothic manner," or of St. Mark's, at Venice, that it also "hath nothing to recommend it but its great antiquity and the vast riches of the building." He would, I conceive, be more stirred with reverential admiration for the saintliness of St. Carlo Borromeo, and would look with tolerance on many things which to Burnet seemed to indicate an abject superstition. The Sunday-school in the Cathedral of Milan, instituted by the saint just named, and in full activity then, as it is now, would, we may well believe, attract the sympathy and admiration of one who, when he became a bishop, looked on the spiritual education of the lambs of the flock of Christ (Pasce agnos nieos) as one of the chief objects of his care.^ But on the great plain questions of public morals, of uprightness in the adminis- tration of justice, of purity of life, the two English theologians could hardly fail to be of one mind, and the impressions which the one records were, we can hardly doubt, shared also by the other. And so we may judge what Ken would have thought of the practical influence of the Romish system when he came in contact, at Venice, with the misery of the peasants and the " old and unsubdued insolence of the nobility," and the pervading espionage of the Inquisition, " so undermining all natural confidence," that " none dare to trust another with a secret of such consequence " as any attempt to assert their freedom; still more when he saw the "great libertinage " which was " unblushingly practised by men of all orders and degrees," extending itself to the clergy to such a degree that though ignorance and vice were the only " indelible cha- ' I find Godeau's Vie de St. Charles Boiromee, 1663, among Ken's books at Bnth Abbey. It seems to have been his habit, wherever he went, to buy devotional books, or the lives of devout men. Controversial literature does not eeeiii, then or afterwards, to have attracted him. \i)l,. I. I 114 THE GRAND TOUR. [chap. viii. racters" that they carry generally all over Italy, " they reached their highest point of baseness at Venice."^ So it was that most of the nunneries, especially those into which women of the higher class entered, were an open scandal, and the young men, instead of serving their country in the wars against the Turks, " stayed at home, managing their intrigues in the Broglio, and dissolving their spirits among their courtesans." A " horrible distrust made it very rare to find a friend in Italy, but most of all at Venice." He who remembered what he had seen of the better type of English women and English homes would turn with loathing from the " ignorance," the " dull superstition," the " downright lewdness and beastliness," with- out even the gilding which vice wore in France, of the women of Venice. Not all his reverence for the real excellence of St. Antony of Padua could pre^'eut his being shocked with the universal mendicancy which was practised in that Saint's name throughout Lombardy, or with the blasphemous inscription that was to be read on the Ex-votos in his Church : Exaudit quos non audit et ipse Deus^ Burnet does not appear to have stayed long enough at Florence^ to do more than note the chief buildings, libraries, and the like ; but if the state of things there in 1675 was not much altered from what it had been when llobert Boyle stayed there in 1641, Ken would find in it no great improvement upon Venice.* It had sunk to a lower depth of degradation than it had reached when Savonarola preached there. The shameless publicity of its prostitution had placed its brothels in the list of the "lions" of the city which strangers, even when they were not vicious, went to see, as travellers who were not gamblers have gone to the saloons of Baden-Baden or Monaco, and exhibited "the impudent nakedness of vice" which " description cannot reach and the worst of epithets can- ' The passages in inverted commas are taken from Burnet's Letters, iii., pp. IJO— 170. ^ Burnet, p. 135. ^ I note, not without a natural regret, that I do not find Dante among Ken's books. At the time he travelled Jesuitism was triumphant, and its conspiracy of silence to stamp out the poet's influence had been only too successful. * Birch, p. 45. A.D. 1675.] THi: YEAR OF JUBILEE. 115 not but flatter." Its monks and friars had fallen to the lowest imaginable depths of infamy. We can without much difficulty- picture to ourselves, if this was what Robert Boyle and Burnet saw in quiet times, when life was running on in its usual grooves, what must have met Ken's eyes in the excitement which then prevailed, when companies of pilgrims — men, women, and children — were streaming from every town and village iu Roman Catholic Christendom, and overcrowding every inn, in the year of jubilee. Does anything we have ever known of such pilgrimages, from Chaucer onwards, lead us to think of them as characterized by any serious devotion, any true repentance ? Must we not rather picture them as aggra- vating all existing evils, plunging men into profound depths of superstition, exhibiting a more thoroughly paganised idola- try, narcotising conscience with the promise of cheap in- dulgences, ministering opportunities to every form of sensual licence ? Would matters be better when Ken entered the gates of Rome itself and stood in the very central seat of Latin Chris- tianity ? Ruins, churches, pictures, Capitol, Forum, Colosseum, catacombs, all these would of course have for him the attraction which they have had at all times for all travellers.^ But the main question which such a man would ask himself in that place and time would be. What evidence is to be found here that the Church which claims to be the one true Church on earth is doing its Master's work, that the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, the infallible guide, has, in any appreciable mea- sure, the mind of Christ ? In answering that question we are not left to conjecture. We have Ken's own statement, in reply to James II., that whatever disposition he might have had in ' Two reminiscences of Italian travel may, perhaps, be traced in the Uymno' theo — (1) The Maremma. " Ev'n ravenous beasts will never harbour there ; Ev'n noxious plants die in that pois'nous air." — (p. 268.) (2) The Catacombs. " Dead Rome, of living Rome the spacious drain, Where walking ghosts ne'er find thtir way again." — (p. '2 "9 Uad Ken lost his way in them ? [C. J. P.] T 2 11(5 THE GRAND TOUR. [ciivr. mm. favour of Rome hud disappeared in that visit.* We have TTawkins's report that lie was " often heard to say that he had great reason to give God thanks for his travels, since (if it were j)ossible) he returned rather more confirmed of the purity of the Protestant religion than he was before."* Nor does he con- ceal from us in his own writings what it was that mainly led him to this conclusion. What struck him most was the way in which the Roman clergy had sold themselves to Mammon worship. The nepotism of Popes was the chronic scandal of the Church. Five occupants of St. Peter's chair had been conspicuous for their avarice. If they did not enrich their favourites they heaped up treasures for themselves. The taxa- tion of the Papal territory was so oppressive that a fourth part of the inhabitants left the city. The pre-emption of corn by the Papal officials (which Burnet contrasts with the plan followed at Geneva) deprived the owners of the soil of the profit of their labour.' From the Curia downwards there was nothing but venality. Their eyes and their heart were but for their covetousness. Their one object in dealing with the myriads who crowded the city for the jubilee was — " To wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash," to rake up the gold and silver and copper which were poured out at their shrines and on their counters, for candles, and ex rofos, and indulgences. To lead them by earnest preaching to the kingdom of God and His righteousness was not in their thoughts at all. What Ken thought of all this he has left on ' " Bishop Ken went to Rome with Dr. Walton : part of his design was to inquire into the Roman religion, and if he found it sound, to profess it and con- tinue at Rome. He returned about 1675, after six years' stay ahroad {sic). In King James's reign, upon his complimenting him upon some passages in his wriiings tor their nearness of opinions, he told the King whrtt little reason he had to do so ; that he had once been inclined to his religion, but that the New Testament and his journey to Rome had cured him." (Spence, Aiiecd. p. 329, 1820.) Wood, Ath. ()xo)t. ii. 989, says that Ken "on his return found that he had lost the favour of many of his f'Tmer associates, who supposed that by this journey he had been tinged with Popery," and add* that "they were altogether midiuken." ' Hawkins, p. 6. s Burnet, LetUrt, p. 196 A.D. 1675.] WAS THERE A BETTER SIDE? 117 record in his Edmund, when (after the manner of Milton) he introduces Mammon as speaking in a council of demons — " I of the Vatican the power assume, I only am infallible at Rome." Works, ii. p. 10.5. I do not say that even then Ken wrapt the whole body of the Church of Rome in one sweeping condemnation. The affinity which holy souls have everywhere for each other must have brought him into contact with the ten righteous men who were left, even in the Papal Sodom. There might be found much love even where there was little light. There might bo some truths to which the teaching and the worship, even of a corrupted church, bore their witness, and which the professors of a more intelligent Christianity had been contented to ignore. The memories of St. Francis de Sales and St. Charles Borro- meo were very precious to him. He collected, wherever he went, the works of devout Homan Catholics, Nieremberg, Drexelius, Pavilion, and others. He probably looked on Pascal and the Port-Royalists as giving hope of better things (p. 258). And, from this point of view, there was one fact, even in that year of jubilee, which ought not to be passed over. Molinos,^ the preacher of the mystical quietism with which the author of JoJui Inylcsanf has lately made English readers familiar, was then nearly at the height of his fame and influence. It was in 1675, the very year of Ken's visit to Rome, that he published his Spiritual Guide. The aim of his teaching was to insist less on compulsory confession and formulated ' Molinos was born 1627, and educated at CoimTira. He was at first supported b)' Innotc'Dt XI., but the Jesuits commissioned Paul Scgneri to write against him, and his work was put in the Index. His opponents stirred up Louis XIV. against him, as they had done against the Port-Royalists, and through )ii8 con- fessors, Pere la Chaise and Cardinal D'Estrtes, denounced him to the Inqui- sition. He was imprisoned for twenty-two months, and toiturod, and recanted, after the manner of Galileo, with "a face full of scorn and di fiance." Among other charges the Jesuits accused him of impurity of life. He was again im- prisoned till his death, December 28, 1696. He taught with Gcrson that " the spirit should become as a little child, or a beggar," that " failh and silence brought the soul into the presence of God," and with Theophylact that " he always prays who does good works." — J. H. yhorlhouse. Goldm Thoughts f>om ifnhnns. 118 THE GRAND TOUR. [ciiAr. viii. devotion, and more on the intercourse of the soul, through the Eternal Spirit, with the Father and the Son. liurnet (p. 211) tells us that he was " much supported both in the kingdom of Naples and in Sicily, and had also many friends and followers in Kome.'* The Jesuits, as was to he expected, opposed a system which threatened to undermine their influence, and backed by " a great king, that is now extremely in the interests of their Order" (Louis XIV.), threw him and hundreds of his Quietist followers into the dungeons of the Inquisition.* It is not, I think, an overbold stretch of imagination to think of Ken as watching this movement with a profound interest. One whose sole purpose as a writer was to lead men to a spiri- tual communion with God, to a life conversant with the Unseen and the Eternal, whose studies lay, as we have seen, largely in the regions of mystical theology, could not fail to be attracted to one who was, in great measure, like-minded with himself. There is every reason to believe, from the number of Spanish books in his library, that Ken knew that language, and this would facilitate, assuming that they met, the intercourse of the two kindred souls. Ken may have learnt some lessons from him which appeared in his Practice of Divine Lore, and, in yet fuller measure, in the more transcendental hymns which were published posthumously.^ In practice, however, as himself the spiritual guide of others, he did not adopt the principle which was dominant in the teaching of Molinos. Quietism may well have seemed to him adapted to the Spanish or the Italian tempera- ment rather than to the English. When he answered the request which must have been often put to him, " Teach us to pray," he did not say, " Fold your hands ; open your minds passively to a supernatural influence ; wait for the advent of an ecstatic fellow- ' Burnet gives not a bad story of one of the Pasquin satires of the time. About the same time as that of Molinos' imprisonment, one man had been sen- tenced to the galleys for something he had spoken ; and another hanged for something he had written. And so the pasquinade ran, " iSt parliamo, in galere ; si scrivemmo, impiccati ; si stiamo in qniete, alP Satit' VJfiieio : e che bisogna fare ?" ("If we speak, there are the galleys for us; if we write, there is the gallows ; if we stand quiet, there is the Inquisition. What then must we do ? ") * It is not without interest to note that an English translation of Molinos' Spiritual Guide was among the books which Ken left to the Library of Wells Cathedral. A.D. 1675.] FINAL IMPRESSIONS. 119 ship with the Eternal." He knew that his penitents, like those who came to the Baptist, needed helps of a humbler and a safer kind, and he told them to use their Prayer Books, and wrote acts of intercession, contrition, thanksgiving, and the like, for their personal devotions, and gave them simple rules of soberness, temperance, and chastity for their daily life. And so Ken left Rome at once sadder and wiser. He had seen Duessa in her own palace and w'as not likely now to mis- take her for Una. If he had ever felt the fascination of her spells, those spells were at length broken. What remained for him ? Popular Protestantism, as seen in Switzerland, France, Germany, Scotland, in. the theology and worship of the English Puritans, did not altogether satisfy him. Even the Church of England must have seemed to one, to whom the Export ulatoria could, with any show of plausibility be ascribed,^ far from perfect, defective in her discipline, exposed more and more to the perils of a latitudinarian Erastianism. There remained for him the ideal, in contemplating which he lived and died, and found his peace and joy. There was "the faith of the Undivided Church of the East and West." To that faith, as distinguished from the corruptions and half-truths of Rome and Geneva, he would be true and steadfast ; it would be an anchor of the soul amid the storms of doubt and unbelief. It would supply all that he needed for the attainment of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.^ I have dwelt thus fully on Ken's travels up to this point because they had a manifest bearing on his life. By what route he returned from Rome, what he saw on his way from it, is of less importance for us. The common route for the homeward bound would seem to have been from Civita Vecchia or Leghorn to Marseilles or Genoa. I am inclined to think, however, from a passage in Ken's Edmund,^ \n which Nuremberg is described, and its two rivers, the Regnitz and the Pegnitz (hardly likely to have been known, even by name, except to those who had visited that city), that he came back by Innsbruck, and, passing ^ See Note to Chap. iv. ' See Ken's Will (ii. p. 209), and Practice of Divine Love, p. 48, ed. 1686. ' Edmund, Works, ii. pp. 69, 70. 120 THE GRAND TOUR. [chap. viri. through Nuremberg, made his way to England by the Rhine and the Netherlands.* Anyhow, he returned to Winchester some time in 1676 or 1077, and resumed the normal course of his life there, till, after three years of quiet retirement, he was called to a post of higher dignity and greater responsibility. ' The first letter in the next Chapter is dated October 24th, 1677. There are no data for fixing the time of hia return precisely. Assuming that he did not reach England till the spring or summer of 1677, thf-re would be time for a visit to Spain, and so for the acquirement of the knowledge of its language and literature implied in the presence of many Spanish books in his library. Note. — Ken and Cahdinal Newman. — It is not, I think, without interest to note, as an instance of the parallelism ot contrast, the impression made on J. H. Newman by his Italian travels. "The churches," he says, "calmed my impatience." On the other hand, what he saw of Rome impressed him with the feeling that "all, save the spirit of man, ia divine." It was at this time (June 16th, 1833), distracted by conflicting emotions, that he wrote " Lead, kindly Light," in the Straits of Bonifazio. — Apvlog., pp. 96 — 100. See ii. 268. CHAPTER IX. REPOSE AND RETROSPECT — A.D, 1676 1079. " Then, all thy meekness from thy hearers hid Beneath the Ascetic's port, the Preacher's fire Flow'd forth." /. H. Xewman. The three years that followed on Ken's return to England must have been, if I mistake not, the calmest and happiest of his life. He had returned, as men who travel for the first time, and have known how to use their opportunities, com- monly return, with the consciousness of enlarged knowledge and wider thoughts. Regions of culture were now open to him to which he had previously been a stranger. French and Italian, and, probably, Spanish, literature also, became familiar ground to him. His faith in the rightful claims of the Church of which he was a minister had been strengthened by what he saw of the defects and the corruptions of other Churches. It had not embittered his relations with members of those Churches, the Reformed of France or the iin-reformed of Rome, or turned him into a vulgar or vehement contro- versialist. Rather had it led him to look on all but those who were avowedly indifierent to truth of any kind, with an enlarged sympathy and tolerance. And his life at Winchester ofiered all that was congenial and attractive to such a mind as Ken's. Morley was still there, whom he honoured with a filial reverence ; and "Walton, in the green old age of an octogenarian, hearty and hale, and full as ever of the recollections of the past ; and Walton's son, who had shared his travels, and was to him both as a nephew and a younger brother ; and Walton's daughter and her hus- band, William Hawkins, who before long became a Preben- 122 REPOSE AND RETROSPECT. [chap. ix. dary in the same Cathedral body as himself. And he had his organ in his rooms in the college, on v/hich he could accompany himself, as he sang his own or other hymns, and could find leisure for larger excursions into the fields of poesy. The out- lines of the two great epics on which perhaps he counted, so far as he dreamt of fame, as likely to perpetuate his name to later generations, may already have occupied his thoughts. He had time for reading the writers in mystical and ascetic theology, a Kempis, Gerson, Gerhard, De Sales, Molinos, St. Cyran, and the Spanish and Italian authors with whom he had lately made acquaintance, and storing up thoughts in his mind, as a treasure of things new and old, out of which he was afterwards to bring them forth as a wise master-scribe instructed' unto the Kingdom of Heaven, for the good of . others. Above all there were the boys of the college, for whom, before he travelled, he had written his Manual of Frai/crs, and over whose use of that book he was now able to watch, with the satisfaction of knowing that his work had not been fruitless, that it had been accepted and welcomed there, as elsewhere, as a help to the higher life, that the hymns for morning and evening which had been printed, not at first with the Manual, but on a separate broad-sheet,^ already rose as from the lips of the " babes and sucklings," out of which not seldom God " has perfected His praise." The earliest of Ken's extant letters belongs to this period, and though dealing only with private matters, is sufficiently characteristic to deserve insertion : — ^ LETTER I. " For the Reverend Dr. Jonjf Nicholas, Vice-Chaxceuloe of THE UxrVERSITY OF OxTORl;. "My good Friexd, " It pleased God to take away Mr. Coles between 10 and 11 of y« clock yesterday night about y* very time we were commending him to God in the prayers ; Cujm anima reqtiiescat in pace. His sisters have lost an excellent brother, and y^ society a very sincere and ' See Chap, xxvii. - Andcrdon (p. .58) speaks of a letter in New College as e.orly as 1663. but the present Warden has been unable to trace it. See p. 84. A.D. 1676— 79.] NEJF COLLEGE MATTERS. 123 understanding man, but, to recompense his losse, as soon as ever he was dead, y* Warden was persuaded to go to an election of a successoiire immediately; and just as we went into the chappelle Mr. Harris appeared, and was chose, nemine contradicente, before dinner. You may perhaps suspecte that we of this colledge might have a design against you, in taking your friends away, and leaving you all your honours ; but, to convince you of the contrary, I will endeavour to rid you of Bampton, whom Dr. Clutterbuck is willing to recommend to his kinsman, upon some discourse I had with you, but I intend he shall receive the favour from you early, {only ?) or not at all ; and I hope the New Colledge are now resolved that no one who olfers disrespect to you can be acceptable now. I thank you kindly for your favours to yny little hoy. (If) it is fitt for me to appere at Oxford, I shall, God willing, be ready. In y« mean time, you would do me kindnesse to exchange offices with me, for I would willingly be Vice Chancellour a month, provided you would be Bursar ! In regard to the death of my colleague y^ present account of the whole yeare lies on me. Eead to B. what follows : Dr. Clutterbuck desires me to send to you for a scholar who is prudent and welle-behaved, to live with a Knight at Greenwich, of his owne name, and of kin to him. His employment will be only to read prayers, and to have a young gentleman's company, who is about 17 yeares of age, but, having lived in Italy, scarcely knows the cuetomes of England, and to read some parts of learning which are most suitable to him. I doubt not but you are able to recommend several fitt for him, but, if I might guide your choice, I Avould wish you would propose it to Mr. Bampton. I know very welle that you have not any reason to be kind to him, but I am of opinion, as they soon go abroad for some time, you would soon learne to like him better at his returne than before ; besides, he told me the other day that he was desirous of a schoole, and soome friends did recommend him to Mr. Nowell for a chaplaino ; but I am afraide he will not suit him, and though his behaviour to you has made me much less concern'd for him than, I own to you, I should have bene, yett I like him so welle, that if he has a mind to this emploj'ement I desire you to recommend him, for without your recommendation I shall be able to doo him no good. Dr. Clutterbuck is now in London, lodging att Mr. Eoger Newton's, in Little Brittaine. Send yoiu resolution by y^ nexte post to him, for he expects it. Excuse this very long letter. " Deare Sir, " Yours most affectionatoly. ''Oct.'lAth, \%11. "T. KEX." Ijl REPOSE AND RETROSPECT. [chap. ix. [Dr. Nicholas, who had bcon electfd to New College in the name year as Ken (p. 31), Buctucdod Woodward as Warden of the {Jolle;,'o in 167-5. Gilbert Cdos, whose deiith Ken writes to report, had been elected aa a Fellow of that College in 1G37, and of Wincliester Coll-Kc, first by the Parliumentary Visitors, and then, on the Restoration, by the Fellows. He held in suc- cession the living of P^ast Moon, in Hampshire; of Ash, Surrey ; and East^^n, near Winchester. In 1G74 he published " Thenphilus and Orthodoxus, or several Conferences between two Friends, the one a true son ot the Church of England, the other fallen ofl' to the Church of Kome, Oxford, 1674." The epitaph on his tomb at Easton gives June 19, 167G, as the date of his death. Possibly tha discrepancy bitweeu this and the date given in the letter (October 23, 1677), may be explained by supposing that Ken left his letter undated, and that it was at some later period wrongly endorsed. Round, who prints both dates, makf-s no attempt to reconcile them. Bampton was elected at Winchester in 1661, and at New College in 1671. Dr. Clutterbuck was of il igdalen College, Oxford, rector of South Stoneham, Hants, and succeeded Sharrock, Ken's predec* ssor at Woodhay, as Archdeacon of Winchester. The " Knight at Greenwich " may be identified with an Alderman Clutterbuck mentioned in Pepys's Diary, Feb- ruary 4, 1663 — 4, as one of the Mercers' Company, whom he met on a speech day at St. Paul's School, one of the proposed Knights of the Royal Oak, or with a Sir Thomas Clulteibuck, also of London, cite. 1670. Ken had probably be- come acquainted with the "young gentleman" during his Italian travels, and found himself now, as in later lile, consulted as a family adviser. What is chiefly noticeable in the letter, is (1) the Riquiescat in pace, as showing that Ken did not look on such a prayer aa condemned by the Church of England. It will be seen that the epitaph which he wrote for himself, but which was not placed on his grave (ii. p. 203), included a request for such a prayer for his own Boul. That which appears on the monument of Bishop Barrow of St. Asaph (it well be remembered that he had been Chaplain at New College, under Dr. Pink), with its Orate pro conservo vestro ut inveuiat misericordiam in die Domini, is another notable instance of the same feeling. This also was written by tha Bishop himself, and bears the date of 1680. (2) We note throughout the letter a characteristic graciou>ness and tact. Ken wishes to oblige the Warden, who apparently had reason to be dissatisfied with Bampton, by giving him an opportunity to get rid of his presence, and at the same time to help the young- man, against whom there would seem to have been nothing very sen lus, with a suitable employment, and, in doing this, to meet the wants of the two Clutter- bucks. (3) The youth of whom Ken speaks affectionately as his " little boy " was- probably one of his two nephews, sons of his sister Martha and John Beacham. The elder, John, was elected at Winchester in 1671, was a scholar of Trinity College, O.xford, and was made Prebendary of Wells in 1687, andVicar of E.ist Brent in 1689. It is of him, I believe, that Ken speaks. The younger, William, was a scholar of Winchester in 1690, and became Fellow of New College. (4) We note, with something of a smile, the groan which escapes from the ascetic student at the prospect of being plunged into all the mundane business of the bursar of a college. Leases, and fines, and ledgers were as unwelcome an inter- ruption to hira as they were to J. H. Newman when he was bursar of Oriel, or to the late Dean Stanley when he had a like office in the Chapter of Canterbury.] The halcyon days of calm at Winchester were, however, A.D. 1676- 79.] JAMES, DUKE OF YORK. 125 drawing to a close, and greater cares than those of a bursarship were looming in the near distance. The drift of circumstances had been bringing Ken gradually, year by year, within the range of Court influences. He had become popular as a preacher. The publication of his Manual had marked him out as qualified more than most men for the spiritual guidance of the young, and the outcome of it all was, that in 1679 he was offered the post of chaplain to the Princess Mary of Orange at the Hague. We are able, without much risk of error, to trace the path by which he was thus brought into contact with the family of the Duke of York, with the fortunes of which, in one way or another, his own were, for the rest of his life, inextri- cably interwoven. It will be necessary for this purpose, without attempting a full history of the political transactions of the times, to note some of those transactions so far as they affected the Prince, with whom Ken was, now and for so many years afterwards, to be connected. James, Duke of York, had been brought up in the faith of the Church of England, and had in early youth resisted the pressure which the counsellors of his mother, Henrietta Maria, had put upon him, to adopt that of the Church of Rome. He had shared his brother's life at Paris and Cologne, and in Holland, and his habits of life were tainted with the same licentiousness. Charles, however, was content to be vicious where vice was safe and easy. It was otherwise with James. Within six months after the Restoration the English public was startled by the rumour that he had seduced the daughter of Lord Clarendon, the Chancellor of England. The baseness of the act was aggra- vated by its having been committed under cover of a promise of marriage written with his own blood, which the prince after- wards, it was reported, had stolen from Anne Hyde's cabinet. A child was born — a boy, wlio died young — on October 14th. Under pressure from the King, and in fear of the odium conse- quent on a public exposure, he consented, about December 2l8t, to make reparation by acknowledging a private marriage.' The consent of the Queen Dowager, who had other views for her ' Burnet, B. ii. 1660 ; Clarendon's Life, oontiniiation, ii. 27 ; Pcpys, Ort. 7, Dec. 21. 1660, 126 REPOSE AXD RETROSPECT. [cir.vp. ix. son's marriage, was obtained, after some difTiculty, by the influence of the Chancellor being exercised in her favour in the matter of some pecuniary claims. And with it began the chain of circumstances which brought Ken into the position of chaplain to that Princess. Bishop Morley, Ken's patron, had been in old days on intimate terms with Clarendon. They had been in the circle of Lord Falk- land's friends, whom he was wont to gather at Great Tew. They had been together during the exile at the Hague, and Morley had kept up the services of the Prayer Book among the some- what wild company of courtiers and exiles that were gathered there. The hand of Morley, who told the Presbyterians, who came over with the invitation to Charles to resume the throne of his father, that he also was a Calvinist, may be traced, with- out much risk of error, in the wide comprehensiveness of the Declaration of Breda, commonly ascribed to Clarendon, by which they were reconciled to the restoration of episcopacy. It was probably not the fault of either that the promises of that Declaration were not fulfilled. It was natural enough, looking to these antecedents, that Morley, as Bishop of Winchester, should watch the fortunes of his friend's daughter in her new position. He had been in the habit of hearing her confessions from her girlhood.' He would try to keep her and her children and her household as free as might be from the corruptions that surrounded them. For a time the Duchess persevered in her Anglicanism, and she and Morley appear in one curious story as aiding to support a worthless adventurer of the name of Macedo, whose only claim was that he was a convert from Romanism. At first the shameful faithlessness of James must have made his wife's position suflBciently painful. But with the birth of his children, Mary and Auue, the better side of his nature came out. He loved to pass his leisure in playing with them,^ and fell into domestic habits which provoked the sneer of his more cynical and more profligate brother, who professed to see in him an almost dra- matic exemplification of the character of the " hen-pecked husband." With this change in his private life there was also something like a sense of public duty, which was never seen in ' Burnet, O. T.. Book ii. 1662. ' Pepys, Sept. 12, 1664. A.D. 1676—79.] TEE DUCHESS OF YORK. 127 Charles. As Admiral of the English fleet in the war against the Dutch, he covered himself with laurels in the hattle of Solebay. In the administration of the Admiralty, as Pepys's Diarr/ bears witness in almost every page, he introduced something like order, honesty, and economy, and maintained the character of a reformer who was, at least, free from the pecuniary cor- ruption which infected well-nigh all other departments of the State. AVhat has been said will account for the interest with which Morley watched the course of events in the Duke's household, and for the hopes which he cherished that he might exercise some influence for good over them. The downfall and exile of Clarendon in 1667 would not diminish his anxiety to do what he could for his daughter and her children. And those children were now every day more and more conspicuous in the eyes of the nation as being in the line of succession to the throne. There seemed no prospect of any legitimate issue to Charles, and he set himself steadfastly — it is almost the only act in his life in which we trace anything like a sense of duty — in spite of all his otherwise doting fondness, against every proposal for legitimatisiiig Monmouth, or otherwise taking measures which might give him a legal heir.^ Before her death, however, the Duchess of York was believed to be a convert to the Church of Rome. Shortly after her death (1672)^ it was noticed that James ceased to receive the communion and afterwards with- * The measures suggested were singularly characteristic of their authors. Buckingham proposed that the Queen should be carried ofif to a convent, and so leave her husband free. Shaftesbury, that he should divorce her, and marry another princess. Burnet, following Luther, thourere." ( " Seekest thou great things for thyself I'' seek them not." — Jeremiah xlv. 5.) The same text appears in the Greek Testament which was the con- stant companion of his later years, and which is now in tho possession of the Rev. Wyndham Merewethcr.* Whatever stirrings of ambition, whatever wish to bear his part in the drama of history, or at least, to do as others did, ' Other texts written on the same fly-leaf in Mr. Mcrcwetlier'a copy are (1) 'lavTa /itXjrn, iv roi'-roij: iaOt (" A[editiite upon these things ; give thyself wholly to them") — 1 Tim. iv. lo, and (2) "Ira iv I'liih' ^aOqri to /i») virip in yfypairrat ippovih' (" That ye might learn in ua not tu think of men above that which is written ") — 1 Cor. iv. 6, 140 LIFE J r THE HAGUE. [chap. x. such, e.g.y as TJurnct, and Tnin<^le witli the actors in that drama and hear what they said and did behind the scenes, and, it might be, pull some of the wires that moved the puppets in the play, may have been working in Ken's mind, and tending to shake his singleness of purpose, were thus repressed by him. He accepted the work to which he was now called simply because he was called to it, because it gave an opening for some possible influence for good on those who were likely, in the natural course of things, to exercise a greater influence than himself. AVhat he may have heard from those who had preceded him in his office was not very encouraging. The education of the Duke of York's daughter had been confided, under the direction of Compton, Bishop of London, to Dr. William Lake, from whose Dian/ we derive the information as to the Princess Mary's marriage given in the previous chapter. He notes, with a plaintive sadness, that she was given to card-playing on Sundays. Under his remonstrances she had given up the practice in England, but he heard that she had resumed it on her arrival at the Hague. Iler first chap- lain, recommended probably either by Compton or Morley, was Dr. William Lloyd, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, whom we identify as the perpetrator in his Oxford daj's of the practical joke recorded in p. 66. Of him, Lake complains that he allowed the Princess to leave the services of the Church of England for those of a body of Dutch religionists of the Brownist or Congregationalist type. He did not hold office long, and was succeeded (in this case we trace Sheldon's and Morley's influence) by George Hooper, Ken's friend at Oxford, who had succeeded him at AVoodhay, and who, after being chap- lain to Morley, was promoted to the same office under Sheldon. His report of domestic matters in William's household gives a somewhat unpleasant picture. The indifference of his conduct before marriage had passed into harshness. We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that the Prince of Orange had deliberately adopted, with the far-sighted forecast which commonly charac- terized his actions, what we may call a Petruchio policy. His Katharine was to be trained to bear the voke in small things so that she might learn to be subservient in great, when ' Camden Miscelldiii/. vol. i. A.D. 1679—80.] ROW CHAPLAINS FARED. 141 the time was ripe for demanding such subservience.^ In what Hooper records, accordingly, we may recognise something more than a casual outbreak of ill-temper or ill-manners. There was no chapel in the Prince's house, and, as he never dined with the Princess, she gave up her dining-room to be fitted up for the purpose. The Prince came in to see the altered room, and kicked contemptuously at the steps on which the Communion Table stood, asking, "What was the use of them?" Hooper found that the Princess had been set to read Dissenting theology, and gave her Hooker and Eusebius to study by way of balance. The Prince looked at them with a sneer, "I suppose Dr. Hooper persuades you to read these books." When he talked with Hooper on the state of Church matters in England, and urged a larger comprehensiveness in the treatment of Dissenters, he met the chaplain's plea for uniformity with the remark, " Well, Dr. Hooper, you will never be a bishop," and observed to a friend — the words are significant enough of plans at least half- formed — that " If he ever had anything to do with England, Dr. Hooper should be Dr. Hooper still."^ It would seem too that the Prince had not provided for the payment of the chaplain as part of the disbursements of his household. Hooper's colleague, who had no private resources and ex- pected a decent stipend, " never got a shilling," ran into debt, and died of worry and vexation. Hooper was more fortunate, but during the year and a-half of his residence at the Hague, he received nothing till the night before he sailed for England, when Bentinck sent a servant to him with £70, and excuses for its not having been sent sooner. The chaplain of the Princess was apparently supposed to be " passing rich on £40 a year. ^ ' So Covcll, who succeeded Ken as chaplain, writes (in 168o) thnt "the Princess's heart is ready to break, and yet she counterfeits the greatest joy." " The Prince hath infallibly made her a slave, and there's an end of it." The later history of her behaviour, when she joined William at Whitehall after James's flight (ii. 35), will show us how effectual the discipline had been. ' When INIary, during William's absence from Kngland, appointed Hooper ns Dean of Canterbury, she had to encounter her husband's strongly marked dis- pleasure. {Strickland, x., p. 193.) The anecdotes are from the MS. Slemoirs of Hooper, by his daughter, Mrs. Prowse. — Anderdon, p. 159. ^ Prowse. 142 LIFE AT THE HACJ'K. [chap. x. TiOnking to tho intimacy between Ken and TTooper, it is probable that these facts had come to the knowledge of the former before he accepted his appointment. When he arrived at tho Hague he found tho Hon. Henry Sidney, son of the Earl of Leicester, and brother of the more famous Algernon, as envoy at the Court of the Stadtholder. He had been Master of the Horse to tho first Duchess of York, and was in great favour with her, and had, therefore, known the Princess from her childhood, and may have had some previous acquaintance with Ken.* With him was Sir Gabriel Sylvius, one of the respectable diplomatists of the time, a friend of Evelyn's, who had married Anne, daughter of Mrs. Howard, " exceedingly loved " by Mrs. Godolphin.^ Another daughter had married Colonel James Grahme, of Levcns, with whom Ken was afterwards, partially even then, on terms of intimate friendship, and who will meet us again when we come to the Episodes of his private life. Here, therefore, were some congenial associates. Among the Princess's female attendants he found Anne Tre- lawney, daughter of Sir Jonathan, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, Exeter, and Winchester, who had held an appointment in the household of the Duke of York at Deptford. She had been associated at an early age with the Princess as her maid of honour, was the only female friend she ever admitted to inti- macy, and remained with her till she was dismissed by William, as standing in the way of the complete subjection to which he had determined to reduce his wife. Another maid of honour Avas Jane Wroth, daughter of Sir Henry Wroth, of Durants, Enfield, whose mother was sister to Ken's early patron, Lord Mayuiird, and whom he may therefore have known, more or less intimately, at Little Easton. As she was grand-daughter of the first Earl of Leicester, and great-niece of Sir Philip Sidney, she must also have been a cousin of the Envoy. 1 At a later date, Sidney, in conjunction with Compton, was one of the most active promoters of the Revolution, and, after it was accomplished, William made him Earl of Romney. '^ Evelyn, it may be noted, dedicates his life of Mrs. Godoli hin to Lady Sylvius. The former was married to Mr., afterwards Lord, Godolphin by Dr. Lake, in the Temple Church, on May 16th, 1675. Berkeley House, where ilrs. Howard lived, was a kind of second home tt) Jilrs. Godolphin before her marriage, and she went there on resigning her place in the Queen's household. It was afterwards, in William's leiyn. occupied by the Prince«s Anne. A.I). ir,79— 80.J TROUBLES TmCKENING. 143 Sidney kept a diary/ and it is from the entries in it that we gain our chief knowledge of Ken'.s life at the Hague. He records the fact that he preached on December 14, 1679, and that he dined with him on Christmas Day.^ In the following spring we have two entries of more serious import, which it will be well to give in his own words : — " March 31, 1680. Dr. Ken was with me; I find he is horribly unsatisfied with the Prince, and thinks that he is not kind to his wife ; he resolved to speak with him, though he kicks him out of doors." — Diary, ii. p. 19. Whether the chaplain acted on that resolve the diary does not record, but a few days later we have another entry, which shows that he was not alone in his opinion of the Prince's conduct ; — " April 11. Sir Gabriel Sylvius and Dr. Ken were with me, and both complain of the Prince, especially of his usage to his wife ; they think she is sensible of it, which doth contribute to her illness; they are mightily for her going to England, but they think he will never give his consent."— Z>/V?/'y, ii. p. 19. It is probable enough from Ken's character that he did venture on some remonstrances. In addition to William's general negflect and ill-treatment of his wife, there was the liai- son between him and the Lady Elizabeth Villiers, who was also in the Princess's household ; a scandal which began early and continued through the whole of his married life, and which he acknowledged, with some professions of penitence, in answer to Archbishop Tenison's expostulations after Mary's death.^ The example of William's licence was, however, followed by others, and in one of the.se cases Ken felt himself bound to inter- fere. Among William's chief ministers and associates was a ' Published under the title of Diary of the Times of Charles II., by R. W. Blencowe, 1843. 2 Diary, \., pp. 201, 211. ^ Mary herself, who si-oms to have borne her wrongs silently during her life, left a letter, written on the fir»t night of her fatal illness, to be given to him after her death, in which she reproached him with his infidelity. The result was that William separated himself from his mistress when he was in England, and that she joined him at Loo when he wont to Holland. — Strickland, xi. p. 306. \\\ LIFE AT tut: n.\nUE. [chap. X. Count Zulcstein, whose father was the illegitimate son of Frederick Henry of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and who was therefore cousin to the Prince. During his minority the Count's father had accompanied William to England, in 1670, when he paid his first visit to the King, his uncle.^ It came to be known that he had seduced one of the maids of honour, the Jane Wroth with whom, as we have seen, Ken had many ties of association in the memory of old days at Little Easton, under a promise of marriage. It was the old story of James and Anne Hyde acted over again. Ken, with the courage of a Christian pastor and the spirit of an English gentleman, pressed Zulestein, who was inclined to hold back, as it would seem, through fear of offending William, to follow James's example and to avert the scandal of an open shame. His remonstrances were suc- cessful, and Sidney's Diary records significantly, on January 28, lt)8^, the two facts that " the Prince went to Amsterdam, and that Monsieur Zulestein was married."^ On William's return to the Hague he showed by his ex- asperation that there had been a good reason for hurry- ing on the marriage in his absence. He threatened Ken with dismissal, but was met with a bold front. The chap- lain " resented the threats," and would not accept a dismissal at the hands of William, who had not appointed him, but was ready to beg leave of the Princess, and retire as soon as might be. He withdrew at once from his attendance at the Court, and " warned himself from the service," i.e. gave formal notice of his resignation. William, however, thought better of it and restrained his irritation. It would not be wise to risk the loss of popularity in England, which would naturally follow on the abrupt dismissal of such a man as Ken, already widely known and honoured, especially at the English Court, for such a reason. He accordingly entreated him to resume his duties, and treated him with a greater share of favour than before. ' Evelyn, December l/i, 1670. The Diary gives (November 4) the impression which the Prince, then twmty years old, made on those who saw him. " He has a manly, courageous, wise countenance, resembling his mother and the Duke of Gloucester." ' The storj- is told by William Hawkins, but without names, which were naturally suppressed while the parties corcerned were still li\-ing. The names were first given by Bowles (ii. 43), who probably learnt them from the traditions of the Hawkins family. A.D. 1 679— 80. J INTER CO URSE WITH B UTCE CHUR CE. 145 Ken consented to remain for one year longer, and so the matter ended. As far as we can trace, the marriage turned out well. Zulestein continued to hold a high place in the circle of William's counsellors, came over with him to England in 1688, was employed in the delicate negotiations with James at Rochester and Whitehall,* was made Master of the Robes, and raised to the peerage. The maid of honour, who might have been left to an ignominious and dishonoured life, became Countess of Rochford, and her eldest son succeeded to the earldom, now extinct. The relations between William and Ken seem, as we have said, to have been bettered by the courage which the latter had displayed in these embarrassing circumstances. William knew how to respect the strength of character which had been shown in a righteous cause. Sidney records a visit from Ken (Decem- ber 19, 1680) in which he told him " what enemies the Prince had in England," and so set him on his guard against their machinations. Ken acknowledges in August, as in the letter that follows, that he was "in much favour with the Prince," and as "obligingly treated" by Bentinck and all others as he could wish. The later months of his residence at the Hague were probably happier than the earlier. And during them we find him occupied in two matters of some importance, of which his own letters preserve the record. I. The first of these transactions has the interest of being one of the series of abortive attempts to bring about the union of Protestant Christendom. The bishops who, then and afterwards, showed themselves eager to conciliate the English Nonconfor- mists by concessions, looked with sympathy on their brethren of the Dutch Churches, and Ken was commissioned, first by Lloyd (afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph), who had preceded him in his chaplaincy, and who had then scandalised Lake by encouraging the Princess to attend the Dutch services, aud afterwards by Compton, Bishop of London, to whom the educa- tion of James's two daughters had been mainly confided, and who was already known as being par excellence the " Protestant" Bishop, to make overtures with a view to union. Ken addresses his report to the latter. His letter to Lloyd, in which he had " freely told " his thoughts, has not come down to us. ^ Maoaulay, Chap. i. VOL. I. L 14G LIFE AT THE EAOTJE. [chap. x. LETTER II. To THE Bishop of London (Compton). " Dieren, Aug. 19^ 1680. " My very Good Lord, " How it came to passo I know not, but I receiv'd not your Lordshippes letter till about ten dayes since, when wee lay at Soesdyke, in o'' Passage to Dieren ; & knowing M' Sidney would meet us heere, I referred my answer to be sent in his pacquett, w*** I knew to be y® most secure way. As to your Lordshippes pro- posal!, it is, in a manner, y* same y' D'- Lloyd sent me not long before ; & I, looking on it as an effect of his owne private zeale, did freely tell him my thoughts, but not so fully as I could have done had I been to have discourst with him. But to give your Lordshipp a more perfect account, though it is extreamely fitt to have y* con- current sentiments of their professours, yett I cannot apprehend y* judgments of y'^ generality of those Dutch divines, with whome I have converst, to be worth y* asking, or very creditable to virge, should they give it for us, they, for y* most part, rather despising than studying Ecclesiasticall antiquity ; & y* classical! authours w*''' many of them read with most deference are o' English Non- conformists ; so y' if y* factious party should countermine us in this particular, I am perswaded y' more of o"' Divines here would be for them whom they call their Brethren, & esteeme as y* great Doctours of y Reformed Chui'ch, than for us whom they censure for at least halfe papists. Besides I know some of them so well, y' I dare say, should they give their hands for us, they would hardly thiuke any preferment under a Deanery could reward their service. But y' w'"* most swayes with me, & y;"^ I most humbly offer to your Lord- shippe, is this, y' should I desire their approbation of o"" communion : I foresee y* y^ next thing they will expect from us will be o'' sub- scription to y* validity of their orders, and, as a further confirmation, a demand y' y* Princesse may come to their sacrament, w'*" hitherto she has never done, & if ever she does doe it, farewell all CoSion- prayer here for the future. And I have reason to feare this, because y* resentment they have at our reordaining them sticks in their stomach ; & it has been urg'd to me bv them, & I have, at present, so far laid y* controversy asleepe & satisfyd them, y' I would be loath it should start up againe ; for if it does, I must either desert y* Church, or be so far deserted here y' I must leave y^ place, and how far this is reasonable w'"* I say. Dr. Hooper, who unde- servedly fellt y* effect of something like it, can best informe yoxir A.D. 1679— 80.] OBSTACLES TO UNION. 147 Lordshippe. I am at present in as much favour with y' Prince, Sf am as ohligingly treated by M'- Benting Sf all here, as I can desire, & there- fore if I am scrupulous quiefa movere, I hope your Lordshippe -will pardon me. But if your Lordshippe thinke it absolutely necessary, I will entirely submitt to your judgment, & shall act as your Lord- shippe directs me at my returne to y® Hague, w"** will be about y* beginning of y* next moneth, for at this distance I am able to doe nothing ; but I request of your Lordshippe to send me your cofflauds in M""- Sidney's pacquett. '• My Honoured Good Lord, " Your Lordshippes most humble and most obedient Servant, "THO. KEX." [Ken writes, it will be seen, from Dieren, a town on the Yssel, where William had a country house, not far from the celebrated field of Zutphen, to which he had apparently gone for change of air during the August heats. He was expecting to be joined by the English Envoy, Henry Sidney, and we may perhaps indulge the thought that one of their objects was to visit the scene that had been made famous for all time by the " cup of cold water" which Sir Philip Sidney, (the great-uncle of the Envoy and of the newly married Countess Zulestein) had passed from his own lips to one whose need was greater than his own. As to the proposals for union, Ken appears to take no very sanguine view. The Dutch divines were naturally more in sympathy with the Dissenters than with the Churchmen of England. They looked on most of the latter (there is at least a touch of personal feeling in Ken's tone which implies that they had so looked on him) as "at least half-papists." At the best they would require deaneries and the like as the price of their compliance. The great difficulty, however, with them, as with the Scotch Presbyterians and the English Nonconformists of the time, was the recognition of their orders. They would not disown their previous ministrations as invalid. They would insist on the Princess recognising their validity by receiving the communion at their hands. That, Ken felt, would be to sacrifice the whole position of the Church of England in Holland and at home. He is unwilling that a controversy which he " had laid to sleep " should be revived and become again a cause of quarrel. How he had quieted and " satisfied" the Dutch divines he does not tell us, but the principles on which he and those who shared his views acted make it probable that he assured them that the Church of England would not insist on a formal condemnation of their previous ministerial labours, but would consent to their acceptance of her ordination, as legitimatising their ministrations under her polity. It was with that reserve that the more moderate Presbyterians of Scotland had been reconciled to the Church, Archbishop Leighton being one of them, and this was thf propo.sal mado by Tillotaon in the abortive Commission appointed with a view to re-union with the English Dissenters in 1689. The reference to Hooper is significant as showing that Ken had heard his experiences of his life at the Hague before he entered on his own duties as his successor. The " Mr. Benting " of whom Ken speaks is William Bentinck, William's early friend, who had eared his life by 1,2 148 LIFE AT rilE HAGUE. [aiAP. x. shnrinjf his bod in an attfick of Hmall-pox. Ho was made Earl of Portland the day before the Coronation of William and Mary, and received large granta of land. The friendship between the two continued till William's death.] II. Within a few weeks of these negotiations Ken was ahle to report the result of his labours in another direction. At a time when the Church of Rome was winning so many proselytes from that of England, it was something to have it in his power to chronicle a conversion in the opposite direction. Among the residents at the Hague was a Colonel Fitz-Patrick/ who had been brought up as a Roman Catholic. Three entries in Sidney's Diary (August 23, 28, 31, 1G80) record the facts that the Colonel had talked with him about becoming a Protestant, that the Prince had been glad to hear of his intention, that he had brought about a meeting between the Colonel and Ken, which decided the former, after six months' deliberation, to take the final step. The three letters that follow give a full report of this transaction in its several stages : — LETTER III. To THE Archbishop of Canterbury (Sancroft). " My very Good Lord, "I should not dare to make this invasion on Yoiir Grace, but that my duty enforces me, and the ambition I have to send newes, which I know will be extremely weUcome to your Grace, and the rather because it is of a convert to our Church, and of a convert, who is no lesse a persone than Collonell Fitz-Patrick ; who, upon a deliberate enquiry, is so fully satisfy'd with our Church, that he comunicates with us next Lord's day in the Princess's Chapell. 'Tis not to be imagined how much both their Highnesses are pleased with the Colonel's happy resolution, and the Prince comanded me to give my Lord of London a particular account of it, which L have done. On Mooneday his Highness goes for Germany ; the pretence is hunting ; but the chiefe thing which he proposes to himself, wee 1 Edward Fitz-Patrick, descended from the ancient Irish kings, and nephew of the first Duke of Ormond, was made Colonel of the Royal Fusiliers in 1692, Brigadier-General in 1694, and was drowned in crossing to Ireland in 1696. His brother Richard was created Baron Gowran 1715, and his descendants, the Earls of Upper Ossory, rose into importance later in the eighteenth century by marriages with the great Whig families of Russell, Gower, Petty, and Fox. — (G. H. S.) A.p. 1679— 80.] A CONVERT FR02I ROME. 149 understand, is to discourse the Germane Princes about the present posture of Europe, and to take accurate measures to expose the cofilon enemy. " I most earnestly begge your Grace's benediction. " My Good Lord, " Your Grace's most obedient and most humble servant, "THO. KEN." " Hague, Sept. Uth, 1680." [Fitz-Patrick's converBion was clearly looked upon as an event of some import- flnoe. The fact that Ken, who had been suspected, and it may be, talked of, by the Dutch divines, as " at least, a half-papist," had brought it about, probably explains the marked improvement in William's treatment of him. "We note also Mary's special interest in the matter. The Prince's journey to Gennany was connected ^ath his plan for a confederacy, in which the Emperor, the King of Spain, the Electors of Brandenburg and Hanover, were to be prominent, against Louis XIV., who had established a kind of Court at Metz, to which many of the minor German princes flocked to propitiate the great Monarch.] LETTER IV. To THE Bisnop OF London (Compton). " My veey Good Lord, "I need make no apollogy for this present addresse, in regard it brings the most acceptable newes of a convert to our Church, and that of no lesse a one then Collonell Fitz-Patrick. I easily guesse that your Lordshippe will feele a very agreable surprise at that name, and will not be a little curious to know what were the con- siderations which prevaild with a person of so great estate, interest, and understanding, to make this happy change ; and I can with the more confidence give your Lordshippe an account of it, being as well assured my selfe as any one can be of another's inward sentiments, that the whole conduct of this action has nothing in it but what was most worthy of a man of honour and of a good Christian. The first prejudice he entertaind against the Romanists was that peremptory sentence of damnation which they passt on all them who dissented from their communion, and the Coll. had too much judgment and candour not to observe and owne that many Protestants did lead very holy and exemplary lives, and he could not believe that it was consistent with the infinite goodnosse of God to damne any persons of so unreproachable and primitive a piety. The next thing that shockt the CoU. was the Tridontine doctrine of the Priestly intention ; and the ill consequence of that he did the 150 LirK AT THE HAGUE. [chap, x more lively apprchond, by rullin<^ to mind that, when he himselfe •was in Spaino, there was a Jioman Priest who was convicted of having been allwayes a Jew, and had taken the Priefithood onely for a dis- guise ; and what intention that Jew could have, when either he baptisd, or absolvd, or consecrated, he could not comprehend, unlesse it were to expose and invalidate all the meanes of o\ir salvation. Anotlier difficulty which the Coll. could by no meanes digest was the doctrine of Transubstantiation, to believe which he was to disbelieve all his five senses together. To this may be added some judicious reflections, which the CoU. himselfe made, in his reading history, on the frequent and notorious disorders in the Papacy, and in some of the Westerne Councills, which gave him but little hopes of finding Infallibility there. " These are some of those just exceptions which first began to loosen the CoU. in the Eomish Communion, and having about eight moneths since retird to the Hague, he had leasure to make a more accurate enquiry into this religion then formerly he had done. To this purpose he converst with some divines of that Church, though but with little satisfaction ; nay, so far was he from it, that for own- ing his doubts to his confessour, he was denyd absolution. Then he procurd some choice authours, and study'd them, with more than ordinary application of mind. To reading he jojiid frequent fasting, and prajT, and almes, as became an humble and earnest suppliant for the Divine guidance, which God has now gratiously vouchsaft him ; insomuch, that being fully satisfyd that the Church of England has a juster claime to all the advantages of having trueth than that of Rome, he intends next Lords day to receive the holy Sacrament in the Princesses Chappell, to the unspeakable joy of her royall Highnesse, who on all occasions gives demonstrations of her great and zealous concerne for the Protestant EeKgion. ^ ' ' The conversion of so eminent a person wee here cannot but hope wiU open the eyes of severall of our gentry, who are of the Romish persuasion, to looke beyond the prejudices of their educa- tion, and not to suffer themselves to be scar'd from an impartiall search after Catholick Truth, which of all things in the world most highly imports them, and for which they must alwayes live martyres in resolution. Should any well meaning persons but follow so good an example, I question not but they would be blesst with the like Buccesse, and be enabled by God's gratious assistance to renounce ' Later on in life, in 16S7, Mary, in answering her f.ither's letter, in -which he had given her the history of his own conversion, and urged her to follow his example, showed that she had been well instructed, thanks to Hooper and Ken, in the grounds of her Anglican convictions. — Burnet, O.T., B. iv. 1687. A.D. 1679—80.] REASONS FOR CONVERSION. 151 all worldly considerations, which usually impose on our judgroenta, and this I am verily perswaded the Coll. did, as all intelligont and unbyast persons will confesse. For there are undeniable evidences here, and tis not unknown to your Lordshippe, of how great importance the Coll. has been ever esteemd, and how much courted, in the Romish Communion, booth at home and abroad, of how plentifull estate he is master, and how much booth his estate and person are at this present out of danger ; adde to this, the disgusts and losse of many of his old friends, from whome it is an affliction to good nature to dissent, the malice and censures, and jealousys of his enemies, all which sufficiently evince that he cannot propose to himselfe to sitt more safe, or more at ease, or to grow richer or greater, or in any the least temporall respect to better his condition by his change, and can have no motive to sway him but his irresis- tible conviction of conscience, [and] his passionate desires to take the best way to make sure of his title to heaven. " I must now be so just to tlie Eight Honourable Mr. Sidney, his Majesty's envoye here, as to acquaint your Lordshippe that the CoD. during his sollicitious enquiry after the way of truth, did often ease his mind to him, from whome he receivd all that encourage- ment which so sincere and generous a friend, and so knowing and firme a Protestant, could suggest. " More than this, he tooke occasion to discover his thoughts to the Prince of Aurange, who offerd some weighty reasons of his owne to confirme him, and was infinitely affected with the Coll.'s good intentions ; and when his Highnesse was afterwards pleasd to relate to me what passt betweene them, he spake of it with a very particular and visible satisfaction, and then commanded me to wait on him, who, I found, had so fully considerd and so judiciously argued all things with himselfe, that there was little need for me to interpose. I cannot omitt to lett your Lordshippe know, that in that short discourse his Highnesse made to me on this subject, lie expresst so great a zeal for the Protestant Religion, that I could not but acknowledge the great mercy of God, in raising up, at this time, so powerf ull and resolute a Patron of the reformed Church. "I am sensible how much I have exceeded the bounds of a letter, but the occasion will justify me, and that duty which I am obliged to pay, who am, "My Good Lord, "Your Lordshippes most humble and most obedient servant. " THO. KEN." " IlMinslerdyke, Sept. Wh, 16S0." \r>2 LIFE AT THE JIAGUE. {nwv. x. [In writing to Compton, Ki-n was more expansive thiin in the first, more official, letter to Sancroft. The account which he gives of the sUigcs of the con- version is interesting, as hhowing that Ken, in his controversy with the Chtrch of Rome, followed in the footsteps of Chillingworth, and like him, was not ashamed to call himself a Protestant. That Church had not yet unU-arnt its sentence of inevitable damnation for all Christians who did not submit to it, and this clashed with men's intuitive conviction of the equity of the Divine judgments. One notes that the natural inference from Ken's language that he, like Walton, would have been unwilling to pass any "peremptory sentence of damnation" on those Romanists who " did lead very holy and exemplary lives." The " peremptoriness " on the Roman side was not toned down then, to the extent to which it has been since, by the theory of " invincible ignorance." The doctrine of the intention of the priests was still explained so as to cast a doubt over the efiBcacy of ever}' sacrament, and this, in a sj-stem in which salvation was indissolubly con- nected with sacramental grace, involved entire uncertainty as to whether any man was in a saved state. Ken, it is clear, was not satisfied with the current explanations which Romanist theologians then gave of that theory, and attached weight to the practical corruptions of the Romish Church as an argument against Papal infallibility. Still more noticeable is the way in which, at the close of the letter, he speaks of the Prince. Previous impressions appear to have passed away, and, looking to the great conflict which, in Ken's eyes, was already imminent, he was able to rejoice that God had raised up " so powerful and reso- lute a patron of the Reformed Church." It will be well to bear those words in mind when we come to some later passages in his life. If I mistake not, Ken really thought better of William than Burnet did.] Another letter four days later gives an account of the convert's formal reception. LETTER r. To THE Bishop of Loxdox (Compton). " My very Good Lord, "In my last, I gave your Lordshippe an account of Collonel Fitz-Patrick's resolution to receive y* Holy Eucharist in o"" ChappeU ; ■w'^'' last Lord's Day he did, to y* great satisfaction of the Court. The Prince & Princesse, his Maiesty's Envoye, M""- Sidney, & Monsieure Bentin [Bentinck'], & severall persons of quality, -were at ye Prayers & Sermon ; & I question not but you will find y* Coll. extreameh' satisfy'd with his change, for I heare he goes for England with M^- Sidney within a few dayes. I cannot give your Lordshippe a greater demonstration of y« Coll.'s sincerity, then to lett you know y' he has discourst tci'th some of his Romish friends so rffectually, y' wee are in hopes of more converts fa o'" Church, ^- those con- siderable ones too. I am but just come to towne, &, it being post- day, am streitned in time, w'"" is y* reason I cannot wait on him A.D. 1679—80.] THE CONVERTS ADMISSIOX. 153 till to-morrow ; & his Hignesse, who went yesterday for Germany, before he lefft Hounslerdyke, commanded me to pay a visitt to a Lieutenant Coll. who, wee hope, will suddenly embrace o' coffl union. I was at her Hignesses Chappell with y* Collonell, but of this per- son I hope to send a more perfect account by M'- Sidney. "My Good Lord, " Your Lordshippes most humble & most obedient servant, "THO. KEN." "Hague, Sept. 17, 1C80." [Colonel Fitz-Patrick's admiHsion to Communion in the Church of England (we note, by the way, the tone of Ken's phraseology "receive the holy Eucharist") seemed likely, to the sanguine hopes of the preacher on that occasion, to be the first fruits of a plenteous harvest. The new convert had apparently boasted of his influence with his brother officers and other friends. For one who was coming over to England, not altogether without aiming at personal advancement, it would be a gain to appear with letters of commendation from two such opposite quarters as the Prince of Orange and Dr. Ken. The other possible convert I am unable to identify.] Compton would seem to have reminded Ken, in his reply to this letter, that, according to the statute of Elizabeth, a re- cusant received into the Church of England ought to have made a formal abjuration of the errors of Rome, and this had not been done in Fitz-Patrick's case. In the letter that follows Ken explains how the omission came about : — LETTER VI. To THE Bishop of London (Compton). " My very Good Lord, " Since my last I waited on y* Collonell, who on second thoughts told me, y* what he first intimated to me, concerning y* Jew in Spaine, who had there Romish orders, he could not peremptorily affirme ; and y', on regard he was then young, but 1 7 yeares old, & tooke but very little notice of it, & had at this distance but rude notions of it, & he was appreesive enough y' y* Papists might probably pick a quarell witli it. I told him y' though y' particular fact might not be true, yott such thing.s had often hai)penpd, i*t were urged in y* Councell of Trent, & the reason of y'' thing held notwithstanding. I confesse I was sorry y' he did not advert [to] y" rectifying tliis mistake before, when I read the letter over to him ; but if your Lordshippe has it still in your hands, I bogge of your 154 ITFJ: AT THE HAGUE. [ohap. x. Lordshippe y' my lottor may be copied out without y' passage. I am sensible, y' when y Coll. was received iuto o' Church, by a statute of Queen EH sab., ho should have made an abjuration of Popery, but I, having not y* Statute booke here, & not being able any where in y* Hague to procure it, thought it presumption in me to pen any forme of my owne, & I could not expect y* retume of a post, because I did earnestly persuade y* Coll. rather to owne o' profession here, than to deferre it till his coming into England, for y" sake of my master & mistresse here. " My Good Lord, " Your Lordshippes most humble & obedient servant, "THO. KEN. "Sept. 20, 1680. " I beseech your Lordshippe, y' y* paragraph in my letter may be thus altered, if you judge it titt : " 'The next thing y' shockt y* Coll. was y* Roman doctrine of y* priest's intention ; for what intention those priests, who have been convicted of being Jewes, or Atheists, or Magicians, could have when either they baptis'd (or absolved). . . . ' " M"'- Sidney goes for England on Sunday or Mooneday next, & y* Coll. I believe will accompany him ; & I am extreamely glad of it, because I know he will receive great conlirmation from your Lord- shippe and my Lord's Grace." [It will be seen that Ken finds himself obliged to modify a somewhat important statement in his former letter. The Colonel's memory had become hazy, and he would not peremptorily affirm that he had personally known, as stated in a previous letter, a Spanish Jew who had lived as a Romish priest. Ken, with a characteristic scrupulousness as to accuracy, has to make the statement hypothe- tical, and to asbume, what, perhaps, his knowledge of Spanish ecclesiastical history enabled him to affirm, that it was notorious that some priests had been convicted of being Jews or atheists.] "We have seen that Ken bad formed a higb estimate of his convert's character. That estimate, however, was not shared by all who knew him. Sidney, who narrates the conversion, records^ also that he had been charged with forging bills of exchange, that Lord Essex, who was then at the Hague, wondered that the Prince would talk with " such a villain," " the worst man in the world," of " so ill a reputation that * Biary, i. pp. 163, 179, 1S3. A.D. 1679—80.] RErURN TO EXGLAXD. 155 everybody was ashamed to appear for him." Whether Essex was prejudiced or Ken deceived, we have, so far as I know, no materials for deciding. The Colonel appears, however, in good company, in 1687, when Evelyn, on May 2ud, records his meeting him at dinner, together with Lord Middleton, Principal Secretary of State, Lord Pembroke, Lord Lumley, Lord Preston, and Sir John Chardin, in the house of Mynheer Diskvelts (Dykvelt) the Dutch ambassador.^ The year to which Ken had consented to stay at the Hague was, however, drawing to a close, and within a month he had returned to England. A letter from Lord Arlington, dated October 21, 1680, in the Records of the Lord Chamberlain's ofiBce, announcing that he was appointed to preach before the King on the following Sunday, shows that he had taken up his quarters for a time in the house of his old friend, Francis Turner, then a prebendary of St. Paul's, a widower with one infant daughter, in Amen Corner. It is probable that this implies a previous appointment as Chaplain to the King. The regristers of the Lord Chamberlain's office show that he was not appointed to that office between the 14th of January, 1677, and the 30th of Julj'-, 1680. At this point they become defec- tive, and there is no entry therefore of the precise date of Ken's appointment.^ It seems likely, however, that the Princess Mary had commended him to the favour both of her uncle and her father, and that this fresh step in the ladder of Court prefer- ment awaited him immediately on his return from Ilolland. The influence of other friends, such as Lord Maynard and Bishop Morley, may have contributed to the same result. Sid- ney, who was nephew to Sunderland, may have spoken in his favour. Probably, however, such recommendations were scarcely needed. Ken had already won Charles's respect before he was appointed to the Hague, and the post of a royal chaplain was the natural recognition of services such as he had rendered. The next two years seem to have been passed quietly at Winchester. In the common course of things he would take ' Later on in the history of the period, Fitz-Patrick received a bribe of ono thousand guineas for promoting the Charter of the East India Company [Strick- land, xi., p. 302). Such gifts wore, however, too common then for this to be a proof of any special baseness. ' Anderdon, p. 178. 156 LIFE AT Tin: If AG UK [chap. x. his turn in preachinf^ at "Whitehall, but his name does not appear in tlie special list of Lent Preachers appointed by the King in the London Gazette for 1681 or 1682. Morley's increasing infirmities made his visits to Winchester House less frequent, and Ken's time was probably passed tranquilly in the cathedral city. The fury of the Popish-plot storm had spent itself before his return, and he would watch the vehe- mence with which the Protestant party in the House of Com- mons pushed the Exclusion Bill, with the dissatisfaction and alarm which were expressed by the bishops and clergy generally, and which were shared, as I have said, by a Whig states- man like Halifax. The Duke of York during the greater part of the year was occupied in repressing Argyle's rebellion in Scotland. The Prince of Orange came over to England in July, but there is no evidence that he and Ken crossed each other's paths. The summer of 1682 was marked by the loss of one of Ken's earliest and dearest friends. He was summoned from Win- chester in June, to attend the death-bed of Lady Margaret Mayuard. After an illness at Whitehall, she had removed, after Whitsuntide, to Easton Lodge, "not out of any hope of recovery, but that she might die in a place which she loved, in which God had made her an instrument of so great good to the country." The intimacy which had begun at Little Easton had continued unimpaired. Either when they met in London or by correspondence, of which unhappily not a fragment is known to survive, he had shared her most secret thoughts for twenty years.^ It must have been a comfort to him to know that she had in her neighbour, Lady Warwick, whose notes of Ken's sermons have been referred to in Chapter VI., one like-minded with herself. The later entries in that lady's diary record more than once how she drove over from her own house, Lees, or Leighs, near Braintree, to Little Easton, and had some hours of sweet converse with her friend.'^ Such portions of the funeral sermon, preached by Ken on June 30, 1682, as were necessary to show what 1 1 am indebted to Litdy Brooke, the present owner of Easton Lodge, for this negative information. « Lady Wurw-ick's Diary, March 26, 1668, Feb. 16, Oct. 19, Dec. — , 1671. She was sister to Robert Boyle. A.D. 1682.] BEATS OF LABY MARGARET MAYN ART). 157 Lady Maynard's influence had been to Ken, how he saw in her such an ideal of womanhood as he was not likely to find elsewhere, have been already given in Chapter VI. What we note here is the fidelity of Ken's nature to that early friend- ship. We may believe that when he returned from that funeral, it was with the feeling that life was poorer than it had been, and with a deeper sense of loneliness. The dedication of the sermon to the bereaved husband is, I think, sufficiently charac- teristic, alike in the humility and in the sensitiveness which it indicates, to find a place here among Ken's letters : — LETTER VII. To THE Right Honotjeable William Lord Mainard, Baron of ESTAINS, AND COMPTROLLER OF HiS MaJESTY's HOUSEHOLD. " My Lord, " Though I am unwilling to decline any service which your Lord- ship expects from me, yet when you enjoined me the printing of this sermon, I could not obey your command without disputing it. For I considered, that in such an age as this, where an exemplary holiness is very rare, I shall be thought guilty of most gross flattery, in the character I have given of your incomparable lady, now in heaven. " But knowing I have so many unexceptionable witnesses to attest every line I have said, especiaUy yourself, who best understood her value, and are most sensible of her loss ; and being conscious to myself that I have spoken no other throughout than the words of truth, I soon broke through all the discouragements I had, either from the just censures the world would fix on the meanness of the discourse, or from the unjust ones it might pass on my insincerity; and resolved to do all that little honour I could to her memory, and to give God the glory of her example ; and I humbly beseech the Divine goodness, that what I now offer to the public, may not be wholly unprofitable to those who read it ; however, I am sure, it will not be unacceptable to your Lordship, or to those who were so happy to know her, which will be satisfaction enough to " My good Lord, your Lordship's most humble and faithful servant, " THO. KEN." The 23rd of the month of March, 1683, was a day much to be remembered in the history of Winchester. Charles, whoso l.OS LIFE AT THE HA CUE. [cmkv. x. country residence at Newmurket had been nearly burnt to the ground, set liis mind on the erection of a new palace at Win- chester, which was designed by 8ir Christopher Wren, and was intended to rival Versailles in its magnificence. It was to be surrounded with a park, and a stately street was to connect it with the cathedral. It was to contain one hundred and sixty rooms, with a cupola, and a staircase with marble columns. The day above-named was fixed for laying the first stone of the edifice. The park and gardens were to be laid out after plans by Wren.^ The King and the Duke of York were present, and then, and in the months that followed, the royal visits brought with them crowds of courtiers. AVhile the building was in progress the Bishop's palace and the houses of the dean and pre- bendaries were in request for the accommodation of the royal party, and that party was a large one. The King could not separate himself from the two mistresses who were then highest in his favour, the Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwyn, and they had to be provided for. The official known as the " har- binger," to whose functions it belonged to assign lodgings for the several members of the Court, fixed on Ken's prebendal house for the last-named personage. It was probably assumed that one who had been recently appointed as a Court chaplain would be subservient after the manner of his kind. With Ken, as we might expect, it was quite otherwise. He met the message with an indignant refusal. " A woman of ill-repute ought not to be endured in the house of a clerg\Tnan, least of all in that of the King's chaplain." " Not for his kingdom " would he comply with the King's demands. A local tradition relates that he took a practical way of settling the matter, by putting his house into the builder's hands for repairs and having it unroofed. Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn was, however, at last provided for. The Dean (Dr. Meggot, appointed 1669, d. 1()94) was found more compliant than the Prebendary. A room was built for her at the south end of the deanerj', and was ' The designs are now in the Library of All Souls' College, O.xfoni. The work was stopped by Charles's death in 16S6. Anne thought of it for Prince George, but the carcase remained unfinished. It was used tor barracks during the war with France at the close of the last century. — Elmes, Wren and Mi* Times, p. 300. (C. J. T.) A.D. 1683.] KEN AND NELL GWYN. 159 known familiarly by her name till it was destroyed by Dean Rennell, perhaps as perpetuating an unsavoury association, about 1835.^ In the common calculations as to Court favour, Ken risked his chance of future promotion by this act of boldness. As it was, he rose in Charles's esteem. The King had not yet lost, in the midst of all his profligacy, the power of recognising goodness. The bold faithfulness of Ken as a preacher at White- hall had led the King to say, in words which were remembered afterwards, as he was on his way to the royal closet, " I must go and hear little Ken tell me of my faults." The courage which the chaplain now showed led the way, contrary to the expectations of all courtiers, to a fresh step onwards to the " great things " which Ken did not seek, but which were to be thrust upon him. One of the incidents which darkened the public history of the year, must, if I mistake not, have touched Ken with a special sorrow. The Rye House Plot, a republican conspiracy which, it was alleged, was aimed at the life of the King and his brother, that Monmouth might take their place as a Protestant king, or that a new Constitution might be framed by a free Parliament, would fill him, as it did most of his order, with horror and alarm. The principles in which he had been trained would lead him to concur, at least generally, in the declara- tion of the University of Oxford (July 24, 1G83) in favour of the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, but he could scarcely remain unmoved by the fate of some of the leading victims of the judicial proceedings connected with that plot. Essex he had known at the Hague ; Alger- non Sidney was the brother of tlie Envoy with whom he had been associated there; with William, Lord Russell, there were points of contact of another kind. Ken's friend Dr. Fitzwilliam, who had succeeded him at Brighstone, was the friend and counsellor of the family, and continued to be Lady Rachel's spiritual adviser for years afterwards. Kettle- well also was on terms of intimacy with them, and he and Fitzwilliam were called as witnesses for the defence, to give ' The story is told hy Hawkins, Ken's preat-nophow, Imt without a date. It may have been either before or after Ken's appoiTitnicnt as Chaphiin to the Fleet. 100 LIFE AT THE HAGUE. [CUAP. X ovidenoe that the idea of complicity with assassination was incompatible with all they had ever known of the character of the accused. Ken must, we may believe, have shared in the sorrow of his friends. Fitzwilliam, who two years later com- mended Ken's Practice of Diritic Love^ to Lady Ilachel, as likely to bring a message of comfort to her soul, could hardly fail to tell his friend of her sorrow and to seek for it his sym- pathy and prayers. Before the year came to an end Ken was called to work of another kind, in which we have now to follow him. ' I assume that this is the book to which Lady Rachel Russell referred aa Ken's " Seraphic Meditations,^' lelt. ixv. iienrt.. FAC-8IMILK OF IlISCEIPTION KEFERKED TO IN PAGE 139. CriArTER XI. CHAPLAINCY AT TANGIER. A.l), 1 G83. " Or on a voyage, when calms prevail, And prison thee upon the sea, He walks the wave. He wings the sail, The shore is gained, and thou art free." /. //. Xeivman. Catharine of Braganza had brought to Charles II., as part of her marriage dower, the Portuguese settlement of Tangier, on the African coast of the Straits of Gibraltar, as well as that of Bombay, which gave England its first important foothold in India. It was regarded, at the time, in much the same light as the acquisition of Gibraltar itself was at a later period of English history. It commanded the entrance of the Mediterranean, and strengthened the force of the English fleet in its waters. It was handed over to Lord Sandwich on January 30th, 1661, and Lord Peterborough was left as Governor. Its acquisition was supposed, more or less, to balance the discredit of the sale of Dunkirk. The fortifications were strengthened, and a mole of large dimensions was constructed to widen and improve the harbour, at a vast expense. It proved, however, to be u flamnom Jicvreditas. A body of Commissioners, including the Duke of York, Prince Pupert, the Duke of Albemarle and Samuel Pepys, was appointed to govern its alfairs, and the Diary of the last-named member of the Commission is full of details as to its management. It became the source of a con- stant drain on the resources of the country, and the House of Commons began to be jealous of the grants that were demanded for it, and suspicious as to the management of its finances. Before long it was regarded with distrust and dis- VOL. I. M ir.2 VUAPI.AINCY AT TANGIER. [chap. xi. like for another reason, lioman Catholics had been sent over by James as governors and ofliccrs in the garrison. It was believed, in the panic terror of the Popish Plot, that the King and the Duke were training a Popish army there for later use in England ; that pay was drawn for the troops on the strength of false muster rolls ; that everything was jobbed by engineers and contractors on a large and lavish scale. Lancelot Addi- son, the father of the more famous Joseph, was chaplain there for seven years, and describes the garrison as half-starved. Idle, vicious, demoralised, in all senses of the word, " their very hearts were broken with ill success." Some ran away to the Moors, and became renegades, or ended their lives in slavery. In the later years of Charles II., when he was trying to dispense with grants from Parliament, and grudged parting with the money which he received from Louis XIV. for any other object than his palaces and his mistresses, he came to the resolve that he would get rid of the annual expense by demolishing the mole and fortifications, and leaving the town, not in the hands of Portugal, from which he had received it, but to the chance of occupation by the Moors. A naval force of twenty ships was accordingly dispatched in the summer of 1683, under the command of Ijord Dartmouth, for this purpose. This nobleman, the son of Col. William Legge, who had assisted Charles I. in his escape from Hampton Court, and whom that monarch had commended to his successor " as the faithfullest servant that ever man had," was one of the model churchmen of the time. His father declined a peerage at the Restoration, and died in 1672. The son entered the na\'T and distinguished himself by his integrity, was high in the Duke of York's confidence, rose to the position of Admiral, Master of the Ordnance and Privy Councillor, and was raised to the peerage in 16^2.^ In his later career he was faithful to his master's cause in the Revolution of 1688 ; was Governor of Portsmouth, and commanded the fleet against the Prince of Orange. In 1691 he was imprisoned on the charge of being ' Evelyn (June 11, 1G83) reports his election as Master of the Trinity House, " Bonn to George ( Jf'i/liam) Legge, late Master of the Ordnance, and one of the groomes of the bedchamber; a greate favorite of the Duke's, an active and understanding gentleman in sea affairs.'' A.D. 1G83.] LORD BARTMOVTII. 168 implicated in Lord Preston's conspiracy against William ill., and died in the Tower on October 2oth of that year. Dartmouth, who seems at all times to have been anxious to raise the moral condition of the navy, looked out for a chaplain for the fleet that now sailed under his command. Ken was recommended to him by Samuel Pepys, who, having been con- nected both with the Admiralty and the Tangier Commission for many years, was made one of Lord Dartmouth's council in this expedition, and the recommendation was, we may well believe, due to the favour in which Ken stood at Court and to the high estimate that had been formed of his character ; pro- bably also to the way in which he had discharged his duties as chaplain at the Hague, and to Pepys's personal knowledge of him. The man who had succeeded in making schoolboys devout was thought likely to exercise an influence for good over the sailors and soldiers that were now committed to his care.^ Writing at a later date, in 1688, when Lord Dartmouth was in command of the fleet intended to oppose the landing of the Prince of Orange, to Dr. Pechell, Master of Magdalene College, Cam- bridge, Pepys referred to what he had done on this occasion w^ith self-congratulation. Lord Dartmouth was " in the highest degree solicitous in the choice of a chaplain," and looked for "piety, authority, and learning" as necessary qualifications.'^ These he had found in Ken. Pepys has, moreover, preserved for us the very letter in which Lord Dartmouth tendered the appointment to Pechell himself, and it is so characteristic of the man, and has so strong a bear- ing on the reasons which determined his choice of Ken, that it is worth while to quote a few sentences. He thinks it "of the highest importance to have the ablest and best man " he can possibly obtain, " both for the service of God and for the good government of the clergy that are chaplains in the fleet." He begs Pechell "for God's sake" to do him the "honour and favour" to go with him. He feels that " he has to answer to God for the preservation of so many souls as He hath been pleased to place under his care."^ ' For Ken'.'? vit>w of the idral liff of soldiprs and s.iilor8 see Clmp. xxviiL 2 P.pys" /.//(■, ii. 149. * Pepys, L'fe^ &c., ii. 149. M 2 1 fi J CH.i I'LA INLY A r TANGIER. [chap . xi. It was not an office which presented innch outward attraction. The naval cliaplains were held in little esteem, and were often men of damaged character. They were hardly classed as officers, and their pay was not more than that of a common seaman. They could not hold a service without the commander's leave, and where the commander was indifferent or undevout, that leave was often withlield, and weeks might pass during which the chaplain's office would be in abeyance, and the common sailors would taunt him with doing nothing for his money — money which, as they believed, was deducted from their owti pay. Often they were not provided with Bible or Prayer Book or surplice. Scant provision was made for them on board ship, and they wanted comforts which even a midshipman enjoyed. Ken's position as Chaplain of the Fleet and Lord Dart- mouth's respect for him probably exempted him from many of these discomforts. If he had had to face them, it would pro- bably have made little difference in his decision. As it was the rule of his life to " ask for nothing," so it was also to " refuse nothing" that seemed to come as a call from God, and gave an opening for the service of his Master. He was content to leave the quiet routine of Winchester, to say " good-bye " to Morley, who was now eighty-five, and to Izaak Walton, who was ninety, and to take his chance in the work that lay before him. For the first and last time in his life Ken was now brought into contact with a Boswell, with the one exception, that the reverence with which Boswell looked on Johnson was not found in the feelings with which Pepys regarded Ken. Bustling, gossiping, egotistic, the counsellor of the Tangier expedition, while he congratulated himself on the pleasant prospect of a voyage "in a good ship, under a very worthy leader, in a conversation as delightful as companions of the first form in divinity, law, physic, and the usefuUest parts of mathematics can render it, Dr. Ken, Dr. Trumbull (Judge Advocate of the Expedition), Dr. Lawrence (Physician to Lord Dartmouth), and Mr. Shores (Engineer)," obviously felt that he was entitled to criticise Ken's sermons, and to argue with him on questions of theology. On such an occasion as this, Pepys naturally reverted to the habits of his early days, intermitted for some years, and kept a diary, and its pages are sufficiently entertain- A.D. 1683.] PEPYS AND KEX. 165 ing. He had had to start at forty-eight hours' notice, and pro- bably Ken was not allowed much longer time for preparation. On his way to Portsmouth, Pepys dined "at the College at Win- chester," — probably, therefore, with Ken, — on Aug. 1st, lG8'i, and reached Portsmouth the same evening. They had to wait for a week till Lord Dartmouth arrived in the Grafton, on August 8th, and then they "went on board for good and all." On the 12th Ken read prayers and preached ; on the I'Jth tie read prayers twice, but did not preach. Morning prayers were read daily on deck. On Sunday, September 9th, Ken preached again, and " this being the day of Thanksgiving for the King's late deliverance from the Rye-house plot, gave us a very good sermon on the duty of subjects to their Prince." On week days there was much music in the evenings, and Ken's gifts in that line, which had been cultivated in the Musical Society at Oxford, may, perhaps, have been brought under contribution.^ After supper, the higher oflicers sat and talked, and Pepys dwells with manifest complacency on a long discussion, in which he and Ken took the leading part. The entries in the Diary stand thus — " 2nd September. — Discourse about Spirits, Dr. Ken asserting there were such, and I, with the rest, denying it." " 11th. — After supper in my Lord's cabin, Dr. Ken and I were very hot in disputes about Spirits." " 12th. — To supper and talk : — Dr. Ken producing his argu- ment for Spirits from the ancient oracles, which 1 took upon me against the next time to answer." We are left to conjecture what were the precise points involved in the discussion. Did l*epys go the whole length of the Sadducean denial of either " angels or spirits ? " Did Ken, mystically devout, trembling at the very breath of doubt, thinking it better to believe too much rather than too little, assert his belief in ghosts, i.e. apparitions of the dead, as well as in good or evil angels ? His poems and hymns testify in every page to the latter, but we have no direct evidence from them as to the former. The mention of the ancient oracles suggests the inference that he held, as many of the early Christian writers held, that there was a supernatural power ' See p. 52. ICfi CIIAl'LALWY AT lAyUlKR. [ciiAr. xi. of evil In them, underlying the jugglery of priests and sooth- sayers. Wo can, at any rate, fancy him arguing, with a cer- tain mixture of irony and indignation, against the shallowness which refused to believe that there were more things between heaven and earth than were dreamt of in its philosophy, con- cluding with Milton that '' Myriads of spiritual beings walk the earth By us unseen," and posing the self-satisfied, but i^lightl)' materialistic Hoi-disnnt philosfiph T with questions which he found it hard to answer. The last trace of the discussion which seems to have begun on September 2nd, is found in the entry for the 22nd : — " 22 Sept. — Mighty talk [at supperj of spirits in [the] York Castle [one of the ships], mighty noises being heard by the minister and most intelligent men, and particularly by Dr. Lawrence [the physician of the Expedition]. He told me how he now began to be convinced of spirits, this having continued for some time, and appearing every three or four nights, but nothing since we came to this 22nd, being Saturday ; a good argument against Dr. Ken's argument from the silence of oracles." It is not easy to enter into the process of reasoning implied in the last sentence. Ken had apparently urged the tradition, with which Milton's Ode on the Nativity^ has made us familiar, that the old oracles of Greece had ceased to give answers at the birth of Christ, and had pressed the inference that this showed that there had been a supernatural element at work in them, which was afterwards restrained in its activities. Pepys may, per- haps, have turned upon him on the strength of the mysterious ' noises,' and have argued that there were the same unaccount- able pha?nomena now, that Ken, who may have shown some incredulity as to the said noises, was bound either to accept them also as supernatural, or to give up his belief in the ma- nifestations of demoniac power in the ancient oracles. The discussion appears to have ceased at this point. The ' '' The oracles are dumb. No voice or hideous hiiin, Rings through the hollow roof in words deceiving." A.D. 168:3.] WHAT PEPYS THOrcnT or KKX. in? stirring life that followed their arrival at Tangier left, it niav be, little leisure for such things. But there is, from this point onward, a certain touch of the irritability of the worsted contro- versialist in the tone in which Pepys speaks of Ken. Tlie day after this last debate he notes, in a patronising tone, that " Dr. Ken made an excellent sermon, full of the skill of a preacher, but nothing of a natural philosopher, it being all forced meat." On the 30th he records "a very fine and seasonable, but must unsuccessful, argument from Dr. Ken, particularly in respect of the vices of this town. I was in pain for the Governor, and the officers about us, at church ; but I perceived they regarded it not." On October 7th he notes that Ken " made a weak sermon on the great business of our being called home." On the follow- ing Sunday we have the simple fact, " Dr. Ken gave us a sermon." Something of the same tone of disparagement appears in his noticing (bow far truly we cannot judge) that Ken showed (September 2'Jrd) some symptoms of fear as they rowed across the bay with a rough wind against them. On one point, how- ever, the two men agreed. AVith all his experience of sea-lifo among the officers and men, with whom bis work at the Admiralty brought him into contact, and of London life in the regions of Whitehall, I'epys had never seen such a hell upon earth as he found in Tangier. Curses and blasphemies and foul words were heard on every side from a drunken soldiery, whom the Governor, Colonel Percy Kirke, of wliose work Ken was to see something in his own diocese two years later, did nothing to restrain.^ Women were sunk to the lowest depths of shamelessness. Pepys, whose nerves were not. likely to be over-sensitive on these points, wrote on October 2Gth that Ken dined with him, and that " we had a great deal of good discourse on the viciousness of the place, and its being time for Almighty God to destroy it." And Ken, as usual, had the courage of hi.s convictions, 1 It is, perhaps, worth notinp that when pressure was put upon Kirke to Im- ronie a Roman Catholic under .lames 11., he i)'('ao to lurn Maliomctati. As it was, he joined William on his luuding in Toibay, and \mi8 active in bis service. — Macaulay, Ch. vi. 168 CHAPLAINCY AT TANtJlKR. [chap. xi. and did not confine himself to vcxinj^ his soul in secret. Kirkc had put Roberts, a drunken and jiroHigate priest, the brother of his mistress, into the office of reader in the parish, or garrison, church, where there was already a decent minister, and wanted to have made him chaplain on board the James, the ship commanded by Cloudesley Shovel. Ken represented the case to Lord Dartmouth and the whole company at supper on October 23rd, and strongly urged another appointment, in the person of one Mercer, the schoolmaster of the town. A few days later (Sunday, October 28), Pepys notes the fact that Ken had preached a sermon on the " excessive liberty of swear- ing which we observe here," and that this had led to " very high discourse between him and Ken on the one side and Kirke on the other." With the exception of an entry on November 3rd, in which we find that Ken " kept his chamber, very ill of a headache," probably as much from vexation and grief of heart as from climate, this is the last notice of him in the journal. The proceedings of the Commission dragged on, however, for some months longer. The fortifications and the mole were de- stroyed by the middle of January, but a treaty had to be made for the liberation of Christian slaves who were held in bondage by the Moors, and terras of compensation secured to the English and Portuguese settlers for the loss of property sustained by the evacuation of the town. On the whole one fancies that the time must have been passed by Ken somewhat miserably, in spite of the interest with which he may have watched the new charms of unfamiliar scenery, the new features of Moorish life, the aspect presented by yet another of the great religions of the world. Over and above the pain which he felt at the vices which he could not check, there were troubles among his associates. Dr. Trum- bidl did not get on well with either Dartmouth or Pepys, com- plained that he was losing the practice he might have had in London, and wanted to go back. Pepys grumbled at his " silli- ness and poorness of spirit," and even Ken had to confess that " he was not to be supported." Dartmouth was vexed and out of temper at the delays of the officials at home and the inade- quacy of the supplies sent for provisioning the ships. On this A.D. 1683.] RETURN TO ENGLAND. 169 point lie had remonstrated before the expedition started, but had been met by Lord Rochester with a sneer, and had been asked angrily whether he wished to go or not. lie learnt, as he told Ken (a lesson which later experience probably taught him also), that " a man's courage must be questioned if he lets his prudence say anything." According to his great-nephew Hawkins, Ken beguiled the weary weeks ("about the time of his voyage") by composing an epic poem, which has been identified by Anderdon with the Edmund published after his death with other poems in four volumes. A perusal of that poem, however, shows that it con- tains allusions to Wells, which could scarcely have been written before his connexion with that diocese. Possibly, of course, these may have been inserted at a later date. An epic poem in thirteen books of rhymed heroic verse is a thing which an author begins, puts by, retouches, and finally re-copies till he leaves it ready for the press. And this was, we may, perhaps, believe, the case ■wiihEdimnid. I reserve an examination of the poem and of the passages above alluded to for a later chapter.' At last the work of the Commission was over, and the ships started for their homeward voyage. Ken was on the Admiral's ship, the Grafton, and had to endure Kirke's company, whose occupation as Governor was gone, and who returned to take his place in home service. Whether there was any more " hiffh discourse " between them, or whether Ken withdrew into the solitude of his cabin, vexing his soul with the ungodly deeds and words of his companions ; whether he preached " seasonable " but " unsuccessful " sermons on the way home, or contented himself with reading prayers, are questions which must be left to the historical imagination. The one permanent result of the expedition, as far as he was concerned, was, pro- babl}', that he secured the friendship and esteem of the Admiral, and learnt, on his side, to trust and honour him. We shall find them later on corresponding on terms of intimacy, and acting together, with one memorable exception,- in the political crises in which, before many years were passed, they were destined to bear a part. The fleet cast anchor off .Spithead in the first week of Ai)ril, * See Chap, xxviii. ' Sec Chap. xvii. 170 CHAPLAINCY AT TANGIER. [chap. xi. 1G84, and Kon, we may presume, landed at Portsmouth, and made his wa}' to Wiiiclie.ster.' On his arrival there he found, if he had not heard it before, that he had lost one whose presence luid been interwoven with his earliest memories, and whom he loved with a filial aifcction. Iz;uak Walton had pissed to his rest on December 15, at the age of ninety, and had been buried in Prior Silkstead's Chapel in Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph which marks his resting-place runs as follows : — Here resteth tue Body of Mr. Izaak Waltox, WHO Died the Ioth of December, 1683. Alas, he's gone before, Gone to return no more ! Our panting breasts aspire After their aged sire, Whose well-spent life did last Full ninety years and past. But now he hath begun That wliich will ne'er be done. Crowned with eternal blisse, We wish our souls with his. VOTIS MODESTIS SIC FLERU>-T LiBERI. I have given the epitaph because it has been ascribed by Bowles and Anderdon to Ken's authorship. To me the con- ' Evelyn records (May 26) Lord Dartmouth's re-election as Master of the Trinity House, " newly retum'd with the fleete from hlowing up and demolish- ing Tangier." He adds that "in the sermon preach'd on this occasion, Dr. Can observed that, in the '27th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the cast- ing anchor out of the fore-ship had been cavill'd at as betraying total igno- rance : that it is very true our seamen do not do so, but in the Mediter- ranean their ships were built differently from ours, and to this day it was the practice to do so there." I venture on the conjecture that " Can " may have been ■written in mistake for " Ken." The records of the Trinity House show that the preacher was appointed by Lord Dartmouth (^Ir. A. J. Inglis), and the re- mark made by the preacher exactly fits in with Ken's recent Mediterranean ex- periences. Curiously enough, the Churchwarden's Accounts at Frome, even as late as 1776, contain an entry of expenditure (or " repairing the palisades round Bishop Cans grave." I am indebted for this information to the Rev. W. E. Daniel, of Frome. There was, however, I believe, a Dr. Cann in or near Lon- don at th'' time, and, of course, he may have been the preacher. A.D. 1 6S3.] UFA Til OF IZ. I A K II A L 1 0.\. 1 7 1 jecture does not seem a very probable one. The lines have not the ring of Ken's verse. They do not contain any of hi« favourite phrases. I incline to conjecture that they came from the pen of Izaak Walton, jun., and tliat the son had thus expressed his filial love for his " aged sire." Walton bequeathed by his will " to my brotlior, Dr. Ken," a ring, with this motto, ' A Friend's Farewell ; I. W., obiit 15 Dec, 1683." Other rings, with the motto "Love my Me- mory," were left to other relations, including Ion Ken and his wife, and Mr. Deacham, and friends. Bishop Morley was to have one with the quaint device of " A ^lite for a Million," as being the infinitesimally small return for the countless acts of a life-long kindness. Another gift would ap- pear to have come into Ken's hands at his death, not by way of bequest, but as presented to him by Walton's family, who felt that it belonged to him as by a right of spiritual inheritance. When Donne was dying he had by his will ordered rings, such as have been described in Chapter II. (p. 20j, to be given to a long list of friends, including Sir Henry Wotton ; Hall, Bishop of Norwich ; Duppa, Bishop of S ilisbury : and King, of Chichester ; and, last but not least, George Herbert. In the last case, indeed, the ring would appear to have been sent before Donne's death, and to have been accompanied by verses which, with Herbert's answer, it seems worth while to print, as showing with what associations Ken would receive the ring, which he wore and used during the remainder of his life. To Mr. George Herbert. Sent him with one of my seals of the anchor and Christ. A sheaf of snakes used heretofore to be my seal, which is the crest of our poor faniih'. Qui prim assurtm net-poifum falcr faheJIan Sit/tidir, luec iw-itne xi/inhola parva dutiiKH, Adscitus domui domini ' Adopted in God's family, and so, My old coat lost, into new arms I go. ' In eaoh rase apparently, thn friends sent the opcninj^ words of a I.-itin pnein, which they had intended to write, hut which each left in ii liaginenliiry and iinfinis^hcd s^tatc. I print them from Wnlton's Life of fhnnc. 172 CHAPLAINCY AT TANGIER. [chap. xi. The Cross, my soal in baptism, sproad Lolow, Does by that form into an anchor grow. Crosses grow anchors ; bear, as thou shouldst do, Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too. But Ho tiiat makes our crosses ancliors thus, Is Christ, wlio there is cnicify'd for us. Yet with this I may my first serpents hold : (God gives new blessings and yet leaves the old). The serpent may, as wise, my pattern be ; Wy poison, as he feeds on dust— that's me. And, as he rounds the earth to murder, sure, lie is my death ; but on the cross my cure. Crucify nature, then, and then implore All grace from Him crucified there before. AVheu all is cross, and that cross anchor grown, This seal's a catechism, not a seal alone. Under that little seal great gifts I send, Eoth works and pray'rs, pawns and fruits of a friend, 0, may that saint that rides on our great seal, To you that bear his name large bounty deal. John Doxxe. In Sacram Axchokam Piscatoris George Herbert. Quod crux nequihat Jixa clavique additi, Tenere Christum scilicet ne ascenderet, Tiiive Christum Although the cross could not here Christ detain, When nail'd unto't, but He ascends again ; Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still. But only while thou speak'st — this anchor will : Nor can'st thou be content unless thou to This certain anchor add a seal, and so The waters and the earth both unto thee Do owe the symbol of their certainty. Let the world reel, we and all oiirs stand sure ; This holy cable's from all storms secure. George Herbert. With tbis ring Walton's will was sealed, as afterwards was Ken's. Nearly all bis letters to Bishop Lloyd of Norwich and Dr. Thomas Smith bear its impress.' ' See p. 20. A.D. 1683.] JAMES GRAHME. 17.3 The following letter belongs to this period. It does not, at first sight, seem to possess any special interest, but experience teaches me that, however commonplace a letter may appear, it may become, under the light of new information, a missing link in a chain of evidence on some imj)ortant point, and I therefore insert it. In this case it serves to show Ken's inti- macy with the family of the "Student-Penitent," who will meet us later on. LETTER VIII. To ]\[r. Grahme, at Lord Dartmouth's house in St. James's Square. " I received your very kind letter, and yesterday Mr. Smitli came to me to know if I had received a bill for the mony. T told him I had received advice of it, but no bill. He replyed, he was sorry I had not, because he staid in the towne on purpose to be rid of his mony, and as soone as he could be eased of tliat, he would be gone. I answered him that you would be here within a few dayes, and, in the mean time, I woiild lett you knowe what he said. When my Lord and Lady come to the Hollt I fully intend, God willing, to wait on them, but I must stay here till your coming. I returns you many thankes f lyour kindnesse to my poore brother, which I shall allwayes gratefully acknowledge. My most humble service to my good Lord and Lady and my hearty respects to Mr. Chett- wood. "Juhj^, 1G84." [The copy sent me from the Historical MSS. Commission Office has no signa- ture, but comes as one of Ken's letters in Lord Dartmouth's MSS. The " Mr. Grahme " is, I can scarcely doubt, the ISIr. James Grahme, or Graham, who will meet us afterwards in Chap. xxiv. (seep. 128). The "good Lord and Lady' are probably Lord and Lady Dartmouth. Mr. Smith, to whose bu.siness trans- actions the letter refers, may be the Dr. Thomas Smith whose letters appear in Ch. XXV. Heame {Diary, ii. p. 119, 188G) mentions a Dr. Chetwode who wa.s Chaplain to the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards Dean of Gloucoster. Being of stronj^ ^^'h'g principles ho would not allow the bells of the Cathedral to be tolled for Bishop Frampton's funeral. Thu " poore brother" is, probaMy, Ion Ken, of whose widow and son we hear later on (ii. p. 184). Possibly, how- ever, the phrase may refer to Izaak Walton. The Hollt, in Wolmcr Forc&t, belonged to the Dartmouth family. White's SMorne, Lett. ix. CHArTETl XTT. THE DEATHBEDS OF A lilSIIOP AND A KINO A.D. 1084 1685. " Peac-o-lovinq; man, of humble heart and true! What dost thou here ? Fierce is the city's crowd ; the lordly few Are dull of ear." /. H. Xiuman. Before the year 1684 had ended another link which connected Ken with a past generation was broken. It was true of Morley and AValton, in their friendship, that as they had been "lovely and pleasant together " in their lives, so " in their death they were not divided." Towards the close of the October of that year Ken was summoned from AVinchester to Farnham to attend the Bishop's deathbed. With him was his friend Dr. Fitz- william, wlio had succeeded hira at Brighstone, and we learn from a letter of Lady Rachel Russell's, of October 1st, 1684, that he had sent a report of the good Bishop as " probably hastening to the end of his race, which, without doubt, he will finish with joy." Ken sent off an express to his friend Turner, just translated to Ely, but still, apparently, residing at the old palace of the Bishops of Rochester at Bromley, who reported the tidings to Sancroft in the following letter, which, as em- bodying Ken's, I print in full : — "Bromley, Octoher ?>Oth, 1684. " May it please yox-r Grace, " Late yesterday I received an express from Dr. Ken, written from Farnham, to inform me that it pleased God to release the good old Bishop out of all the miserys of this life, between two and three of the clock j-esterday morning. So he was gathered under the feet of St. Simon and St. Jude.^ I suppose this authen- I October 28th ia the Festival of St. Simon and St. Jude. A.D. 1684—85.] DEATH OF BISHOP MORLKY. 17,5 tique intelligence was sent mo to Ely House on purpoge tliat I might transmit it to your Grace at Lambeth, together witli my truest dut}', -which I shall present in my personal atteudanco (if it please God) upon Sunday morning." Of the earlier life of Bishop Morley some account lias been given in Chapter YII, The later years of bis life had bet-n clouded over with some sorrows and disappointments which he must have felt keenly. He had seen the Duchess of York, to whom, as Anne Hyde, he had acted as spiritual guide and confessor, whose almoner he had been in works of charity, slip out of his hands into those of the emissaries of Rome. He and Sancroft had made a vain attempt in February, 1078, to win back her husband to the faith of the martyred king whom they had loved and honoured.^ He had, as we have seen (p. 12'J), been disturbed by the frequent visits which Charles, surrounded by his ministers and courtiers, had insisted on paying to AVin- chester and Farnham. He had lost, a few months before his death, in Izaak Walton, one with whom he had lived for more than sixty years in the most close and uninterrupted friendship. All these things were against him. His management of his diocese would seem to have been accepted by Ken as that of a model Bishop. He too, like Ken, had chosen the celibate life, that he might give himself, and all that he had, to his pastoral work. Like Ken, he practised an ascetic austerity, took but one meal a day, and up to his eighty-seventh year rose, winter and summer, at five o'clock, and, on the coldest mornings, wu.«5 without a fire.^ He had given largely to the restoration of his cathedral and of his palace (Wolvesey House) at Winchester ; had laid out £8,000 on Farnham Castle, had paid £4,000 for Winchester House, Chelsea, to be annexed to the diocese as the Bishop's town residence, and had been one of the most muni- ficent contributors to the new cathedral of St. Paul's. He built and endowed a hospital at Winchester for ten widows of cler<.'y- men, and was a benefactor on a large scale to his old college (Christ Church) at Oxford. His will, made when he was eighty- ' D'Oyly's Life of Saiicroft, chap. iv. * IlammonJ ia another instance of the same severe self-discipline as regards both food and sleep. — Fell, Life of ITanimond, 1G62, p. 107. [C. J. P.] \:c, /)/:.t 77/ /(/JDS OF J III SHOP ,1.\/) hlXn. [chap. xh. six years old, was obviously written out of the fulness of his heart. In it he describes himself as " IJishop of Winchester, though most unworthy of such an high dignity, charge, and trust in the Church of God," commends his soul into the hands "of my most merciful Creator," asks for pardon "notwith- standing all my former transgressions, rebellions, and back- siidings," pleads " the mediation and intercession of His only Sonne" as the ground of his hope, implores "the Divine Goodness to give me more and more grace during the short remainder of my life, dayly to renew and improve my repent- ance, and more and more to mortify all my evil and corrupt affections." He ends this profession of his faith with a doxology " to the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity," to Whom " whatsoever becomes of all such sinful wretches as I am, be ascribed and given, as is most due, all honour and glory." The directions of his will are not less characteristic. He is to be buried " without attendance of heralds, or any secular pomp or solemnity," in his own private chapel or in the cathe- dral at Winchester, at or after Evening Prayer, " without any funerall sermon or panegyricall oration, because (besides myne owne being unworthy of any such publicke commemoration) I have observed that In Jn(Ju.wwdi multiloqiiiis aid nunquam aid raro deent peccatnm." No "monument or stately tomb" is to be erected for him ; only a black marble slab is to cover his grave, with such an inscription as he shall leave behind him for that purpose. He gives the communion-plate of his private chapel to his successors ; his library to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester for the use of the clergy of the diocese ; his ordi- nary ecclesiastic habits, " gowns, cassocks, and the like, to such of the poorer clergy as his executor shall think fit." Ken, with the other prebendaries of Winchester, had the legacy of " a ring, of twenty shillings, and mourning," and ten pounds were given "to the pooreof the Soake, near Winchester," which had been, it will be remembered, under Ken's special charge. Augmentations of twenty pounds per annum were left to the vicarage of Farnham, and to two churches (to be united into one parish) at Guildford, and of ten pounds to Horswell, in Surrcv. In each case the condition was attached that the A.B. 1084—85.] jiEirs, liisnop of TFrncrrESTicn. u7 incumbent was to read daily morning and evening prayers in the parish church. In a codicil, dated six months later, lie loaves five hundred pounds to the building of the Military Hospital at Chelsea, "as an humble and grateful acknowledg- ment of the King's favour and kindnesse, humbly beseeching his Majesty to accept it, as being all, or neare all, I have left to dispose of." * Morley's death led to a great and unlooked-t'or change in Ken's life. The see of Winchester was filled by the translation of Peter Mew:*, who in 1672 had succeeded Creigbton as Bishop of Bath and "Wells. He had been, in earlier life, a chaplain in the army of Charles I., and a black patch over a bullet-wound in his cheek still bears its witness, in his portrait in the town-hall of Wells, that he had risked his life in that cause. He was in personal h-abits very unlike Morley, ostenta- tious and extravagant in expenditure, not unfrequently running into debt.^ When this step was settled, there were the usual floating rumours as to the see which he left vacant.^ Some talked of Dean ]\Ieggot, of AVinchester, who had shown him- self complaisant in the matter of Nell Gwyn's lodgings ; some of Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, and memorable in connexion with the disputes between James 11. and the Fel- lows of Magdalen College. Ken's name was also on the lips of men as not unlikely to be chosen. The King had been impressed by the sermons in which "little Ken tells me of my faults." His work, as chaplain in the Tangier Expedition, had commended him, through Lord Dartmouth, to the notice of the Duke of York. Probably the Princess Mary was knt)vvn to have formed a high estimate of his character. ' Devout and ' Andeidon, pp. 219—223. 2 ShaftcsT)ury, in a letter to John Locke (Novembf-r 13, 1G74), say.'? that " the stronii; ale which ho p^avo the Somersetshire squires wa.s iho only spiritiuil tliinp they knew of him." — King, Life of Lochc, i. "0. 3 Prideaux, in a letter written just after Jlorky's death, speaks ot Ken and Parker as nained even for Winchester. "Whoever fails of that will hive N'irwich." Parker, as we know, was reserved for Oxicrd ; Norwich was given to Lloyd. Prideaux also states ti.at Morley, in his last illness, had filled up all his loiises for fresh lives, so that his nephew received £2 ),000. This was so utterly unlike Jlorley that, assuminj? the lact, the only explanation is, as I havo said (p. S.")), that his mind was 8o enfeebled hy illness that he signed whatever was put liefoie liini. vol,. I. N 178 DFArUBEDS OF A IllSIlOl' JXh h'INn. [cifap. xii. lioiiouniblo wonicTi' looktd to liim us tlio guide of their spiri- tuul life. Tho only charge that had been whispered against him was that he was overmuch inclined to look with favour on the Church of ]lonio, and this with tlie King and his brother was, of course, not likely to be regarded as a drawback. Ac- cording to tho current tradition of the time,^ however, Ken owed his advancement to that which, in the eyes of courtiers, would have seemed most likely to hinder it. "When men were applying to him on behalf of this or that candidate, Charles is said to liave stopped their representations with the declaration, " Odd's fish ! Who shall have IJath and Wells but the little black fellow who would not give poor Nelly a lodging ? " Ken's own friends were told that they need not trouble themselves ; that " Dr. Ken should succeed, but that he designed it should be his own peculiar appointment." ^ The rapidity with which the whole matter was decided was shown by the fact that, Morley having died on October 29th, Sunderland wrote, on November 4th, to Mews, to tell him that the King had nomi- nated him for Winchester, and that on the same day Arling- ton wrote to another of the King's chaplains, informing him that he was to be in attendance in the follo^ving February, " in the place of Dr. Ken, who is removed to be a Bishop." ^ Charles showed in this, as in some other instances, that he had not lost the power of respecting in others the goodness which he did not pretend to strive after for himself.* And so once more the greatness which Ken would not seek — we remember that ^^ Et tu qitcpris tihi grandia ? Noli qu(erere" (p. 189) — was thrust upon him. More than twenty years after- wards, in dedicating his Il//»i)iariii//i to his friend and successor. Hooper, he records the feelings with which he had entered on his new and, as it proved to be, perilous and troubled path : — ' Hawkins, Life, p. 6. '■* Hawkins, p. 5. ' Andordon, p. 226, from Secretary of State's Letter Book. * I follow Anderdon and Jlarkland in quoting from Boswell Johnson's esti- mate of Chrtrlcs II. " He was licentious in his practice, hut he always had a reveienco for what was good. He knew his people and rewarded merit. The Church was at no time hetter tilled than in his reign." A.D. 1 G84— 8.5 .] KEX A XD B URXET. 1 79 " Among the herdsmen I, a common swain,' Liv'd, ploas'd with my low cottage on the plain, Till up, like Amos, on a sudden caught, I to the past'ral chair was trembling brought." Works ii., llijuin, p. iv. He had to leave the quiet congenial life, which had grown so dear to him, his boj's at Winchester, the poor of his parish of the Soke, and to plunge into a vortex of ever-increasing anxieties, and laden with tremendoixs responsibilities. For the most part, the appointment was welcomed as the best that could have been made. Burnet, indeed, speaks of it in terms of some dis- paragement, but the Ilktorn of his Oini Time was written, we must remember, after he and Ken had crossed swords in the Non-juring controversy. Probably, however, as I have said (p. 1^1), the two men had always felt a certain mutual repulsion, and few characters of the time stand out in more marked con- trast with each other. Burnet writes thus : — ^ " Ken succeeded Mews in Bath and Wells — a man of an ascetic course of life, and yet of a very lively temper, but too hot and sudden. He had a very edifying way of preaching, but it was more apt to move the passions than to instruct, so that his sermons were rather beautiful than solid, yet his way in them was very talcing. The King seemed fond of hira, and by him and Turner the papists hoped that groat progress would be made in gaining, or at least deluding, the clergy. It was observed that all the men in favour among the clergy were unmarried,' from whom they (the papists) might more probabl}' promise themselves a disposition to come over to them." As an example of the art of "damning with faint praise," the paragraph is not unworthy of study. Burnet, the husband of three wives, looks with a ghince of suspicion on those who have chosen to remain single, and insinuates that tliis, and not the general holiness of his character, had commended Ken to ' Tho plinise is found .ilso in the Dulic.itory Kpistlc to the Practice of Divine Love, Round, p. 210. * Own Time, B. iii. IGSt. 3 This w;is true of h^uncroft, .and Kon, .and Fininpt.in, hut LI. yd ,'of N'oi\vi(h) was niunii'd, and Turner M'as a widower. N 2 ISO BEATUnET)^ OF A llfSIlOP AND h'lXO. [chap. xii. Court fjivour. The asceticism is admitted, but the admission 18 qualified by what Bumot had himself experienced, that tho man conimoiily so calm and meek could, on occasion, flas^h out into a sudden heat of indip;nation, and write sharp words that wont like arrows to their mark. The Chapter-Acts of "Wells record, in their usual order, the several stages that followed on the royal choice. The Conrjr d'f'/irc was received on December 9th. The elec- tion, for which the greater Chapter, including the whole body of prebendaries who were not ' residentiaries,' was summoned, took place on December 16th, and, according to the cus- tomary formula, they proceeded to elect, Spin'fit (fin'no, ut ftperaut, iuspinifi. The Dean, Ralph Bathurst, who was also President of Trinity College, Oxford, was not present at any of the pro- ceedings.* The consecration took place in the chapel of Lambeth Palace on St. Paul's-day (January 25, 1(38^). The bishops who took part, besides Sancroft, as Primate, were Compton, of London ; Crewe, of Durham ; Lloyd, of Peterborough ; Turner, of Ely, the friend of Ken's school-days ; and Sprat, of Piochester. The sermon was preached by Edward Young, another college friend, at the time a Fellow of Winchester, and subsequently, first Canon, and then Dean, of Salisbury, and father of the author of the Niyht TliouyJtts. It contains some passages which, as ' There would senm, among tho inferior members of the Ciithedral staff, to havo been at least one notable exception to the good-will with which the appointment was generally welcomed. Within three weeks of Ken's election (January 7, lG8o), the Chapter Records note the deprivation of Benjamin "WTiit- eare, a vicar-choral, thtn in his year of probation, partly because he had ne. glected his duties in the Cathedral on Christmas-day, but partly also becau.-e he had sent round letters to his brothtr vicars, attacking the recently elected Bishop, rcrlns dishonesfis et inshuiatiouibus imnwdestis. The Dean and Chapter do not care to specify what these insinuations were. It is probable, I think, that they were the outgrowths of an ultra-Protestant suspicion. Given a celibate bishop, suspected of a leaning to Popery, and known to act as spiritual director to women, married and unmarried, and the imagination of the avoriige middle- ilass Englishman will not be slow to picture many things to itself, and to whisper them to others in the closet, or pi-oclaim them on the house-tops. It is worth noting that when Ken came to his diocesi he had to live down at least a local slander of this kind, that, for once in liis life, he had to pass through the Siime ordeal as that whii h had befallen Atlianasius, and Hooker, and Molinos, and the s;iinlly Bishop ot Alet, Nicolas Pavillnn. A.B. 1 (.84—85] IlAWS VONSECEATION SERMOX. ISl practically portraying Ken's character, in describing what u Bishop ought to be, are worth reproducing : — The preacher speaks of the "pious care of the King "who " chooseth such to lead us, as by their ardent love and zealous contention towards heaven have given a true report of the de.siro- ableness of that good land ; a trutli which, were it not for a few such reports, tlio world lies always under a propension to mistrust." " Pious men, in all ages, have trembled at the thought of seeling the Episcopal charge, lest, by running officiously into the obligation of a mighty duty, they might tempt God and provoke Him to withhold tliat measure of Grace which was necessary for the due discharge of it." In times of persecution and suffering it might have been otherwise. " But as soon as it came to be baited with honours and advantages, then all good men became jealous of themselves, lest in desiring the office of a Bishop they might not so much desire a good work as a good accommodation ; lest their passions should draw them more prevalently than their conscience, which must necessarily have brought a check upon the Divine blessing ; for the want whereof no parts, nor wisdom, nor industry in their administration could ever compensate. From this pious jealousy of theirs' it foUowed that the greatest bishops have been not only wisht and nominated, but sought, woo'd, and commanded, out of their retirement, to the uudtn-taking of their charge, where, after they had uudei taken it, we find them bewailing themselves upon the tremendous prospect of its duty, and crying that it was in punishment to their sins that God had committed the Helm of a Diocese into their hands^ — August. Ep. 148, ud J'alcr. {Ep. xxi. Tom. ii., p. 25, ed. Bened.) ***** '* And now, if Timothy will stir up this spirit of courage, he must, in the first place, bethink himself well of his undertaking ; he must imagine himself a champion of war entered into the hsts, as a David heretofore into the valley of Elah, where ho must either CDUcpier, or die, not a single man, but an arm}'; both the Israelites and riiilistines surveying him in the mean time, with ditlerent hopes and censures, whereof the most (as envy will always have it) are against him. Some blame his youth, some his confidence, some his want of arms, and some, like Goliath, curso him by their gods; but as these casual forms of popular breath cannot in theniselvos atl'ect his success, so neither nuist lie suffer tliem to affect liis thoughts." ***** '' lie must set liiniselt' to work ttt clietk the ranjie of t^atau in the lsi> DEATH llKhS OF A lUSIlOP aXI) KING. [chap. xir. woiM ; to iiwn iiu'ii out of ill lu.imu'r.s ; to opp<»s(! vice vi^^orously and impartiiiUy, without any glo/.iug or fear of tho great, without any unthankful indulgence to benefactor or friend. He must awe it out of countonanco, and beat it off tho stage, with his looks, intimations, discourses, interests, monitions, and rebukes; and if it boar up its h(>ad against all those, he must tlun separate the leper from tho camp, and tui'n the sacred key against the refractory sinner." And in doing this, he is to remember that tho censure must bo tempered with lovo. "Love, condescending from such a height of place, wins and captivates, and makes a man look like God both in temper and bonehccnce — like God (I say), whose most amiable and endearing character to tho sons of men is this, that lie is a Lover of SouUy Lastly there comes tho " sound mind," which is the fruit of the wisdom from above. " Ho (the Bishop) must be watchful, sagacious, and prudent. AVhile his hands are upon the helm, his eyes must be upon the needle and the chart ; ho must observe the pointings of Providence, the opportunities of action, the seasons of counsel, the differences of place, tho varieties of temper, and tho accommodations, that he may ever bo gaining somey In conclusion, the preacher turns to the future bishop with a stirring apostroplie : — " And now, Timothy, see here are the arts of thy government ; continue in these and thou needest no other pohcy Do thou stir up the gift of God that is in thee ; do thou quicken the divine coal that touchoth thee, and thy coal shall blaze into a flame, and thy flame shall be ennobled into a star, a vast orb of glory, sucli as shall crown the heads of all those happy men who, by their conduct and example, turn many unto righteousness." So passed Sunday, January 25th, at Lambeth Pal ice. An entry in Evelyn's Diavy shows how it was spent at White- hull :— "January 2oth, Dr. Dove preached before the King. I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his throe concubines, as I had never before seen — luxurious dallying and prophanenesso." The Sunday that followed was, as the following extract from the same Diarg shows, like its predecessor : — " I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and prophanenesso, A.D. 1081— 85.] SUNDAY m CHARLES n:S COURT. 183 gaming and all dissoliitenesse, and, as it were, total forgotfulnesse of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'ennight " [tho entry is made on February 8th] "I was witnesse of, the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarin,' &c. ; a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about 20 of tho greate courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset, round a large table, a bank of at least £2,000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with mo made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust." The stroke to which Evelyn refers in the last words was the apoplectic lit that on the morning of Monday, February 2ud, ushered in Charles II. 's fatal illness. Bleeding seemed at first to abate the symptoms, but as the case appeared dangerous, the bishops about the court were summoned to attend the royal sufferer, and Comptou, Crewe, Turner, and Ken had to enter on the task of their spiritual ministrations. They were sum- moned on the Wednesday, and Ken at least remained for three days and nights, consecutively, by the King's bedside. On the Thursday, between six and seven p.m.. Turner wrote to Bancroft^ telling him that some of the physicians thought there was " immediate and extreme danger," that the coming night promised to be a "bad one," that "several lords were asking, "Where is my Lord Archbishop ? " and Sancroft obeyed the sum- mons. From the first, however, the chief work of exhortation, though he was the junior bishop, fell on Ken.^ It was thought, apparently, that he had greater gifts as a preacher of repen- tance than any others, and that Charles would, in sickness as in health, be willing to let " little Ken tell him of his faults," while lie might turn a deaf ear to others. Even Inirnct admits that ' Tho Duchess of INIazarin was nicco to the Cardinal. Evelyn (June 11, 1699) mentions hir doatli, and dostrihes her as havinj; hoen " dissolute, impatient of niiitrimonial restraint, so as to he abandoned by her husband and banished." - Tanner MSS., xxxii. p. 2"2, in Anderdon j). T.\&. 3 Burnet re|)orts (H. iii. 1GS.>) that the " Bisliup of London spoke a little to the Kinjj;, to which he answered not a word, but this was imputed to the Bishop's cold way of speaking, and to the ill opinion they bad of him at Court." San- croft "made a very weighty exhortation to him, in which bo used a good degree of froidom, which ho said was necessary, since he was going to bo judged by One who was no respecter of persons. To him th(> King made no answer neither, nor yet to Kon, though the most in favovu witli hiui of all the Ui.-hops." LSI DV: MllltFDS OF A 11 1 SHOP A Mt KING. [ohai-. xir. he "applied himself mucli to the awakinc: the King's con- science," that "he spoke with great elevation both of thought and expression, like a man inspired, as those who were present told mo. lie resumed the matter often, and pronounced many short ejaculations and prayers, which affected all that were present except him who was the most concerned, who seemed to take no notice of him and made no answers to him." One open scandal Ken was able to repress. The Duchess of Ports- mouth, who seems, from what followed, to have been in alarm about the King's soul as well as body, came in while Ken was at his task "suggesting pioui? and proper thoughts and ejacula- tions," and "sat, on the King's bed taking care of him, as a wife of a husband."^ lie prevailed on the King to have her removed, and took that occasion of representing the wrongs done to his queen so effectually, that his Majesty was induced to send for her and ask her forgiveness. She had been present at his bed-side till her violent emotion compelled her to withdraw. When the King asked for her, she sent a message to excuse her absence and " to beg his pardon, if ever she had offended him in all her life." AVith a touch of conscience which Ken must have welcomed, he replied, " Alas, poor woman, she beg my pardon ! I beg hers with all my heart." This utterance of something like sorrow for the past may at least help to explain Ken's later conduct. Though he did not confine himself to the use of forms, he thought it right to follow the method of the Service for the Visitation of the Sick. He pressed the King six or seven times to receive the Holy Communion, and reminded him that he had received it at his hands as recently as the pre- vious Christmas. Charles seemed lethargic, said he was too weak, that " there was time," that " he would think of it ;" and though a table was set out with the elements ready for conse- > Burnet («< ««j»'V7). Anderdon (p. 245) quotes the testimony of Ilawkin?, Janus II., lliiddlcslon, Turner's Chaplain (Ellis, Letters, iii. p. 33o}, Larillon, and the Eiirl of Aylcsbiuy on the other side. The last witness {Em op. Mag., xxvii. p. 22) is very emphatic, " Burnet is a liar from beginning to end. My {rood King and Master falling upon mo in his fit, I ordered him to he blooded, and then I went to fetch the Duke of York, and when we came to the brd-side we found the Queen there, and the impostor tays it was the Duchess of Porls- moiith." Hawkinss stitemont that the Duchess came in and was removed, was probably, however, derived from Ken himself. A.D. 1684—85.] DEATH OF CHARLES IT. 185 cration, they remained unused. The request that he would at least declare that he desired it, and died in communion with the Church of England, was met with an apathetic silence. Then came the effort to lead the sick man to make a confession of sins. If a detailed confession was impossible, would he gene- rally acknowledge his sinfulness, and desire absolution ? By some broken words, or look, or gesture, the Xing was supposed to assent, and the solemn words of absolution were accordinjjlv pronounced. Ken thought that there was ground for assuming that the conditions of repentance had been sufficiently, though imperfectly, fulfilled. He hoped against hope, and uttered the Absolvo te} At some stage or other of these proceedings (the days and hours are not carefully noted in the records) Ken must have taken part in another scene. The King commended all his children (with the significant exception of the Absalom of the Court, the Duke of Monmouth, who was then in exile at the Hague) to his brother's care, and sent for them that, one by one, he might give them a parting embrace and blessing. The bishops seized on the opportunity to try and elicit from him some expression of his regard for their order and their Churcb, and cried out, that "as he was the Lord's anointed and the father of his country, they also, and all that were there present, and in them the whole body of his subjects, had a right to ask his blessing." " They all knelt down ; the King raised himself on his bed, and very solemnly blessed them all." " So far, though it was not all they could have wished, the bishops seemed to have gained their point. They were able to sa}' that Charles had died, as he appeared to have lived, as u ^ Bunut, afior his manner, criticifjcs Ken's ac*;ion. "lie was mncli blimiod for this, since the King expressed no sense of sorrow for his past life, nor any purpose of ameiidnient. It was thought to be a prostitution of the ptaee of the Church to give it to one who, after a life of sin, seemed to hai-den himself against evciything that could be siid to him." It may be plo:idod as Ken's apoloi/ia that he was present and Burnet was not, and that in si>iritual discernment and sense of responsibility, he was, to say the least, not inferior to him. James, iu his narrative, distinctly states tliat his brother said, in answer to Ken's questions, that he was sorry for his sins. The facts are gathered from Hawkins, pp. 5 — 6 ; Burnet, O. T., B. iii. a.». 1C8o ; C'larke, Janirs II , i. p. 747. ^ Narrative by Bishop Turner's chaplain, in Ellis's (liitjiiinl Littcru, Fir.-.l Series, iii., pp. 335 — 338. (Andi rdou, p. 2fG.) 180 UEATmiF.T)^ OF A UlSjmP JXJi Kiyn. [cirAP. xn. momlier of the Cliun^h of l'lii<,']iinl> l)(;or with that title. (Lingard ix. p. 319) I'p to the time of the order thus f^ivcn, the sick man's room had been lilled by five bisliops. seventy- Hvo lonls and privy councillors, besides surgeons and servants, (l/iiil x. p 107.) The five bishops were Sancrolt, Compton, Crewe, Turner, and Iven. tlu' last through- out takint!: the leadinj^ ])art.— Evelyn, February 1. * The Iluddleston M8. was probably the basis of, if not identical with, the- two papers that were found in Charles's desk, and which .lann-s had printed, and sent to Sancroft and some of tlie I'.ishops. The WillianiS MSS.. which have been communicated to mo through the kindness of l$i>li h'fXG. [fir.\i'. xil. one wlio, luiving once \vm\ a share in saving his life, had now conic to save his soul. The presence of the bishops had become wearisome. He was impatient of the mask wliidi lie had worn so long. He proved himself in Iluddleston's liands an apt and docile pnpil. The Benedictine father may be left to tell liis own tale of what followed. " I was callrd into the King's bed-chamber, where approaching to tlio bed-side and kneeling down, I in brief presented his Majesty with wliat service I could perform for Gf)d's honour, and the happiness of his soul, at this last moment on which eternity depends. The King then declared himself : that he desired to die in thf; Faith and Communion of the Holy Roman Catholic Church ; that he was most heartily soriy for all the sins of liis j)ast life, and particularly that he had deferred his reconciliation so long ; and through the merits of Christ's I'assion he hoped for salvation ; that he was in charity with all the world ; that with all his heart he pardoned his enemies, and desired pardon of all those whom he had anywise ofPendud, and that, if it pleased God to si)are him longer life, he would amend it, detesting all sin. I then advertised liis Majesty of the benefit and necessity of the Sacrament of l*enance, which advertisement the King most willingly embracing, made an exact confession of his whole life with exceeding com- punction and tenderness of heart ; which ended, I desired him, in further sign of repentance and true sorrow for his sins, to say with me this little short act of contrition, ' my Lord God, with my whole heart and soul I detest all the sins of my life past, for the love of Thee, whom I love above all things ; and I firmly purpose by Thy Holy Grace never to offend Thee more : Amen, sweet Jesus, Amen. Into thy hands, svveet Jesus, I commend my soul; mercy, sweet Jesus, mercy ! ' This he pronounced with a clear and audible voice ; which done, and his sacramental penance admitted, 1 gave him absolution. After receiving the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and Extreme Unction, he repeated the Act of Contrition, raising himself iip, and saying, ' let me meet my heavenly Lord in a better posture than in my bed,' &c., and so he received his Viaticum with all the symptoms of devotion imaginable." ' ' " Brief Account of Particulars occurring at the happy death of our late Sofercign Lord, King Charles the Second, in ngard to litligion ; faithfully related by his then as.^istant, Jo. Huddleston," 4to, IGSo, in Lingard, x. The Huddleston family wire of Siiwston Hall, SuflFolk, wht-re a portrait of the Benedictine priest is still extant. It may he noted that, after Char.es's death, he eoiitinned to act as Chaplain lo the Queen Dowager, that he weathered the siorm of the Kevolutiou, and died at iSomersel House in IGDS. A.D. 1G84-80.] ^'VANITAS VANITATTnir 189 While this was passing only James was present, and tho«e who had been turned out of the room remained in the anto- chamber, wondering why tliey liad been shut out. Suthlenlv the door was opened, and a glass of water called for. It was reported afterwards that the King was half-choked with the wafer of the sacred host. Of the other stories connected with Charles's death, how he gave James some special keys which were taken from his pocket, and the use of which he was supposed to understand ; how, with a quaint touch of the old cynical humour, he apolo- gised to the bystanders for being " so unconscionable a time in dying;" how he specially commended the Duchess of Ports- mouth and her son to the Duke's care, as those who were dearest to his heart ; how the words, " Let not poor Nelly starve," told that he was not forgetful of the mistress of lower rank, it may be enough to give this brief summary.^ There is no reason to doubt them, but it is not easy to fix their precise place in the order of events which crowded round the death- bed. It is not likely that the bishops who had been shut out were called in again while life yet lingered. They, and Ken among them, had to wait for a while in indignant and sorrow- ing wonder, and then to learn how they had been tricked and outwitted. To James and Huddleston, and the Duchess, who had prompted the whole movement, there must have been something of the sense of triumph in a successful strategy. "VVe may believe that they had also, according to their light, some feeling of satisfaction of a higher kind. The King had, at least, not passed into the unseen world with a lie in his riglit hand. He had, to use words which expressed the feeling of the ' As often happens in the case of royal deaths that are supposed to ho con- venient for the plans of a party, among the rumours connected with Charles II. 'a death, one was that he had been poisoned, and that Jumos was privy t" the crinio. There is, it need hardly be said, not a shadow of foundation for the chariro, but it was prominent in the Duke of Monmouth's proclamation npainst .lames (p. 2i;j). Jlfu remembired, perhaps, that the Kim? liad taken Jesuit's bark, and sent for ii Roman Catholic physician, during the Popish plot, and tbo fever of suspicion did the rest. (Foley, v. p. G7 ; Evelyn, February 4, 1G8.').) Burnet, O.T. IJ. iii. 1685, describes symptoms that deaily suggested that cindusioii to his own mind, and (piotes \\w. testimony of a Koman Catholic physician, Dr. Shoit, who ullended the King, and even of the Duchess id rortsnuMith as conliniiing it. 190 Dr.ATIIIlEhS OF A lllSllOl' AM) h'TXfJ. [ntAP. xri lime, Tii;i(le, boforo it was too luto, tlio (idkikIc lionorafj/r to Oof]. Ho had stiirtcd on his journey duly furnished with the orthodox riatirum. They had now good grounds for hoping that all was well witli him. As wo do not rend of any masses h.iving been ottered for his soul, it may be inferred that it was believed that he did not need even the discipline of the " milder shades of purgatory." Perhaps, however, under the circumstances it is scarcely safe to rest too much on this merely negative evidence, and Huddlcston and others may have said their masses in secret. The old rule, Lc Rot est morf, rice k Roi ! had, however, to be acted on, and from the chamber of death the new king passed to that of the Council. After a passionate expression of his sorrow, he told his councillors, in words that were afterwards remembered but too well, as contrasted with his actions, that "he would endeavour to follow the example of his predecessor in his clemency and tenderness to his people ; that, however he had been misrepresented as afifecting arbitrary power, they should find the contrary, for that the laws of England had made the king as great a monarch as he could desire ; thnt he would endeavour to maintain the Government, both in Church and State, as by law established, its principles being so firm for monarchy, and the members of it showing themselves so good and loyal subjects, that he would always take care to defend and support the Church of England, and that as he would never depart from the just rights and prerogatives of the Crown, so would he never invade any man's property ; but as he had often adventured his life in defence of the nation, so he would still proceed, and preserve it in all its lawful rights and liberties."^ The words were hailed by the Council as a pledge of security for the fdture, but as they had been spoken and not read, the Solicitor-General (Finch, afterwards Earl of Aylesford) under- took to reproduce them from memory, withdrew to a side-table, and wrote them out in words of which the King approved, and 1 The declaration was received with unbounded enthusiasm throughout Eng- land. For the feelings of the laity see Evelyn, Feb. 8, IGSo, Reresby, p. 315. The address from the Bishop and Clergy of the Diocese of Bath and Wells, given in the next chapter, is a fair sample of the feelings if the clergy. A.D. 1684—85.] JJJfES IL AXD THE JlISIIOPS. l«Jl in this form, to which wc shall soon see that Kon appealed, the address was published and circulated throughout Kufrhmd, giving rise, for a time, to a burst of passionate and loyal entliu- siasra in favour of the new monarch,^ among the earliest expressions of which, we find an address from the bishops wlio were then in town, of whom Ken was one. They speak of his " admirable declaration which we ought to write down in letters of gold and engrave in marble. We have nothing to ask your Majesty but that you would be (what you have always been observed to be) yourself: that is, generous and just, and true to all you once declare." It does not appear that Ken or any of the bishops took part in the funeral on February I4th, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. That ceremony indeed, though attended by the Privy Councillors and the household and some of the peers who were in town, was noted at the time as want- ing in the usual state ("very obscurely buried," "without any manner of pomp," are Evelyn's phrases),^ as if some embarrass- ment was felt at interring with the rites of the English Churcli one whose last act had been to renounce her communion, and whose successor and chief mourner had renounced it years before. One or two facts connected with Ken's new position deserve a record before we pass on to the work which awaited him in his diocese. One was singularly characteristic. It had been customary — a custom which he thought more honoured in the breach than in the observance — for a new bishop to give a con- secration dinner, which was commonly on a large and costly scale. We have seen (p. L30) how Leighton felt when in- vited to such a banquet. To Ken, in his like-mindedness to Leighton, it must have seemed a singularly inappropriate in- auguration of the work of a chief shepherd of the Hock.' Fell, Lishop of Oxford, had set an example which Krn followed. He knew how great an interest his friend Morley had taken in ' James, in his later years, thought that the reporter had interpolated tl>o phrase about " defending and supporting " the ("luirch of Kngland. Ev^•l_^^l, however (Diary, May 'I'l, 108.")), reports James's Speech to his Jirst rarlianuiit, in which ho refers to the declaratiou ou his accession, and reproduces the words in question. - JUdnj, Fel)ruary U, I'lS.'). 3 IJurnet, O.T., B. ii. IGGl. 192 DKATiniKDS OF A 11 IS HOT .1X1) ZiVAV;. [.-nAr. xii. the build iu;i^ of the new St. I'liul's, and on the day followln;^ his cousccrution ho sent a douution of £100, "in lieu of hi.s consecration dinner and gloves."* Even this, however, would seem to have been given out of borrowed money. He had treated liis income as Fellow and I'rebendary like one who looked on himself as simply a steward for the poor, and he had no cash in hand to ineet the expenses of oflicial fees and the outfit of his new life, till it was supplied by Francis Morley, the nephew of his friend the Bishop. It was his excuse, made to one of his chaplains, Dr. Cheyney, for doing less in his diocese than he wished to do in the way of giving, that he had the burden of this debt upon him, and thought it right to be just before he was charitable.^ At or about the same time he gave £100 to- wards the new school-room at Winchester, and £30, together with some valuable books, to the Cathedral library.^ Ilis formal resignation of his fellowship bears the date of January 2Gth. While these events were passing in London a solemn cere- mony took place at Wells, in which Ken would, in the common course of things, have been likely to take part. The Doan and Chapter had fixed February Gth as the day for the new Bishop's enthronement. The Chapter Acts of that period record, in a Greek note, the death of his Most Serene Majesty {'ya\i]v6raTo^ 'AvTOKpuTwp) at noon on that very day. As Ken had been in attendance at Whitehall from the 3rd of February, it was pro- bably known that he could not come, and it was arranged that the enthronement should take place by proxy, a proceeding for which there were many precedents. Thomas Holt, one of the Canons and Chancellor of the Cathedral, was chosen as the Bishop's representative, and treated in all respects as if he had been the Bishop himself, was fetched from the Palace by a ^ It was, 1 suppose, the custom, as in the still surviving practice at funerals, for the new Bishop to send gloves to all who ofSciated at his consecration. ■' Hawkins, p. 13. ^ The lisl of books (f >r which I have to thank the Dean of Winchester) is inte- resting, as indicating K- n's line of reading. The selection of elaborate books of Roman Catholic theology and casuisiry is somewhat peculiar. Probably Ken felt that the arguments of Protestant controversialists were too often based upon iiiaiiurate and popular prepossessions, and tliat men ouyht to read both sides of the question in works of the highest authority. Schmidius on J\"or. Testamentuw ; Colleffii Salmnnticcnxix CiirsKs Thio/otficii.i. twelve vols. ; Filiucii, Castitt Con- scicntift, two vols. ; Haymundi, Sinnina Tlieohijue Mornlis, were the wo: ks chosen. A.D. 1C84— 8o.] INSTALLATION AT WELLR. 193 verger, and conducted to the Cathedral through the gateway known as Pennyless Porch. After he had knelt down and prayed at the entrance of the west door, he was led to Bishop Uuhwith's chantry, and then " to the place where the Litany was wont to be chanted." The necessary documents were then presented by the official persons, and the Procurator took, in the name of the Bishop, the customary oaths. He was then placed in the throne, and a Tc Dcum greeted him from the clergy, and the men and boys of the choir. One sentence of the oath — (I do not know whether it is peculiar to Wells, or obtains in other dioceses) — seems to have impressed itself deeply on Ken's mind and heart. The Bishop swears that he will defend the rights, customs, and liberties of the Cathedral, " ut bonus Paator et SponsKS Eccksiw."^ The seal which Ken had engraved for his use as Bishop consisted of his own family arms (these, as has been said in p. 10, were identical with those of the Kenns of Kenn Court, in Somerset), impaled with the St. Andrew s cross which belonged to the diocese. The shield tliMs embla- zoned was represented as held by the Good Shepherd, bearing a sheep upon his shoulders.^ Pound the shield ran the motto. Pastor bonus animam dat pro oribiis. In the spirit of a half-con- scious prophecy, of a very definite and distinct purpose, this was what Ken chose as his watchword when he entered on the duties of his episcopate, as he had chosen his Noli qiurrerr when he first stood at the entrance of the path which had led on to it. The following letter comes in here in order of time. Like that in the preceding chapter, it refers to matters about which it is difficult to obtain accurate information, but which may perhaps receive light through being published. LETTER IX. To Lord Dartmouth. " My very good Lord, I came last niglit, blessed be God, to my beloved retreat at Winchester, and en<|uiring how the election of tlie towne was like to succeed, I foimd, by Mr. Lestrange's owne acknowledgement ' No such phrase occurs in the installation ritual of Salisbury Cathedral, whoro, if anywhere, looking to the intimate relation between the two bodies from the thirteenth century onwards, we might most have expected to (ind it. * See the cover of these volumes. I copy it fri>m AnderJon's title-pago. VOL. 1. O 194 DEATH UEl)^ OF A TiTSnOP AXD KTXG. [chap. xii. thnt Mr. ^lorlfy's intorost was very Htroiif?, and more likely to pro- vailo tlian .Sir John Cloborry's. ]5(-ingthu3 informod, I roprosented to Mr. Morley in private how ag^ooahle it was to his MajoHty's pleasure, and how much for his service, that Mr. Lestrango and Mr. IIouso should be chosen ; upon which, in pure obedience to his Majesty, Mr. Morley promised me to desist, and is to meete Mr. Lestrango this aftoniooiie to consult how he may best promote his and Mr. House being chosen. One thing Mr. Morley complaines of, that he has been misrepresented to the King, and that words are imputed to him which he never said, and he vowes that if, when he mentioned his standing to the King, his Majesty had in the least measure expresst any dislike of it, he would never have appeared ; and it is an evident instance of the deference he payes to his Majesty, that having been these four yeares making an interest, and now having a moraU assurance of a major part, he lays all downe at his Majesty's feet, and he makes it his humble petition to your Lordshippe, to which I must adde my owne request, to acquaint his Majesty with the trueth, that he may not lye under his Eoyal displeasure ; and I doe the more confidently aske this f avoure of your Lordshippe, because I so well know the benignity of your nature. " March 15, (168*.") [Ken probably took "Winchester on his \v in the early liours of dawn, or as the sun was sinking into the west. The summer-house, with its inscription from Horace, " Ille terrariim mihi prfcter omnes Angulus ridet, ubi non n}Tnotto Mella decedunt, viridique certat Bacca venafro ; Ver ubi longum tepidasque jirpobet Jupiter bnimas, et amicus Aidon Fertili Baccho minimum Falernis Invidet uvis." Od. ii. vi. 5—13, in which Mr. Anderdon has seen an indication of Ken's classic tastes, as finding, like Hooker, a solace and recreation, amid severer cares, in the Odes of the Latin poet, is, it is believed, of later date, probably of the time of Bishop Law (1825).^ In the garden, parallel with the terrace, stood in Ken's time, as now, the ruins of the magnificent dining-hall, the " Hall of the Hundred Men," which had once been the glory of the palace, but which, stripped of its lead by the Protector Somer- set, who had taken possession of the Bishop's residence, or by Sir John Gates who succeeded the Duke in its occupation, had been allowed to fall into decay. During the Cromwellian period, one of the commissioners, Cornelius Burges, once a chaplain in ordinary to Charles the First, afterwards one ' So the present Bishop thinks, looking to the style of the inscription. Proofs of Ken's taste for Horace are, however, found in the fact that not fewer than thirteen editions of that poet are found among his hooks at Longleat, and that the fourth volume of his poems (pp. 508 — 534) contains " imitations " of the Integer Vitce, the Bonce grains cram, the Eheu fngaccs, and the Qitem tu, Melpomene. 'J'hey hear the stamp, if I mistake not, of school and college exercises. The mature Ken would hardly have written of "those pretty hahes, this pleasing wife," as among the blessings which a man must one day leave. So, too, the line, " No mitre for his brows provide," was obviously written before his episco- jiate, and the picture of one who delights " to angle for trout, pike, and bream " tlirowH U8 back upon his early companionship with Walton. — (C. J. P.) A.D. 1685. J THE PALACE AT WELLS. H»0 RUINS OF HALL AT WliLLS i'ALACB. of the two Assessors of the Westminster Assembly, to whom the Deanery had been assigned, had hiru to phiy the part of Tvrrw Filius (the licensed jester of the University Saturnalia), at the first Act which was held after the establish- ment of the Presbyterian regime, must have had some reputa- tion for power to conceive, and courage to utter, the somewhat coarse and caustic satire which was normal on that occasion. The appointment of the two who became canons during Ken's episcopate, Thomas Briekenden, Fellow of New CulU'ge, who was appointed by virtue of a royal mandate of James II., and of his Chaplain, Thomas Cheyney, who became Head Mastt-r of Winchester School in 1700, having been previously a Fclltiw, may probably be traced to his influence.^ On the whole, however, though Ken never quarrelled with his Chapter as his successor, Kidder, did, he does not seem to have formed any special friendships among them. Not a single letter remains addressed by him to any of them. Out of the whole body of the prebendaries only four followed him in the refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary, which led to his and their deprivation. On the other hand. Ken had scarcely arrived at Wells when the Chapter showed themselves ready to follow his lead in the political complications of the times. The Chapter Acts of March 2nd, 1685, contain an address to the new king, which, as it purports to come, not from them in their corporate cha- racter, but from the Bishop and Clergy of the diocese, may fairly be assumed to have been prompted by Ken, and pntbably to have been written by him. For that reason, and because it may serve as a sample of the style of addresses wliich the clergy were sending up, it is, I think, worth while to give it in extenso : — case, the passage ia interesting as throwing light on Ken's musical culture. _[C. J. P.] ' The Archdeacons of the diocese in 1685 were (1) Edwin Sandys, of Wells. The name 8iipp;o8t8 intimacy with Walton (see p. 23), and his appointment (November, 10X4) miiy have houn duo to Ken's influence. The I?isliop frcijufiitly visited him at his homo aftir his deprivation. (2) John ScUeckc, of Hath, and (3) Edward Jlaplo, of Taunton. Of iho last two I know nothing hut ihcir names. Cheyney was Ken's cliuidaiii, and Hawkins (p. \'A) states that he was indebted to him for many parlii iilars of his Life of the Hishop. 20} LIFE AT WELL f;. [ciivvr. xiii. "If evor our loyiilty (^ould bo truly said to sow in toars and t,''8 oonscionco, or adminisiercd the communion to all but the King and Queen and their Roman Catholic ofiicials ? ^ T am unalile to trace the origin of tho custom, nor have I verified its occur- rence in all successive coronations, but there is evidence to show tliat it existed un Soe p. 180, w. * Sto p IK7, «. By a sinpiiliir coincidonro Fcvorsh:iin hiid b«on h suitor fur th') blind of Lady Ilcnrittta Wi'iilworlli. — KoIktU, ii. p. So. •• Ainonj? those, wo may iioto. was Klizalii^tli UroadiiU! id, wlio wa-t thm lifto«'ii, and who 8\irvivod to ttdl tho tnlo of tlio n-liollion a liundr»-d ycurH lalcr. Siio died in IT^J. Ilor portrait may hu ^t•t•u iu tlio Musruni at Tauntou. * Chapter Acts, IGSo. 2 1 1 THE D UKE OF M0N2[0 UTH'S REBELLION, [ciiap. xiv. the landing at Lyme Regis, wo find an agitated entry in the Cliaplor Acls of Wells, llebellion was spreading far and wide, the King's troops were starving, soldiers were deserting to the enemy. The Chapter could not do otherwise, with that address from the Bishop and Clergy staring thera in the face from their own Ivegi.ster,* than come to the rescue by voting a grant of £40 — or, perhaps, loan : " accommodare" is the word used — to the Duke of Somerset as Lord Lieutenant of the county. The days passed on and the 1st of July da\\Tied on the fair ' City of Fountains.' From time immemorial that had been one of the four quarterly meeting days of the Chapter. Dean and Canons, and Priest and lay vicars-choral, were wont to meet solemnly in that stately Chapter House. No such meeting could take place now. The city, the Cathedral itself, was in the hands of the rebels." On that very morning they had rushed into the sacred building with rude hands ready- to destroy, had all but broken up the organ, and would have profaned the Holy Table itself, had not Lord Grey stood, with his sword drawn, in front of the altar rails to defend it. The rebels had stabled their horses in the nave on the evening of June 30th. Black-mail was levied on the inhabitants of the Cathedral precincts, and, in particular, as an October entry records, on Mrs. Frideswide Creyghton, wife of the Precentor, to the amount of £20, but for which, according to the testi- mony of the commissary of the rebels, then a prisoner at Wells, "not only this Cathedral church, but y^ Canon's house" (one notes here the somewhat curious climax), "would have suffered the utmost violence." As it was, the silver verge, carried before the Dean (relic of a remote past), was stolen by the rebels, and £4 had to be voted in October for a new one, which is, I presume, that now in use. Repairs were needed for the injuries inflicted on the nave, to the amount of £500. ' See p. 203. - Macaulay, ch. v. The London Gazette reports that they "rohbed and de- faced the Cathedral, drinking their villainous healths at the altar, plundered the town .... and committed all manner of outrages" on men and women. This seems, however, the language of exaggeration. The Cathedral bears no marks of serious injuries beyond those recorded in our Chapter Acts. Perhaps some windows were broken, and, if so, this may be the explanation of the patch- work arrangement of the stained glass now in the Lady Chapel. A.D. 1G8.5.] THE REBELS AT WELLS. 215 In their thankfulness that matters had not been worse, the Dean and Chapter voted £10 to the Sacrist, James Williams (honour to whom honour is due), " for his very honest services in y® preservation of y* ornaments and plate " of the Cuthedrul on that day of outrage and terror, and so it is that the Cathe- dral still rejoices in the possession of the liaison, and patens, and chalices which have come down to it from the days of Elizabeth,^ and were used by Ken during his episcopate. AVhat could an unhappy Chapter do under circumstances such as these ? Bathurst, the Dean, was, as usual, at Oxford. Some of the Canons, it may be, had fled into the country ; others bolted and barred tliemselves in their houses, or paid their ransom, if not, like Mrs. Creyghton, to the extent of t'-O, yet in the shape of bread and beef and beer to the hungry crowds, to whom those three 13. 's were for the time more im- portant even than the claims of the Protestant hero whom they were following to his and their destruction. One Canon, how- ever, rose to the situation. Thomas Holt, Chancellor of the Cathedral, whom we have seen as Ken's proxy on the day oi the enthronement, would hold the normal Chapter, though ho sat alone in it. With an almost liuman courage he writes in eloquent Latin a record of the work of devastation, as ubovo described, and adjourns the Chapter ('not despairing of the Republic ') to that day four weeks, confidently liopiug that the nefarious rebellion would be stamped out before that day should come. And when the 29th of July arrived (to anticipate the course of events a little) we note how it was solemnly recordrd that the hope of the heroic President of the Chapter had not proved deceitful. The memorable Oth of July had witnessed at Weston Zoyland, in Sedgmoor, the utter defeat of the rebel army, and now the Canons could return to their hnint-s in peace. And so the Chapter Clerk, or perhaps Holt liiins«If, ends with a fervour not common in Cathedral Acts, and with all the emphasis of a reduplication not in tlie original, " Dcus, Deus nobis lute oiia/fcit.^' Ken, as wo have seen, was in London when his Cutlunlral 1 The older pinto hiitl, probably, oithor btcn loot* d by Sir .lohn Gatt'i* umliT Edward VI., or may have been " defaced " aa " bvforo-timo uaid to BUiHjrBlition," 21fi THE DUKE OFMOmrOUTTTS REBELLION, [ctiap. xiv. city was thrown into this wild confusion. No attack appears to have been made upon tlic palace, partly, perhaps, because its gateways and walls and moat served as a suflicient defence against an irregular attack ; partly, it is open to conjecture, because Ken had already become, in some measure, known to his people and found a home in their affections. In the meantime Ken's predecessor, Peter Mews, of Win- chester, had hastened to the scene of action. His old military habits had revived, and, like the war-horse, he smelt the battle from afar, and finding in the battle of Sedgmoor^ that Fever- shum and his officers were less expert than himself in the management of artillery, took upon himself the duty of working their guns with a strategical genius which contributed much to decide the issue of the battle.'"^ The proceedings that followed on the battle were, it would seem, too much even for him. He had not shrunk from shooting down the stray sheep of his former flock, but when Feversham began to put his prisoners to death in cold blood, with circumstances of aggravated out- rage, hanging them naked, without even the form of a trial, he remonstrated on what seemed to hira at once illegal and un- English. This was "mere butchery," and he, for his part, would be no sharer in it.^ under an order from Flizaboth in 1572, the date, it may be noted, of that now in use. — Si-e " Wells Cathedral and its Deans," in Contemporary Ruiew for March, 1888. ^ I do not dwell on the details of the march or battle. It was characteristic of Ferguson that he preached, the very morning before it, on the text, " The Lord God of gods, the Lord Uod of gods, he knowcth, and Israel, he shall know ; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day" (Joshua, ch. xxii., v. '12). Ferguson, we remember, was afterwards one of William's confidential "secret service" agents in the Revolution, and was rewarded with a sinecure place of £600 a-year in ihe Customs. He was dissatis- fied, thought himself ill-tieated, and, still "plotter" to the end, joined the Jacobites, and took an active part in their conspiracies. — Ftrgnson the Flatter, pp. 233, 264. ^ Jamts presented Jlews with a " rich medal " for this service. — Wood's Ath. Oxon, iv. 338, in Cassan, Lives of Bishops of Bath and Wells, n. 76. ^ The credit of this interposition, it should be added, was given by Bishop Kennet, not to Mt ws, but to Ken, and his narrative has been accepted by some of his biographers. Macaulay (chap, v.), however, urges the fact that Ken, who was in London on July 2nd, was there again with Monmouth on July 14th, the day before his execution, and that it was not likely that he should have travelled down to Wells and then hastily returned. Markland, on the other band, argues A.D. 1G85.] MOXMOUTW S FLIGHT. ai7 Before many days had passed Ken was called to bear his part in one of the closing scenes of the tragedy. Monmouth, who, with Lord Grey, a German officer, and others, most of whom took other directions in the course of tlie tlight, had flt'd from Sedgmoor before the battle was over, belying by this cowardice the promise of courage given in his French cam- paign, had been taken, after two days' wandering, by the King's troops near Cranbourne Chase, at a spot which still bears the name of Monmouth's Close, lying in a ditch,' covered with brambles, half dead with hunger and fatigue, was allowed but a short shrift, and managed to exhibit in the compass of u few days all his characteristic vices of vacillation, falsehood, faithlessness. He pleaded for his life with an abject pusilla- nimity, threw all the blame on liis associates, asserted that he had signed the unpardonable proclamation without reading it, half hinted that he might, if his life was spared, go back to the re- ligion in which his early years had been trained (it was charac- teristic of both parties to that interview — July 1^5 — that the nephew should have thought this the surest path to his uncle's clemency), grovelled on the ground in prostrate and tearful humiliation, and finally, when all hope was gone, rose, with some touch of the courage of despair, to prepare for the inevitable end. The 15th of July was fixed for his execution. '"^ The intervening hours were spent in piteous ay)peals to the King, the Queen, and ministers, for life on any terms. Tiie only reply was significant enough. Koman Catholic priests were sent to that there wna just time for the double journey (see p. 301, ii. p. 15), an.l vindi- cates for Ken tlic honour of this intcrpodition. An elcpy written on Ki-n's dcjith by Joseph Perkins, the Latin poet luure.ite of the period (see ii. p. 262), nur '; • -■ to his honour that the lives of a hundrttl prisoners had been Hpnnd tl : his iiiterijosition ; and this fits in most niiturully with the exceutions thnt i.i- lowed the buttle, a>,'ain8t which Kon remonstrated in a letle from pri»on."' * He was put to death under the Act of Attainder, but by a hj ecial warrHnt, dispensing with the customary penallit s of treason. James'* Ki^rnnture lo tbi> warrant, now in the State I'apers of the U'ccrd OfBce, is tiimly written, with curcfai neat little flourishes [R. C. U ]. 21 H THE DUKE OF MONMOUrWS REBELLION, [chap. xiv. prepare liim for liis dcitli. "When he rejected their ministra- tioiin, Ken was sent fur l)y JairicH to give such spiritual counsels as tiie case required/ and with him were associated his friends Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, and George Hooper, now Kector of Lambeth, and at Monmouth's own request, Tenison, after- wards Archl)ishop of Canterbury. Ken and Turner were with liim during the night, and at his wish all four accompanied him to the place of execution. They found it hard to rouse his conscience to activity, or to elicit the full confession which was, in their eyes, the note of a true repentance. He seemed at first insonsiblc to the misery and death that he had brought on his followers, and declared that he " had nothing on his conscience, and had wronged no man." He would not admit that he had been wrong in leaving his wife for Lady Henrietta. He had been forced, when too young to give an intelligent consent, into a marriage which was no marriage. That had led to a reckless license of life, from which he had been rescued by the new attachment for one who was worthy of his love, and to whom he had been faithful." The divines, who had to do their work in the face of such difhcultics, took the somewhat unusual course (probably under orders from the King) of drawing up a formal narrative of their dealings with the condemned man, which was afterwards pub- lished by the Government, and as it bears Ken's signature, and his conduct and that of his associates has been made matter for adverse criticism, it seems worth while to give it in cxfcnso, as printed in the Sonicrs Tracts, pp. 260 et seq. " An Account of what passed at the Execution of the late Duke of Monmouth, on AVednesday, the loth of July, 1G85, on Tower- hill. "The late Duke of Monmouth came from the Tower to the scaffold attended by the Bishop of Ely, the Bishop of Bath and ' James remembered, we may believe, how Ken had spoken "like one in- spired " at his brother's death-bed. - The Duchess visited him in the Tower the day before his execution. After hi.s death she married Lord Comwallis. It is s;iid that she never went Ui Wilham's Court. Of the unhappy mistress who had been left in Holland all we know is that she died— it was sjiid, of a broken heart— on April "iord, 16S6, and that a mniinifict'ut monument, which cost £2,000, was erected to her by her mother at Toddington, in Bedfordshire (Roberts, ii. 310). A.D. 1685.] SCEKi: ON THE SCAFFOLD. 219 Wells, Dr. Tennison, and Dr. Hooper, wliich four the King was graciously pleased to send him as his assistants to prepare him for death, and the late Duke himseK entreated all four of them to accompany him to the place of execution, and to continue with him to the last. The two Bishops going in the Lieutenant's coach with him to the bars, made seasonable and devout application to him all the way, and one of them desired him not to be surprised if they, to the very last, upon the scaffold, reneioed i those exhortations to par- ticular repentance which they so often repeated before. " At his first coming on the scaffold he looked for the executioner, and seeing him, said, * Is this the man to do the business ? Bo your work well.^ Then the Duke of Monmouth began to speak, some one or other of the assistants, during the time, appljang themselves to him. " Monmouth. — I shall say but little — I come to die. I die a Protestant of the Church of England. " Assistant. — My Lord, if you be of the Church of England, you must acknowledge the doctrine of non-resistance to be true. '■'■ Monmouth.— \i I acknowledge the doctrine of the Church of England in general, that includes all. '■'■Assistant. — Sir, it is fit to own that doctrine particidarly, with respect to your case. " Here he was much tirged about the doctrine of non-resistance, but he repeated, in effect, his first answer. " Then he began, as if he was about to make a premeditated speech in this manner : " M. — I have had a scandal raised upon me about a woman, a lady of virtue and honour, the Lady Henrietta AVentworth. I declare she is a very godly and virtuous woman ; I have committed no sin with her ; and that which hath passed betwixt us was very honest and innocent in the sight of God. "A. — In your opinion, sir, as you have been often told (i.e. in the Tower) ; but this is not fit discourse in this place. " J/r. Sheriff Gosselin. — Sir, were you ever married to her ? " M. — This is not a time to answer that question. " 3[r. Sheriff Gosselin. — Sir, I hoped to have heard of your repent- ance for the treason and bloodshed you have committed. ^'Monmouth. — I die very penitent. " Assistant. — My Lord, it is fit to he particular ; and, considering the public evil you have done, you ought to do as much good now as you possibly can, by a pul)lic acknowledgment. " Monmoufh. — What I have thought fit to say of public affairs is iu a paper which I have signed ; I refer to my paper. 1 Italics are printed as in Somcrs, I.e. It is not easy to see their raison d'etre. 220 THE LUKE OF MONMOUTIVH REBELLION, [chap. xiv. " Assistant. — My Lord, thoro is notliiri}^ in that papor about rosistanco, and you ought to ho particular in your repoutanco, to have it \vg11 grounded. God give you true rejtentance ! *' Monmouth. — 1 die very penitent; and die with great cheerful- ness, for I know I shall go to (iod ! " Asfii.sfant. — My Lord, you must go to God in his own way: Sir, be sure you be truly penitent, and ask forgiveness of God for the many you have wronged. " Jfonnioiifh. — I am sorry for every one I have wronged — I for- give every body — I have had my enemies — I ffjrgive tliem all. ^' Assintant. — Sir, your acknowledgment ought to be public and particular. " 3Loninout/i. — I am to die: pray, my Lord: — I refer to my paper. " Assistafif. — They are but a few words we desire ; we only desire an answer to this point. " Monmouth. — I can bless God that he hath given me so much g^ace, that for these two j'ears past I have led a life unlike my former course, in which I have been happy. ^'Assistant. — Sir, was there no ill in tliese two years? In these years these great evils have happened, and the giving public satis- faction is a necessary part of repentance : be pleased to own a detestation of your rebellion. " Monmouth. — I beg your Lordships that you will stick to my paper. " Assistant. — My Lord, as I said before, there is nothing in your paper about the doctrine of non-resistance. " Monmouth. — I repent of all tilings a true Christian ouglit to repent of. I am to die — pray, my Lord. " Assistant. — Then, my Lord, we can only recommend j^ou to the mercy of God, but we cannot pray with that cheerfulness and encouragement as we should if you had made a particular acknow- ledgment. *'il/. — God be praised, I have encouragement enough in myself; 1 die with a clear conscience ; I have wronged no man. " A. — How, sir, no num ? Have you not been guilty of invasion and of much blood that has been shed ; and, it may be, the loss of many souls who followed you ? You must needs have wronged a great many. " M. — I do, sir, own that ; and am sorrj' for it. " A. — Give it the true name, sir, and call it rebellion. " il/. — What name jou please, sir; I am sorry for invading the kingdom, for the blood that has been shed, and for the lives that A.D. 1685.] SCENE OX THE SCAFFOLD. 221 have been lost by my means. I am sorry it ever happened. [Thin he spoke softly.] " Mr. Sheriff Vandepiit. — [To some that stood at a distanco."! ITo says he is very sorry for invading the kingdom. "^. — "We have nothing to add, but to renew the froquent .Mi..i- tations we have made to you, to give some satisfaction for tlio public injuries to the kingdom. There have been a great many lives lost by this resistance of your lawful prince. "il/. — "WTiat I have done has been very ill, and I wish with nil my heart it had never been ; 1 never was a man that dclightt-d in blood ; I was very far from it ; I was as cautious in that as any man was; the Almighty knows how I now die with all the j<»yfiil- ness in the world. ^' A. — God grant you may, sir; God g^ve you true repentance. "i\/. — If I had not true repentance, I should not so easily luivo been without the fear of dying. I shall die like a lamb. " A. — Much may come from natural courage. " M. — I do not attribute it to my own nature, for I am fearful as other men are ; but I have now no fear, as you nuiy .'^ce by my face; but there is something within me which does it, for T .nu muo I shall go to God. "^. — My Lord, be sure upon good grounds : Do you r-pfiii you of all your sius, known or unknown, confessed or not confesifd ; of all the sins which might proci-ed from error in judgment? " M. — In general for all ; I do with all my soul. and thorough repentance. " After they were risen up, he was exhorted to pray for thf king : and was asked. Whether he did not dexire to send some dutiful message to his majesty, atid to recommend his wife and children to his majr^tys Jarour.^ " il/.— What harm have they done? Do it, if you please ; I pruy for him, and for all men. " [^Fhen the Versicles were repeated.^ <' A. — Lord, show thy mercy upon us. 222 THE LUKE OF MOmiOUTir S REBELLION, [chap. xiv. " M. — [7/e made the Reitpome.'\ And grant us thy salvation. "^. — \_It followed. ~\ O Lord, save the Icing. " M. — And mercifully hoar us when wo call upon thee. "^. — Sir, do you not pray for the king with us? \_The Versicle was again repeated. 1^ O Lord, save the king. " M. — \_After some pause he answered.^ Amen. " [Then he spoke to the executioner concerning his undressing, Sf-c, and he would have no cap, i^'c, and at the beginning of his undressing, it was said to him on this manner. ~\ " A. — My Lord, you have been bred a soldier, you will do a generous. Christian thing, if you please to go to the rail, and speak to the soldiers, and say. That here you stand a sad example of rebellion, and entreat them and the people to be loyal and obedient to the king. "il/. — I have said I will make no speeches: I will make no speeches : I come to die. ^^ A. — My Lord, ten words will be enough. " M. — \_Then calling his servant, and giving him something, like a tooth- pick case.^ Here (said he) give this to the person to whom you are to deliver the other things. " M. — [To the Executioner. ~\ Here are six guineas for you ; pray do your business well ; do not serve me as you did my Lord Eussell ; I have heard, you struck him three or four times. Here {To his Servant) take these remaining guineas, and give them to him if he does his work well. " Executio7ier. — I hope I shall. " M. — If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir. "[During his undressing and standing fouards the block, there were used by those who assisted him diverse ejaculations proper at that time, and much of b\st Psalm was repeated, and particularly, ' Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, God, thou God,' &c.] " Then he lay down, and soon after he raised himself upon his elbow, atid said to the executioner, Prithee let me feel the axe : {He felt the edge, and said) I fear it is not sharp enough. ^'Executioner. — It is sharp enough, and heavy enough. " Then he lay down again. "During this space many pious ejaculations were used by those that assisted him with great fervency, Ex. Gr. God accept your repentance ; God accept j^our repentance ; God accept your imperfect repent- ance ; My Lord, God accept your general repentance ; God Almighty shew his omnipotent mercy upon you ; Father, into thy hands we commend his spirit, &c. ; Lord Jesus receive his soul. " Tlien the executioner proceeded to do his office. A.D. 1685.] THE LAST WORDS. 223 *'^ copy of the Paper, to which the late Duke of Monmouth r*ferrfd him- self in the DisiourneH held upon the Scajfold. "I declare, That tlio title of king was forced \i\nn\ iiw ; and that it -was very luiiclx contrary to my opinion when 1 waH iircKlaiiiuHl. For the satisfaction of the world, I do declare, That the late kinjj told me, he was never married to my mother. Ilavinj^ dwlurtMl this, I hope that the king, who is now, will not h-t my childn-n suffer on this account. Aud to this I put my hand this fifteenth day of July, 1085. " Monmouth. " This is a true account, witness our hands, " Francis Ely, Thomas Tevnisox, " TuoMAS Batu and "Wells. Geokoe Hooper, " William Gosseli.n, I ... .„ „ nfi ,. ,, ■ ^huriiis. " rETEU \ ^\_\ 1)E i CT, ) The reader will see from this what measure of truth there is in Burnet's judgment that tlio two bishojjs " did certainly vorv well in discharging their own consciences and speaking so plainly to him ; but they did very ill to talk so much of this matter" (the connexion with Lady Henrietta) "and to make it so public as they did, for divines ougiit not to rejx'at what they say to dying penitents, no more than what the penitents say to them." It is not without significance, as bearing upon a later incident in Ken's life, tliat Burnet adds that Monmouth was " better pleased with Dr. Tenison as speaking in a softor and less peremptory manner," and " leaving the points on which he could not couvinc-e him to his own conscience."' The memories of that 15th of July may have been present to our Bishop's mind when, on reviewing Tenison's ministrations at another royal death, ho charged liim with want of faithfulness as a preacher of repentance, with speaking smooth things and pn»- phesying deceits.'^ It was natural enough that a man like Charles Fox"^ should judge of the action of the bisliops on this occasion from a somewlmt secular standpoint, and one is scarcely sur- prised to find him censuring them for their want of " compas- sion " and "complaisance," for worrying their "illustrious » Bumot, O. r., n. iv., IGS.'i. * Sco Note on Kvu'h Letter to Tmiton, nt the end of ch. xxi. * History of James II., p. 2S0. 221 THE LUKE OF MONMOUTW 8 REBELLION, [chap. xiy. penitent" with "controversial altorcations," for being far more solicitous to make him profess whit they deemed the true creed of the Church of lOn^^laiul (the doctrine of non-rc^istance) " than to soften and console his sorrows, or to help him to that compo- sure of mind so necessary for his salvation."^ It may be added that Ken's great-nephew and earliest biographer, Hawkins, in noticing like reflections which had appeared in a pamphlet under the title of A Srcrct Ilistorij, &c., and in which Ken was singled out for special censure on these very grounds, expressly states " that our Bishop never acted or assisted there but in the devotional part only. And this, though a negative, may be proved to satisfaction." The authoritative tone in which this statement is made suggests the conclusion that he must have had it from Ken's own lips, and, as Anderdon remarks, it receives some confirmation from Ken's statement in his letter to Burnet in 1689 that " passive obedience " was a subject with which he had very rarely meddled.^ To this tragic close had come the career of the Absalom of English history. To Ken, as to us, it must have seemed the sad end of an evil and recklessly wasted life. But the handsome Duke, with his graceful manner and kindly smile, was still the darling of the people. Those who witnessed his execution dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, and cherished his memory as that of a Protestant martyr. Among those who had not witnessed it the belief lingered for at least two or three years, in Somerset and elsewhere, that he was still alive, that another criminal had died in his stead, and that he would one day reappear as the champion of their liberties.^ As soon as this melancholy task was over Ken hastened to his diocese, and the spectacle which met him ou his arrival was ' Evelyn (July loth, IGSo) records a visit to Tcnison, in wh;ch that divine tolc him that he and the bijlmps had refused to administer the Holy Communion lo ilonniouth because he would not acknowledge his sin in the matter of Liidy Henrietta. - See ii. 48 ^ Francis Turner, writing to Bishop Lloyd, of Norwich, in 1687, mentions that when one of his attendants visited his fiiends in Derbyshire, he was que>tioned by all the Dissenteis of the neighbourhood, who could scarcely be made to believe that Monmouth had really been executed. {Tanner MSS., x.^ix., f. 64, in the Bodleian Library.) Macaulay (chap, v.) gives oth- r instances of the same belief. A.D. 1685.] ORDER RKIGXS JX THE U'EST. 22.J sufficiently appalling. The "quarters" of the rebels who had been executed after Sedgmoor, smeared with tar and impaled on high stakes, poisoned the air. The prisons at Wt-lls and elsewhere were crowded with rebels, who were left half starved, waiting for their trial in the Bloody Assize. The Bishop, backed by Sir Thomas Cutler, then in command at "Wells, lost no time in interceding with the King, and apparently succeeded in stopping the brutalities of the martial law which Feversham and Kirke (Ken's old acquaintance at Tangier) had, by order from James and his ministers, executed with a ruthless severity.* James is said to have complied with their request, and to have thanked them afterwards for their interjjosition, and it is probably to this that Perkins refers in his statement that a hundred prisoners had been saved by Ken from death. ^ The tender mercies of James were, however, cruel enough. Jeffreys was sent to the West to stamp out the last embers of the rebellion, and entered on his task of blood with all his wonted ferocity. He wrote exultingly to Sunderland " I will pawn my life, and what is dearer to me than life, my honour, that before I have done my work, Bristol shall be taught its duty to its King and to its God."^ Kirke and his 'lambs' were still in the West, to support him in his task of repression. Bishop Mews had preached in the cathedral at Wells on July 8th, on the duty of subjects to their king, and after the service five of the rebels were hanged.* The result of the assize at Wells, in September, tried under a special commission and without a jur}', was that out of 500 prisoners 97 were condemned to death and 385 to transportation. Ken in vain remonstrated with In 1698 a pseudo-ilonmouth was accepted by many of the yeomen and poasanta of Sussex, and was tried and found guilty at Horsham. Voltaire (Z^iW. Philoi.) thought it necessary, some ye:irs after the acces^i jn of George III., to n f uto the notion that Jloniiiouth liad been the " Man in the iron mask," which hail been maintained by St. Foix in a pamphlet in 1762. For other examples see Robert?, ii. pp. 166—168. ' Lord Lonsdale's Mcmuirs oj the lieign of James II,, 1808, p. 12, and Routh's edition ot Burnet's James II., p. 73. * The Latin Poet Laureate, under Anne. See p. 217 ; ii. p. 262. 3 State Papers, 1685. From the same source we learn that he wrote AK&in (SeptembiT 22) to Sunderland, begging that the King may not bo Burpriatd into pardoning any rebels till he (Jeffreys) ha« kissed hands. [R. C. B.] * Wayhr, //^•!^ of Levizes, p. .TIO. vol.. 1. "B head, the reverse represents a man falling, in tiio act of climbiog a rock, at tho top of which are three crowns, with the legend, Sitperi Riser*. q2 CFATTER XV. THE PASTOR AND HIS I I.OCK. " When foemen watch their tents by nijafht, And mists hanij wide o'er moor and fell, Spirit of Counsel and of Might, Their pastoral warfare guide Thou well." John Kehle. The execution of the Duke of Monmouth took place on July- la, 1685. The following letter shows that on August 5th Ken was at Winchester. The address has been lost, but as it is found among the Longleat papers there can be little doubt that it was addressed to Thomas Thynne, Viscount "Weymouth, the owner of that mansion. It will be seen that its contents lead naturally to the same conclusion : — LETTER X. To Viscount WEVMorxn. " AIy very good Lord, " All Glory be to God. Amen. "I am extreameh' ashamed that I should suffer a letter of your Lordshippe's to lye by me so long, without making any returne, but y* person you sent stay'd so little with me y' I did not advert to aske him how I might addresse my answer, for w*^'' I humbly beg your pardon. I was ready to have dispacht your Clerk imediately, but that my Secretary was gone to WeUs, though had he then beeu with me, I found afterwards, I could not have done it; there having been two Caveats enter'd, w'** would force me to retard y' Institution. I had a designe to have waited on your Lordshippe before this time, to have made my excuse, and had come as far as A.D. 1685—80.] VISCOUXT JTEYJfOrTIT. 229 AVincliester, Ijut the circumstances of my condition are such y* they necessitate my stay liere, till towards the end of y' month, tliough very much iigainst my Inclinations, which all draw me towards my flock. In the meantime I have sent your Lordshippe some of y* poore provision I have made for you ; w'** I beseech you to accept of, for y* sake of the subject treated of, w''' is Divine Love. God of His Infinite Goodnesse ja-cserve yoursolfe and your FaTuily in His Favour, w"'' is of all things in tlio world y* most d<'sirabl<;. "My Good Lord. " Your Lordshippe's most humble and faithful Servant, "TIIO. BATH & WELLS. "Winch. Coll., Auj. bth, 1GS5." [The letter has the interest of bfing the earliest extant conneetod with a friendship which began eirly and lasted till the close of Ken's life. Thomaa, son of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, had been a student of Christ Church ia Ken's 0.\ford days. They had both been members of the 8:inie Musical Society. His education had been mainly directed by Hammond and 1*'«11, on the lines of sober Anglicanism. His aunt. Lady Pakington, was the supposed, and perhapa actual, author of The Whole Duty of Man. He had married Lady Fnmees Finch, daughter of Heneasje, second Earl of Winchclsea, had l)een M 1'. lor the Univer- sity of Oxford in 1673 — 4, and afterwards for Tamworth.and on Dicembtr 11th, 1C82, had been created Viscount Weymouth (.see Note, p. 2J7). His wculih and high character gave him great influence both in the country and in the circle of the Court. Longleat was not in Ken's diocse, but it was Bufli^ iently near (within twenty mile.s from "Wells) to lead n iturally to a renewal of the old Oxford friendshij). and much of Lord \\'eymouth"s property lay actuitlly within tlie limits of the diocese, in which also he hold the pationaj;eof some livings. The letter seems connected with the institution of some one not named, but probably the Mr. King mentioned in later leters, to one of them. Two passages of the letter suggest inferences of some interest. (1) Ken i» at Winchester, more or less iigainst his wishes, which would have lei him to return at once to lii^ diocese, then, as we may well believe, in uU the sufleriiig und confusion consequent on the Duko of Monmouth's rebellion, much in need of his presence for comfort and counsel. Circuin.stin''fS necos-sitjited his stay there till the end of the month. It seems a jirobable hypothesis that ho Bt.tycd there to see if he could bo of any use to those who w< re to be tried by Jeffreys for tlieir share in the reb-ll.on. Among the pri.sonera indicted and condemned there was Dame Alice Li.sle, who, on August 27, was found guilty of treason for having given .shelt^-r to John Hickea, one of tho rebcis who had fled after tho defeat at Sedgentoor. He, a.s has been staUKl (fi. 220), though a Nonconformist and a rebel, nas brnther to George Iliekes, Dean of Worcester, afterwards, as wo shall see, conspicuous among tho Non- jurors. Ken may have remained to watch tho issue of her trial, and to boo if he could do anything to avert or mitigate the penalty. Tho letter from Dean Hickes, quoted in p. 227, shows that the Bishop ministered to his brother. (2) Tlie last sentences of tho letter refer to the fiisl of Ken's publications as a 230 TIIF. PASTOR AND TTIS FLOCK. [chap. xv. Bishop, his Practice of Dinne Love, beiny an ExponUion of the Chureh Catechism. Tlio /wi/;/(';//rtued to tho public] An examination of the Pradicr of Divine Lore leads to the conchision that it must have been begun almost as soon as Ken entered on the duties of his episcopate. This was as the first- fruits of his work as the shepherd of his flock. What he had seen of the ignorance of the peasantry of Somerset during his short stay among them, or in his ministration to the rebels, an ignorance which the succeeding age did little to remove/ may well have led him to hasten its publication. This was to show how he loved and cared for them. It was also to be a manifesto of the princii)les by which he sought to guide his course amid the " unhappy divisions and confusions of the time." ^ The book is from first to last pre-eminently characteristic of Ken's mind, and calls for a brief analysis of its contents. It is addressed as follows : — " To the inhabitants within the diocese of Bath and Wells, Thomas, their unworthy Bisliop, wisheth the knowledge and the Love of God." It opens with reproducing the Rubric that follows the Cate- chism in the Prayer-book, and laments the " gross ignorance and irreligion " which, "our woeful experience shows us abound where catechising is neglected." It is probable enough that such neglect had prevailed for many a long year throughout the whole of Ken's diocese. Xot to speak of the interruption to all pastoral work caused by the ' Readers of Hannah More's Life will remember the crass, heathen ignorance in which she found the inhabitants of Cheddar and Wrington. It is to be recorded to Bishop Beadon's and Dean Ryder's honour that they were among her warm supporters, when the squires, farmers, and not a few of the clergy, were fierce in their opposition. - Ken's book had had predecessors in Hammond's Practical Calechis'n and Lancelot Addison's Primitive Institution, or a Seasonable Lixcourse of Catechising. Probably the " expounding " at Ely House, which the Princess Anne wished to hear (p. 271), was a catechetical instruction. A.D. 1685— 89.] ^' PRACTICE OF BIVINE love:' 231 civil wars, and by the temporary disestablishmeut of the Church under the Commonwealth, there is nothing to show that any one of the Bishops of Bath and Wells since the Restoration, Pierce, or Creighton, or Mews, had exerted any personal in- fluence, by precept or example, on the religious training of the younger members of their flock. It was not in Ken's nature, however, to dwell on the short-comings of others. He starts with what concerns himself : — " Since, then, the providence of God, who is wont to glorify his strength in the weakness of the instrument he uses, has caught me lip from among the meanest herdmen into the pastoral throne, and has been pleased to commit you to my care ; the love I ought to pay to the chief Shepherd obliges me to feed all his lambs and his sheep, that belong to my flock, and, according to my poor abilities, to teach them the knowledge and the love of God, and how they may make them both their daily study and practice." ^ He " passionately " exhorts and beseeches all the adult mem- bers of his flock of either sex, to help in this good work by " bringing all children under their care to catechising and confirmation." The characteristic feature of the Exposition throughout is that the Catechism is turned in all its parts into a manual of devotion. The revelation of God in Christ is presented as the manifestation of an infinite and eternal love. Creation, re- demption, sanctification, are all proofs of that love. In words which remind us of those of Ignatius,^ Christ himself is "love, afflicted and compassionate love, love bleeding, and crucified, and agonised." Each step in the history of the Passion is brought before the reader, and every sentence opens with the * Compare the passage from Ken's poems quoted in p. 179. The words were, ■we may well believe, more than the formal utterance of a feigned humility. There had been a true Nolo Episcopari at the very moment of his acceptance of his high oflQce, but his natural human will had yielded to the sense of a divine calling. * "O ifjiOQ tptog iTai. (Ignatius, Ep. ad. Horn. c. 7.) The words are found written in Ken's hand, on the flyleaf of a copy of Andrewes's Prcrcs Pri- valce at Longleat. Compare the original refrain of Wesley's Hymn 28, " lly Lord, my Love is crucified." Bishop Lightfoot, however (i>i loe.) rejects this interpretation of the words. 232 rUF. PA^TOn AXD TTIS FLOCK. [chap. xv. words, " I f>rieve uiul T love." llis experience at "Winchester had apparently taught Ken that it was well to pitch the note of devotion high, and not to descend to the lower keys of contro- versial bitterness or conventional morality. Some passages, boarinir on Ken's relation to the leading controversies of the time, though not controversial in their tone, are worth quoting in extcnso, as exhibiting the main aspects of his theology. lie is expounding the article of the Creed on " The Uoly Catholic Church :"— "I believe, blessed and adorable Mediator, that the Church is a society of persons, founded by thy love to sinners,' united into one body, of which thou art the head,* initiated by baptism,' nourished by the Eucharist,* governed by pastors commissioned by thee, and endowed with the jiower of the keys,^ professing the doc- trine tauglit by thee," and delivered to the saints," and devoted to praise and to love thee. "I believe, holy Jesus, that tliy Church is holy, like thee its author ; hoi}'-, by the original design of its institution ;^ holy, by bajitismal dedication ; holy, in all its administrations, which tend to produce holiness ;" and though there will be always a mixture of good and bad in it in this world,'" yet it has always many real saints in it ; and therefore, all love, all glory be to thee. "I believe. Lord, this Church to be Catholic or universal, made up of the collection of all particular Churches ; I believe it to be catholic in respect of time, comprehending all ages to the world's end, to which it is to endure ;" catholic in respect of all places, out of which believers are to be gathered ;'- catholic in respect of all saving faith, of which this creed contains the substance, which shall in it alwaj-s be taught ;'* catholic in respect of all gi-aces, which shall in it be pi-actised ; and catholic in respect of that catholic war it is to wage against all its ghostly enemies for which it is called militant. preserve me always a true member of thy Catholic Church, that I may always inseparably adhere to thee, that I may always devoutly praise and love thee. " Glory be to thee, Lord mj- God, who hast made me a member of the particular Church of England, whose faith, and government, ' Matt, xvi 18 ; Eph. v. 25. - Col. 1, 18. 3 Matt, xxviii. 19. ♦ Matt. xxvi. 2G. * Ibid, xviii. 18 ; John xx. 22, 23. « Acts ii. 41, 42. ' Jude 3. s 2 Tim. i. 9. « 2 Tim. ii. 19. i" Matt. xiii. 24. " Matt. xvi. 13 ; xviii. 20. '^ jjatt. xxviii. 19. '3 John xvi. 13. A.D. 1685—80.] EXPOSITION OF THE CREEDS. 233 and worship are holy, and Catholic, and Apostolic, and free from tlie extremes of irreverence or superstition ; and which I lirmly believe to be a sound part of thy Church universal, and which teaches me charity to those who dissent fi'om me ; and therefore, all love, all glor}-, be to thee. " my God, give me grace to continue stcdfast in her bosom, to improve all those helps to true piety, all those means of grace, all those incentives of thy love, thou hast mercifully indulged me in her communion, that I may with primitive affections and fervour praise and love thee. "'the communion of saints.' " Communion. "I believe, King of Saints, that among the saints on earth, whether real, or in outward profession only, there ought to be a mutual Catholic participation of all good things,' which is the immediate effect of Catholic love. Thou, God of love, restore it to thy ChuTch. " I believe, thou God of love, that all the saints on earth, by profession, ought to communicate one with another in evangelical worship, and the same holy sacraments, in the same divine and apostolical faith f in all offices of corporal' and spiritual charity,* in reciprocal delight in each other's salvation, and in tender s3-mpathy as members of one and the same body ;'^ God of peace, restore, in thy good time this Catholic communion, that with one heart, and one mouth, we may all praise and love thee. " my God, amidst the deplorable divisions of thy Church, let me never widen its breaches, but give me Catholic charity to all who are baptised in thy name, and Catholic communion with all Christians in desire. deliver me from the sins and errors, from the schisms and heresies, of the age. give me grace to pray daily for the peace of thy Church,^ and earnestly to seek it, and to excite all I can to praise and to love thee. "I believe, most holy Jesu, that thy saints hero below have communion witli thy saints above," thoy praj'ing for us,* in heaven, we here on earth celebrating tbeii- memorials, rejoicing at their > John i. 7. 2 Acts ii. 42, 46. ^ Gal. vi. 10. « Rom. xii. 9, &c. ; 1 Thcss. v. 14 ; Heb. x. '25. * 1 Cor. xii. 13, 26. « Ps. cxxii. 6. ' lleb. xii. 22. " " That they pray for us, while we celebrate their memoriea, congratulate their bliss," Szq.. 1st Ed. Compare p. 79. 234 TlIK PASTOR AND If IS FLOCK. [r.uw. xv. bliss, givini^ tbeo tluuikH for tlicir liibours of love, and imitating their examples ; for which, all lovo, all glory, be to thee. "I believe, gracious Kedeemer, that thy saints here on earth have communion with the holy angols above ; that they are ' ministering spirits,' sent forth to minister for tliem who shall be heirs of salvation,' and watch over us ;- and we give thanks to thee for their jirotoction, and emulate their incessant praises, and ready obedience ; for which, all love, all glory, be to thee. " I believe, my Lord, and my God, that the saints in this life liave communion with the Tliroo Persons of the most adorable Trinity,^ in the same most benign influences of love, in which all three conspire ; for which, all love, all glory be to thee, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, world without end. "Glory be to thee, Goodness intinitely diffusive, for all the graces and blessings in which the saints communicate, for breathing thy love into thy mystical body, as the very soul that informs it, that all that believe in thee may love one another, and all join in loving thee." From the devotions that follow on the second commandment I take the prayer : — "0 my God, my Love, for thy dearest sake, give me grace to pay a religious, suitable veneration, to all sacred persons, or places, or things, which are thine by solemn dedication, and separated for the uses of Divine love, and the communications of thy Grace, or which may promote the decency and order of thy worship, or the edification of faithfvil people." His thoughts on the Sabbath question are suggestive : — " We Christians, Lord God, following the moral equity of thy command, and authorised by apostolical practice, celebrate 'the Lord's Day,' 'the first day of the week,' in memory of our redemption, in memory of thy resurrection from the dead, most beloved Jesu, when thou didst rest from the labours and sorrows of the new creation : may I ever remember th}' day and thee ! " Glory be to thee, my God, my Love, who hast under the Gospel delivered us from the rigours but not from the piety of the Jewish Sabbath." 1 Heb. i. 14. ■ Ps. x.Txiv. 7. ^ j jo^n j. 3 . i^hij. ij. i_ A.D. 1685—89.] BAPTISM. 235 So, among the sins forbidden by the fourth commandment we have : — ' ' All profanations of tliy hallowed day, and of all other holy times dedicated to thy praise and thy love. " All Judaizing severities, all Tvorldly-mindedness and unneces- sary business, or not allowing those under my care liberty and leisure for thy service on thy day. " All unmercifulness to my very beasts." That Ken should accept the sacramental teaching of the Catechism in its simplest and most natural meaning was, of course, to be expected, but it is well, for the sake of complete- ness, to give his very words, in which, as was his wont, dogma is translated into devotion : — " Glory be to thee, Jesu, who, from our ' death to sin ' in our baptism, dost raise us to a new life, and dost breathe into us the breath of love; 'tis in this ' laver of regeneration," we are 'born again by water,^ and the Spirit,' by a 'new birth unto righteous- ness : ' that as the natural birth propagated sin, our spiritual birth should propagate grace ; for which all love, all glory, be to thee. "Glory be to thee, most indulgent Love, who in our baptism dost give us the holy Spirit of love, to be the principle of new life, and of love in us, to infuse into our souls a supernatural, habitual grace, and ability to obey and love thee ; for wliich aU love, all glory, be to thee." In his teaching as to the other sacrament Ken saw reason to alter in the subsequent editions of his book the language which he had used in the first. As the controversies of the time thickened round him, it became necessary to be more wary and cautious in his language, to give no handle to the adversaries on either side, so to maintain the doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence that it might be kept clear of the subtleties of Romish scholasticism, or the practices of Romish superstition. The nature of the change will be best appreciated by comparing the two statements as they stand side by side : — ' Tim. iii. 6. * John iii. 5. 2;{fi Till: rAsron axd his flock. [y his directions) in the form "There present in the heart, As in the hands." 238 77//; PASTOR AM) HIS FLOCK. [chap. xv. Yet anothor Manual of Devotion belongs probably to the same year, and marks Ken's unwearied care for the souls of his people. Under the Restoration the tide of fashion was begin- ning to set in at the first of the two cities which gave his diocese its name, and though its stately streets and terraces and crescents belong to a later period, it had become the resort of men and women of wealth and rank. Both sexes bathed to- gether in a somewhat barbarous and promiscuous fashion, as they do, or did till lately, in the baths of Leuk, in Switzerland.* There was much of the " idleness and fulness of bread" which were the fruitful parents of scandals. The ordinary parochial ministrations of the Church failed to meet the spiritual needs of the mixed multitude that were thus brought together. The Queen, who in September, 1687, came to the baths in the hope that an heir to the throne might be given her, and the question of succession be so far settled, brought with her chaplains, among whom there were many active propagandists, such as one whom we shall find publishing a letter to Ken a little later on. "Whatever devotional feeling there might be among the visitors of Bath was likely enough to run in that direction. Looking at these things, Ken thought himself bound, as a good shepherd, here also to come to the rescue. It bears the characteristic heading of -^1// Glory be to God, which he was beginning now to use as the superscription of every letter. It comes, as the two other Manuals had done, from " Thomas, unworthy Bishop of Bath and "Wells, to all Persons who come to the Baths for cure." He "wisheth for them from God the Blessings of this Life and of the Next." The work is too purely devotional to present many passages for quotation. It is characteristic of Ken that he presses the claims of the poor and needy on those who too often gave way to the selfishness of suffering. They were to do (as, we may add, he himself did), and to support their brethren and sisters in need who had come, as they had come, to use the waters of healing.^ ' A book recently publis-hed under the title of The Bathes of Bathe $ Ayd^, by Charles E. Davi.i, B;ith, 18S3, reproduces the scene in the King's Bath from an old drawing. See Dean Turner's I'he Baths of Bath, 1568. - The fact is stated in Thomas Guidott's Begixter of Bath, quoted by Gough, British Topogrnphy, 1730, ii. pp. 197 — 8. (Anderdon, p. 311.) It maybe noted A.D. 1685—89.] 777"^ FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 239 For the sake of completeness in this survey of Ken's pastoral addresses to his people, I anticipate the strict chronological order of events and pass to an encyclical letter which he issued to the clergy of his diocese in April, 1G86. LETTER XI. A Letter Exhorting the Clergy of the Diocese of Bath nml Wells to Collect in Behalf of the French Ptotcdants. " All Glory be to God. "Sir, "His majesty in these his letters patent, which I now send you, having given a fresh and great assurance of his gracious- ness to his own subjects, in showing himself so very gracious to Protestant strangers, and having required me to give a particular recommendation and command to my brethren of the clergy witliin my diocese, to advance this so pious and charitable a tvork ; I think it my duty, with my utmost zeal to further so godlike a charity ; and I do therefore strictly enjoin you, tliat you vixo&i affectionately and earnestly persuade, exhort, and stir up all under your care to contribute freely and cheerfully to the relief of these distressed Christians, and to do it with as well tim'd an expedition as you can. And that his majesty's royal goodness may have its full effect, I beseech you, for the love of God, to be exemplarily liberal towards them yourself, according to your ability : remembering liow blessed a tiling it is to be brotherly kind to strangers, to Christian strangers, especially such as those whoso distress is very great, and is in all respects most worthy of our ten- derest commiseration, and how our most adorable Redeemer does interpret and does proportionably reward all the good we do to them as done to himself. God of his infinite meny inspire this fraternal charity into your own soul, and into the souls of all your parish. " Your affectionate friend & brother, "TIIO. l'..\Tir c'giniild, of liiith, had, in 1 180, founded a hospital of St. John the I?a])tist for thi' lioncfit of tho »\i k and af JUS FLOCK. [ciiap. xv. costs of their triul amongst them in proportion to their incomes, Ken was assessed at £850, as compared willi the £4,000 of Cunterhiiry and the £2,000 of P^ly above him, with Chichester at £770, Peterborough at £(J''jO, and IJristol at i'-'iOO, below.' The Dean and Chapter seconded Ken's effort by a grant of £40. The amount seems at first somewhat small as compared with the Bishop's munificence, but it may be pleaded on their behalf that they were at the time saddled with heavy expenses, amounting to over £500, for repairing the injuries done to the Cathedral by the Monmouth rebels.''^ The collections from Somersetshire parishes do not seem to have been much above the average level of those which were commonly the result of a King's brief.^ Yet another Pastoral Letter was issued by Ken to his clergy, " concerning their behaviour during Lent." It bears date, "From the Palace in Wells, Feb. 17, 1087," but as the date on the title-page is 1688 I incline to think that Ken, as was his custom, followed the old reckoning, according to which the year began on March 25th, and the letter belongs, there- fore, to the latter year, and this conclusion is confirmed by the agitated and distressed tone which pervades it, and which pre- sents a striking parallel to the sermon which Ken preached at "Whitehall on April 1st of that year, and which will come before us later on. Troubles were thickening round the Church. It seemed to him that there were dark days coming, in which it would be difficult for men to see their way clearly, ' a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy,' of abortive plans and frustrated aspirations, the ' children come to the birth ' • Gutch, Miscell. Curiosa, ii. 3G8. 2 Wells Chapter Acts, 1685. ' Those at JSwanswick, near Bath, amounted to £10 19s. 2Jd., from twenty- six persons ; at North Curry, one of the Chapter livings, they reached the sum of £2 19s. lid. At Fromc there is an entrj' of £1 Is. 2d. for an earlier Brief for Freneh Protestants in 1682, in 1688 for £9 18s. Od., and in 1689 for two collections for Irish Protestants of £18 ITs. Od. and £9 7s. lOi respectively. At W'roxall there are entries of collections for a second Brief for the French Protes- fcmts in 1694, and for the "French Vaudois " in 1699. The collections were apparently continued under William. Others of like character are at Binder for building a church at Halting, in Curland, in 1709, and for " Palatines who came to England, being 8,000 families," in 1710. Similar facts are reported frim South Shields and elsewhere. Newbury seems to have been conspicuous for its liberal contributions. A.D. 1685—89.] OBSERVANCE OF LENT. L'4.-) with 'no strength to bring forth.' It seemed to him also that the time needed not the wrath of men, but the righteousness of God. Confession, penitence, intercession, charity, these were the elements of the temper in which such a time should be met. The whole letter is so characteristic that I print it in cxtotso, as helping us to understand Ken's feelings and the principles which guided him in his action. LETTER XII. " All Glory be to God. "Rev. BRoxnER, " The time of Lent now approaching, wliith lia.s been anciently and very Xtianly set apart, for penitential humiliation of soul and body, for fasting and weeping and praying, all which you know are very frequently inculcated in Holy Scripture as the most effectual means we can use, to avert those judgments our sins have deserved ; I thought it most agreeable to that character which, imworthy as I am, I sustain, to call you and all my brethren of the clergy to mourning ; to mourning for your own sins, and to mourning f(^r the sins of the nati(jn. In making such an address to you as this, I follow the example of St. Cyprian, that blessed Bishop and Mart^T, who from his retirement Avrote an excellent epistle^ to liis clergy, most worthy of your serious perusal, exhorting them, l»y publick prayers and tears to appease the anger of God, wJiich they then actually felt, and which we may justly fear. Remember that to keep such a fast as God has chosen, it is not enough for you to afflict your own souls, but you must also according to your ability, 'deal your bread to the hungry:''^ and the ratlier, because wo have not only usual objects of charity to relieve, but many jx)or Protestant strangers are now fled hither for sanctuary, wlin. • Isii. Iviii. a. 7. ' Oriit. xii. 21G THE I'.iSroi! JM) JUS FLOCK. [ciiai-. xv. But your greatest zeal must be spont for the publick prayers, in the constant and devout use of wliicli, the publick safoty, l)otli of Church and State, is liiglily concerned : bo sure then to offer up to God every day the Morning and Evening Prayer, offer it up in your family at least, or rather, as far as your circumstances may poKsibly permit, offer it up in the Church, especially if you live in a great town, and say over the Litany every morning during the whole of Lent. This I might enjoin you to doe, on your canonical obedience, ' but for love's sake, I rather beseech you,' and I cannot recommend to you a more devout and comprehensive form of peni- tent and publick intercession than that, or more proper for the season. lie not discouraged, if but few come to the ' solemn assemblies,' but go to the ' House of Prayer,' where ' God is well known for a sure refuge ; ' go, though you go alone, or but with one besides yourself ; and there, as you are God's ' remembrancer,' keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish, till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' ^ The first sacred council of Nice, for which the Xtian world has always had a great and just venera- tion, ordains a provincial synod to be held before Lent, that all dissentions" being taken away, a pure oblation might be offer'd up to God, namely of prayers, and fasting, and alms, and tears, which might produce a comfortable communion at the following Easter ; and that in this diocese we may in some degree imitate so primitive a practice, I exhort you to endeavour all you can to reconcile differ- ences, to reduce those that go astray, to promote universal charity towards all that dissent from you, and ' to put on as the elect of God,^ holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and for- giving one another, even as Christ forgave you.' I passionately beseech you to reade over daily your ordination vows, to examine yourself how you observe them ; and in the prayers that are in that office, fervently to importune God for the assistance of His good Spirit, that you may conscientiously perform them. ' Teach pub- lickly, and from house to house, and warn every one night and day with tears ; ' ' warn ' them to repent, to fast and to pray, and to give alms, ' and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance ; ' ' warn ' them to continue steadfast in tliat ' faith once delivered to the saints ; ' in which they were baptiz'd ' to keep the word ' of God's ' Isa. Ixii. 6, 7. * Can. V. Ken p;iraphrases the Canon, gi^■ing " dissentions'' for the two Greek words ipikovitKia and ntKoo^vxia. A second Synod was to lie held in Hutumn. Both were to regulate the discipline and penance of the cxcomir.unicated 5 Col. iii. 12 * Cul. iii. 12. A.D. 1685— 89.J OBSERVANCE OF LENT. 247 patience, that God may keep them in tlio liour of temptation; ' warn' them against the sins and errours of the age ; ' warn' them to deprecate publick judgments, and to mourn for publick provo- cations. K'o one can reade God's holy word but he will see, that the greatest saints have been the greatest mourners ; David ' wept whole rivers;'' Jeremy 'wept sore, and his eyes ran down in secret places day and night like a fountain;"- Daniel 'mourned three full weeks, and did eat no pleasant bread, and sought God by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth and ashes;'* St. Paul was humbled, and bewailed and wept for the sins of others;'* and our Lord himself, when he 'beheld the city, wept over it." Learn then of these great saints, learn of our most com- passionate Saviour, to weep for the publick, and weeping, to pray that ' we may know in this our day, the things tliat belong to our peace, lest they be hid from our eyes.' To mourn for national guilt, in which all share, is a duty incumbent on all, but especially on priests, who are particularly commanded ' to weep and to say. Spare thy people, Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that God may repent of the evil and become jealous for his land and pity his people.'** Be assui'od that none are more tenderly regarded by God than such mourners as these ; there is ' a mark '^ set by him on ' all that sigh and cry for the abominations i>f the land ; ' the destroying angel is forbid to ' hurt any of them,' thoy are all God's peculiar care, and shall all have eitlier present deliver- ance, or such supports and consolations as shall abundantly endear their calamity. ' Now the God of all grace, who hath called you unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you ' in the true Catholick and Apostolick Faith, profess'd in the Church of England, and enable you to adorn that apostolick faith with an apostolick exam])lo and zeal, and give all our whole Church that timely repentance, those broken and contrite hearts, tliatboth priests and people may all plentifully sow iu tears, and iu God's good time, may all plentifully reap in joy. " Your allectionate fric^id and Brotlier, "TllO. BATH & WELLS. " From the Palaoo in Wells, Fih. \~ih, 1687." [It will be noted that the Huguenot refugees iire still, two yoars after his firfi)Ciil, prominent in Ken'a thoughts. The Protestimt strangers are still • rs.il. cxix. 136. » Jer. ix. 1 ; xiii. 17. ' Dun. ix. 3 ; x. 2. « -l Cor. xii. 21. ; Phil. ill. 18. * Luke xix. 41. • Joel ii. 17, IS. ' Ezek. i.\. 4. 248 TUE PASTOR AND IIIS FLOCK. [ciiap. xv, r(!cogni8od as "brethren, mcmberH of Christ whom we should take in and cherish." Anticipating Suncroft's action, who urged the clergy in his pastonil letter (July 27, 1G88) to have " a special and tender care for their brethren, the Protestant Dissenters," Ken exhorts the clergy of his diocese to " endeavour all you can to reconcile differences, to reduce [i.e. bring back) those that go astray, to promote universal charity towards all that dissent from you." To " mourn for national guilt, in which all share," was "a duty incumbent upon all, especially on priests." They were to warn their people to continue steadfast in that faith once delivered to the saints, in which they were baptized. We note, as characteristic, the earnest exhortation to daily public prayer, however scanty might be the attendance of the people.] Lastly, among the documents which bear on Ken's work in his diocese we have what chronologically comes first in order, the Articles of Visitation and Enquiry,^ e-shWniedi to the minister.^;, churchwardens, and sidesmen of every parish in the first year of his episcopate. These are, for the most part, of a formal cha- racter, and therefore I do not reproduce them. Some inferences may, however, be drawn, on the principle applicable to all such documents, that men do not inquire about remote or imaginary evils, and these are worth noting, as showing the state of things which Ken found on entering upon his ofiice, and which he had to strive, as far as might be, to remedy. I note accordingly — (1.) That there were churches not provided with a decent Communion-table in the chancel. The Puritan domination led, in not a few places, to the replacement of the Table in the body of the church.^ (2.) That some churches were not provided with a surplice, or the Authorised Version, or the Prayer-book of 1662, or the Table of Prohibited Degrees, or the Book of Canons. (3.) That some were " without a chalice with a cover, and one or more flagons," and that where they were foujid they had often been "prophaned by common use." ' Round gives them as printed in 1683, but Ken was not consecrated till January 'Ihih, 168J. The probable explanation is that the Articles had been printed after a consultiition between Siincroft and the Bishops for general use, and this may account for the earlier date being attached to them. - So in 1687 Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, gives orders for moving the Table to the East end. {Diari/, p. 79.) The ante-communion service, when there was no celebration, was often read from the reading-desk. — Richard Hart, Fnrish Churcltes turned into Conventicles, 1683; in Overton, Life in English Church, c. iv. A.D. 1685— 89.] ARTICLES OF VISITATIOX. 249 (4.) That some churches were not " iu good and sufficient repair," and that, in some cases, part had been pulled down, and the lead, timber, &c., embezzled or sold. (5.) That the careful registration of births, deaths, and marriages, "according to the ancient use," was often ne- glected. (6.) That strangers were admitted to preach with no record of their names and licenses. (7.) That the churchyards were in some cases left unfenced and not decently kept, and were subject to encroachments, and that parsonages were not always kept in good repair. (8.) That non-residence was still a crying evil, as it had been in the days of the Expostulatoria, in its earlier form of Ichnbod (1663), that the curates were not always in holy orders, or if so, " not allowed by the Ordinary." (See p. 56.) (9.) That the rubrics of the Prayer-book of 1662 were not uniformly observed, and that sins of omission and commission still prevailed, that the surplice, e.g., was not always worn at th.e reading of divine service, or even in administering the sacraments. (lU.) That in some parishes there was not one sermon, or even a homily, on Sunday. (11.) That there was much negligence as to catechising, pre- paring candidates for confirmation, visiting the sick, and bap- tizing, infants being baptized without sponsors, or their parents admitted, contrary to the canons, to that office. (12.) That the publication of banns was neglected, and that marriages were celebrated in private houses, and outside the canonical limits of time, which were from eight to twelve in the morning. (13.) That adultery, fornication, incest, drunkenness, swearing, blasphemy, railing, unclean and filthy talking, sowing sedition or faction among neighbours were common otlences. (14.) That marriages were celebrated witliin the prohibited degrees, and that some who were lawfully married and not separated or divorced by course of law, did not live together. (15.) That some parishioners refused to pay Easter offerings and church-rates. (16.) That new pews were erected without leave from tho 250 THE PASTOR AM) JUS FLOCK. [chap. xv. Ordinary, and that strife and contention about seats and pews were common evils. ^ (17.) That men kept school, practised physic or chirurgery, and that women exercised the oflice of a midwife, witliout license from the Ordinary. All these things must have grieved the soul of one who entered on his office with an ideal standard of completeness, and sought to bring his diocese nearer to that standard than he found it. It remains for us to see what steps Ken took per- sonally to attain that end. If I mistake not, our cathedral chronicles show some traces of the revival of church discipline under Ken's influence. They record in 168G that Elizabeth L., having borne a bastard child, was sentenced by the Chapter to do public penance in the Cathedral.^ I do not find any like entry, since the Reformation, before Ken's time or after it. Of his direct action in the work of instruction we have an account, not so full as might be wished, in the short life by his great-nephew and executor, "William Hawkins, prefixed to his sermons : — " He had a very happy way of mixing his spiritual with his corporal alms. When any poor person begged of him, he would examine whether he could say the Lord's Prayer or the Creed, and he found so much deplorable ignorance among the grown poor people that he feared little good was to be done upon them ; but he said he would try whether he coidd not lay a foundation to make the next generation better. And this put him upon setting up many schools in all the great towns of his diocese for poor childi-en to be taught to read and say their catechism .... and the ministers of the parishes were by him fui'nished with a stock of necessary books for the use of children." I assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that these schools, like the charity schools which were about the ' Our records at "Wells present a striking illustration of the evil. A woman was summoned before the Pean and Chapter for chiding and brawling with another woman as to her right to a seat in the Cathedral, " striking her in the mouth and making it bleed, during divine service" (Hist. MSS. Conim. Report, p. 252). This, however, was in 16'.;6. - Chapter Acts, 1686. I suppress the name, as descendants of the family are still to be found in Wells. A.D. 168.5— 89.] KEN'S WORK IN UIS DIOCESE. 251 same time founded in many parts of London/ were for the free education of the poor, and that they were dependent on endow- ments or voluntary contributions for their support. Hawkins adds further that " in the summer time " (travelling in Somer- set was not easy in winter) " he went often to some great parish, where he would preach twice, confirm, and catechise." The great preacher, who drew crowds of the noble and wealthy to Whitehall or St. Martin's, found, as others have found before and after him, a greater attraction in the work of preaching the gospel to the poor. Fasce agnos meos was still his rule of life. What one may call the socialist element of Christianity, the Christ-like sympathy with those who are oppressed, and who, while on the side of their oppressors there was power, found no comforter, was, as in others in whom we recognise alike the primitive and the mediaeval type of Catholic sanctity, strongly developed, as might be expected, in Ken's character. " He often deplored the condition of the poor at "Wells (who were very numerous), and, as ho was charitably disposed, so ho M-as very earnest in contriving proper expedients of relief; and thought no design could better answer all tlie ends of charity than the sotting up a workhouse in that place. But judging it not practicable with- out the advice, or, at least, the assistance of the gentlemen, he therefore often met and consulted with them, but not finding any suitable encoui-agement, he was forced to desist. In this he had a double view, to rescue the idle from vicious practice and conversa- * The so-called Charity Schools of London arc said to have oritrinated in the foundation of a school by Teiiison, then rector of SI. JLirtin's-in-tho-Fields, to counteract the influence of a Roman Catholic »School which had l)oen opened by the Jesuits in the Savoy, under James II., under the title of the Blue Coat School, in St. Margaret's, AVcstminetcr. The wurk was extended, towards the end of AVilliam III.'s reign, and under Anne; Keu's friends, Lord Weymouth and Robert Nelson, being most active in the cause. In 1712, there were 117 such schools in London, and tho children educated in them had an anniversary meeting at St. Paul's (discontinued in 1878). In other parts of England and Wales 300 schools had been established. They wore founded, it need scarcely bo said, on strictly Church principles. (Secretin, Life of Wilson, pp. 118, 119.) I have not succeeded in tracing any of tho village libraries which Ken is said to have started. It would bo interesting to learn what books ho was specially anxious that his people should read, and I shall welcome any information on the subject. Ho loft, as has been said (p. 93), his French, Italian, and Spanish books to the Library at Bath, presumably, as the books were |ilaco(l there by Lord Weymouth, to that in the Abbey Church. Readers will recollect Dr. IJray's efforts to found libraries, for the use of the clergy, in all import.int towns. U5'2 77//-; PASTOR AN1> Ills FLOCK. [rnxv. xv. tioii, and the industrioiiH from tlio oppression of tho tradesmen, wlio, to iiso his own oxprfssion ' did j^riiid tlio fsieo of tho poor, p-owinj^ ricli hy tlifir liiJxmr, and making tliem a very scanty allowance for their work.' " ' The atiiinUH indicated by this extract is phiin enough. To us the projected remedy of " setting up a workhouse " may at first be somewhat hard to understand. At that time, however, the term had not acquired the meaning with wliich we are now famih'ar. It was used by the philanthropists of the period for industrial institutions, to be maintained by voluntary contri- butions, where the unemployed were to get a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, and where the regulations of the place were to guard against drunkenness and vice. It was, that is, an attempt, like the MonU de piete of France and Italy, like Proudhon's Ate/iers Nationaux, to deal with poverty and the labour market on other principles than those of supply and demand. Defoe, with his vigorous, incisive common-sense, attacked it as likely to cause more evils than it cured, and the attempt proved abortive." It was left for another generation to apply the principles of what Frederick Maurice in 1848 rightly called " Christian Socialism," under the wiser and more practicable form of co-operation, and even that, as we know, has been only a partially successful experiment. Ken's sympathy with the poor was, however, shown in another way, in which he reproduced, as a bishop, what had entered, as we have seen, into George Herbert's ideal of a " country parson : " — " When he was at home on Sundays, he would have twelve poor men or women to dine with him in his hall, always endeavouring while he fed their bodies, to comfort their spirits by some cheerful discom'se, generally mixt with some useful instruction. And when they had dined, the remainder was divided among them to carry home to their families." ^ Dinner parties of that kind were, we may well believe, some- thing new in the experience of the good people of Wells. Peter Mews had " entertained the gentry " with a liberal hos- ' Hawkins, p. 9. - Oiling Alms no C/iaritt/, 1704 ; Woris (cd. 1S69), pp. 539 — 547. •' Hawkins, p. S. A.D. 1G85-89.] SUNDAY DINNERS AT THE PALACE. 253 pitality, but to act on the letter of the words of the Master whom Chrisliuns own, and to invite " the poor, the lame, the halt, the maimed," who could render no recompense but that which should be given in the resurrection of the just, was, at least, unconventional. It may have seemed to many, like Ken's celibacy, suspicious and unprotestant. AVould it not have been safer and better to do as other bishops of the time did, to invite Dives and leave Lazarus at the gate ? At any rate, it would be felt by many that this and Ken's celibacy went together, A married bishop of that age with a family might do much that was good, kindly, generous. He would hardly have spent his Sundays in such a way as this.^ Anyhow, the picture remains to live in our memories as a thing that has actually been seen, once at least, in the history of the English Church. AYe can picture the good Bishop acting as a courteous host to these his guests, bringing to bear all that he had learnt of culture and refinement from his intercourse with the noblest in the land, all the meekness and lowliness which had come to him from a higher source, to make the meal a pleasant one. Each Sunday probably brought with it a different set of guests. Each carried away with him, besides the " fragments that remained," the memory of some kindly ■worrt, of some warm hand-grasp which raised him in his self- respect. One wonders whether they felt the change when Kidder took Ken's place. And tluough all this, we must remember, there was probably the same ascetic life as we have seen in Ken's earlier years at Winchester, the one meal a day, after jSlorley's exam])le, the one slumber at night, the Midnight Hymn, as well as those for Morning and Evening, in constant use, sung when he woke and rose in the sniidl hours of the night. He was probably a total abstainer (he identifies the vine in his lIi/)iiiiutli(o with the for- bidden fruit which " brought death into the world and all our woe"), and his only luxury was the colTee which he may have learnt to take at Oxford, and which ai)pcars, from the fact that ' In this, as I have noted in p. 22, Krn was following in Cfcorpo Ilorlx'rt's footsteps. Franipton is reported to have done the wime ufter his dtprivaiioii in his parish of St^indish. [Many Puritans gave a Sunday meal to wurs^hipp' rs from a distance. (See Clark's Livm of fhd mid others. — J. K.)] 254 THE PASTOI! AXD HIS FfJX'h". [ctiap. xv. his silver coffee-pot was the only article of plate he left behind him, to luive been his favourite beverap:e till the end (ii. p. 20Hj. I insert here some hitherto unpublished letters which bear on Ken's work during this period of his life. LETTER XITI. To Viscount "WEYMomi. "All Glory be to Gud. " My very good Lord, " I am extreamel}' sorry y' IMr. King slionld onco more goe away from hence, without y* dispatch of his affaire, but it is not in my power at present to helpe him. Yoiir Lordshippe's favourable acceptance of so inconsiderable a testimon}' of my respect as I was able to send, encourages me to send two more, one for y* young gentleman, and y^ other for y* young Lady, w"'' I now understand are with you, and are tlie Pledges of God's favour with w*^*" He has been, pleased to bless you. I return your Lordshippe all due ac- knowledgements for your most obliging Invitation, but it goes against me to wait on my Lord We}'mouth in my passage onely. I reserve the Satisfaction for a journey on purpose, and when I am not Streightened in time. God of His Infinite Goodnesse keep yourseKe and your good Lady and your family in His Eeverentiall Love. " My Good Lord, "Your Lordshippe's most affectionate humble Servant, "THO. BATH & ^"ELLS. " Oct. 2Ut. 1685." [^Ir. King had been nominated by Lord Weymouth to the living of Ifars- ton Bigott, in Ken's diocese. There had apparently been some unavoidable delay in his institution, owing to some one, probably an " aggrieved parishioner," having entered a cavca' in the Bishop's Court. (See Letter XIV.) The " young gentleman " is probably Henry Th}-nne, Lord We>Tnouth's son, bom February 8, 1675, who married Grace, daughter of Sir George Strode, of Leweston, and died before his father; the "young l.tdy," his daughter, Frances, who after- wards married Sir Kobert Worsley. The gifts sent to them are obviously two more copies of the Practice of Divine Lor<\ with which their father seems to have been pleased. We note that Ken is already welcome at Longleat as an honoured guest. The letler gives no date of place, but was probably written at Wells, where he had been ministering to the five hundred prisoners who were waiting for their trial at the Bloody Assize, and, as we have seen, to John Hickes at A.D. 1685—89.] LETTERS TO LORD WEYMOUTH. 255 Glastonbury, on October C. Jeffreys' " bloody assize " in that city endod Sep- tember 20th. His ministrations included, as we 8h;ill see (ii. p. 99), tht; relief of bodily necessities as well as spiritual comfort and counsel. Sec. II. Ajip. III.] LETTER XIV. To Viscount WEYMOuxn. " All Glory be to God. *' My very good Lord, " Your Lordsbippe had great reason to blame y' custome of y' Court here, as it was represented to you, and for my owno i>art, though such Courts are called y" Bishoppe's Courts, yett your Lord- sliippe judges rightly, y' we have little to do in tlioni, and we often see things in them y' we may deplore, but cannot remedy. Upon enquiry I find y' y* trouble w*^^'' !Mr. Furze has created, was onoly to get mony, y* he might be bought off ; and therefore, upon j'* reading of your Letter, I resolved to give Mr. King Institution, w*^** having now done, I hope his adversary will forbeare to molest him. I doe withal returne your Lordshippo many thanks, for bringing sucli a person into my Diocesse. What little observation I have Ixitherto been able to make convinces me y' it is a Benefaction to the Coun- try, to send an able and a good man among them. " God of His Infinite Goodnesse, multiply ilis blessings on 3'our- selfe and Family. " My Good Lord, "Your Lordshippe's very humble and affectionate Servant, " THO. BATU & WELLS. *' Oct. 28, 1G85." [The difiBculties connected with Mr. King's institution have apparently b<>en surmounted. Furze seems to have entered a caveat which led to proceedint»s in the Court of the Chancellor of the Diocese, proceedings with which the Bishop had little or nothing to do, and with which ho could not personally interfere. Ken now felt himself, after duo inquiry', free to disrepjard tlie threats which originated in nothing better than a desire to extort black-miiil of some kind. The Registry of the Diocese shows that King followed Ken in not taking tho oaths to William and Mary, and was deprived in 1091.] LETTER AT. To Viscount WEVMotrTn. " All Glory bo to Uod. " My very good Lord, "lean now, God's lioly name be prais'd, give your I/ordsluppo a better account of the Good Lady tlian 1 did in my lust. She is 2oC THE PASTOR AND HIS FLOCK. [chap. xv. now in all npjioaranco past danpor, and k1oo[)os well, and oats an ff^^o, and sits up for two or throo houros, and has taken Steele {word omitted) a wooko w^'' agrees very well with her, so that she recovers dayly, and it is visible in her lookos. She has a gn-at mind for Asparagus, and there is none in all y" Country. If your Lordshippe has any, this messenger will wait on you tomorrow, and they will be a most acceptable present ; and the Physicians doe very gladly indulge her y' sort of Diett. She presents her humble service to yourself e and to my Lady, with abundant acknowh;dgi!monts of your great concerne for her. I cannot yett be permitted to leave Her ; onely I made an excursion to Wella for two nights, and I am very glad Mr. King came not thither. " God of His infinite goodnesse multiply His blessings on your- selfe, on my Lady, and on your family. " My Good Lord, "Your Lordshippe's most humble & aflFect. Servant, "THO. BATH & AYELLS." [The letter is undated, but the mention of ilr. King and of asparagus points to the early spring of 1686. I cannot identify the "good lady" on whose behalf Ken -writes. Apparently she was not resident at Wells. I conjecture that she may have been one of Ken's Winchester friends or relations, or, pos- sibly, one of the Misses Kemeys of Xaish. (II. 167.) The letter has, in any case, the interest of showing that Ken's sj-mpathy with sufferers extended even to the c-ipricious variations of their appetite. He who would ask nothing for himself would write to a friend in high position for aspariigus for a sick woman. The cultivation of asparagus was common enough in Ken's time, but he was probably asking for it before the usual season, and the forcing houses at Longleat might have been able to supply what was wanting in the garden of the Palace at Wells.] LETTER Xri. To . " AU Glory be to God. " Sir, ' Since my last y' Tenant has been here, &. this weeke my Steward to comply with him went to AVintescombe (AYinscombe?) to meet him, and when things are truely stated to j^ou, j-ou will find so little difference between yom* officer's accounts & mine, that you will then be convinced that I have great reason to adhere to my first proposal, rtj? / doe, resolving not to recede from it. I must needs let you know that y"" Officer had a gi'eat advantage of my Steward when they mett, for he coidd summon what Tenant he pleased to make good his surveigh, whereas my Steward could call none to justify mine, be- A.D. 1685—89.] KEN AS A MAN OF BUSINESS. 2.57 cause he would not expose them to y* displeasure of their imediate Landlord, and yett, though wee lay under that disadvantage, y'' own valuation serves very much to confirm ours. Let me then begg of you to present my due respects to y"^ Co-exect" and to acquaint them "with my finall answer, which is. That things standing as they doe, I expect what I first proposed. Some accidents may make me heighten my demands, but I am satisfyed that there can be no just reason to lessen thorn. If you are pleased to accept of my Conditions, my Steward shall wait on you at Ijondon. If not, I shall acquiesce ; for the future onely, if we doe agree, I forewarne you of one difficulty, w''*' I am told you may meet with, that it will be a troublesome thing to get all the Tenants to surrender, partly because the}' would have the lease run out that they might hold of me ; partly, because upon surrendering they have been ill used. "The blessing of God rest upon you & y'' family. "Good Sir, "Your aflPectionate faithfidl Servant, "THO. BATH & WELLS. " Octoher 2nd, 1686." [There is no address to the letter. It refers apparently to some negotiations about the renewal of a lease. It is, I think, the only letter extant which brings out Ken's character as a man of business. It will be seen that, when occasion called for it, hccould be at once clear-sighted in his proposals, and sufficiently firm in adhering to them. The " acquiescence " probably means that he would take no action, but let the lease run out. The following passage in Ueame's Diaries (ch. xciv. 132, Bodleian Library) is, I think, worth inserting as bring- ing out the same element in Ken's charatter : — "I have heard thi' impropria- tion there (Glastonbury) is in the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, and the Church served by a Curate or Vicar at a very small allowance, thai Bishop Ken resolved to increase it upon renewing with his tenant, but they could not agree, and the tenant tempted him oftfn with the fine, before his deprivation, to no purpose. His successor, Kidder, took it, without any further provision for the Church."] VOL. T. 2iii NICOLAS VAVILLON. [chap. xv. NOTE TO CnAFIER XV. KEN AND NICOLAS PAVILLON. T have Buggested (p. 110w.)the probaliility of Kon's having come, during his travels in lG7o, •within range of the reputation and in- fluence of the good Bishop of Alet who bore this name. The study of the Statuts Syyiodaux of tliat diocese, published in that very year, which I find among the books left by Ken to the library at Bath Abbey, leads me to the conclusion that his administration of his own diocese was largely modeUod after the pattern of what he had thus seen. Whether we regard him as the author of Ichabod or not, — and I have, I believe, shown that there is a balance of proba- bility in favour of that authorship, — we must, at any rate, think of him as starting on his travels with a keen sense of the shortcoming of the pastoral work of the English Church, such as he had seen and known it. He would naturally ask himself whether he could find things better ordered elsewhere. As a whole, he would seem to have sympathised more with the Reformed than with the Roman Catholics of France. But at Alet he would find one who would seem to him, as he did to others, to revive the simplicity and earnestness of the days of the Apostles, and to combine it with an organizing power of which the dioceses of England, at that time, presented few examples. He wovild admire the rules by which Pavilion sought to check non-residence (p. 9), secular dress (p. 14), or secular amusements (p. 20) ; the systematic provision for cate- chising all classes down to the poorest and most ignorant (pp. 37, 39) ; the stress laid on teaching children and those who could not read, short forms of prayer and praise, for morning and evening, and on other occasions during the day (pp. 159 — 162), and on a brief epitome of Christian doctrine as a basis for catechising, after due preparation (p. 155) ; the establishment of schools for both boys and girls under masters and mistresses appointed by the bishop (pp. 171 — 1 76) ; the conferences, such as we should call ruri-decanal, held once a month in each of the seven districts into which the diocese was divided, discussing pastoral questions, cases of conscience, and the like (pp. 30 — 35) ; the discipline enforced on negligent or scan- dalous priests (pp. 1 3 — 20) ; the standard of a devout daily life, begin- ning at 4 A.M. winter and summer, each hour of the daj- having its appointed work, of worship, or meditation, or study, or visiting the bick, or teaching, or gardening, all done as in the presence of God NICOLAS PAVILLOX. 259 and from the motive of the love of God (pp. 103 — 1C7); all this wliich we find in tlie Statuts, we find also in Ken's life and action, and as fai' as he had the power to enforce them, in his directions to his clergy. The case fur derivation, as distinct from that of a natural resemblance between two men working on the same lines, is strengthened by the fact tliut Pavilion (pp. 28, IGG) more tlian once recommends special books to his clergy, and that among these the writings of Louis of Granada, and of tlie author of the Lnifatio Chridi, occupy a high place. I find both these among Ken's books. I imagine tliat not many Anglican divines of the time were conversant with the former.' A friend (C. J. P.) suggests that the Devout Life of 8. Francis do Sales, or the Recollections of him published by his disciple and friend the Bishop of Bellay, may also have had mucli influence on Ken's character, and says with truth that the Practice of Divine Love is throughout permeated with the spirit of the Bishop whose favourite maxim was Ilourir ou Aimer. I admit the resemblance. I think it certain that there was influence, but I do not find in this case the marks of derivation which seem to me so strong and clear in the case of Pavilion. I)e Sales's Introduction is, however, among Ken's books at Welle. ' For a fuller account of Pavilion see the Life, by a Layman, Oxford (1869), and the Tour to Alet, in Mrs. Schiinmelpenninck'a Memoirs of Port Royal. The work of the " Regents" of Alet, devout women who did the work of .Sisters of Chaiity, hut not under the obligation of vows, reminds one strongly of the " Prott-stant nunnery" of Ken's friends, the Misses Kenicys of Naish Court. (See chap, xxiv.) The catalogue of Ken's books at Bath Abbey gives the following works by Louis de Granada : (1) Doctrina Christiana, lO.')? ; (2) I'rimera Parle de la Intro- duccion del Hymhoh de la Fv, 1672. The writer was born in 1504 at Granada, and died at Lisbon in 1582. At the age of twenty-four he entered the Dominican Monastery of Scala Cteli, near Granada, and waSTiuich inihunced by the writings of Pedro d' Alcantara, the spiritual master of St. Theresa, bom 1. ')!.'), died l.')82, Ciinonised 1622. following in his steps, he wrote a Treatise on I'raycr and Medi- tation (154-1), and a Guide of Sinners in lo5G. The latter work was placed in the Index by the Inquisition, the ban being, however, removed in 1570. The former work took its place with B)ethius and Augustine among Charles V.'s favourite bnoks in his retieat at YuNte. At the request of St. Charles Borromeo, Gregory XIII. congratulated him on his Laryer Vatrchism (1582). Ho t^ikcs hid plate ami. ng the noblest, and yet safest, of the Sjianish mysliis. Among other books of like character, I note tlio I'ida e Ohra.i (vol. i. 1618) of Juan do Avila (bom 1500, died 1569), also one of St. Theresa's guides, and those of Juan de 1a Cruz (born 1542, died 1591, canonised 1674), who also forms one of the ainie group. It is noticeable that many of the works of all these writers were at fir^t placed in the Index. F^r a fuller account of the School to which they all be- longed, SCO Ko.sselot, Mystiques Espaynols, 1869. Ken's books also include the Lettres Vhretiennes of St. Cyran, and Paacal's Lettres ProiinciaUs. s2 CHAPTER XVI. KEN AND J A M P: S II. " ' Not so," He s.'iid : ' hush thee, and seek. With thoughts in prayer and watchful eves, Mj spas'ins sent for thee to speak, And use them as they rise.' " J. H. Xrwman. We are drawing near the scene in which the two men who, strongly contrasted with each other, played their part in the drama of life in more or less close association, were brought face to face in what was for each the great crisis of his life. It will help us to understand that crisio, and to enter more fully into the life and character of each, if we can arrive at any definite impression as to the relations in which Ken and James stood to each other, before there was as yet any cause of conflict between them; and this will accordingly be the chief subject of the present chapter. I enter on the inquiry with some reluctance, but with a strong feeling of its importance. I am compelled to note as defective the treatment which it has received at the hands of Ken's previous biographers, and of most, if not all, popular historians. They have written as if Ken looked on James as Macaulay and Hume have taught us to look on him, as a con- temptible mixture of profligate and bigot, showing perhaps a little honesty and capacity for business in its details, but narrow-minded, vindictive, and superstitious, delighting in cruelty for its own sake,' perhaps the least loveable character ^ Macaulay, e.g. (following Burnet, 0. T., B. ii., 1684), represents him as gloating over the sufferings of the Covenanters in Scotland, when they were subjected to the ''boot"— a statement fur which the authority is, to say the A.D. 1686—87.] THE KING'S FRIEND. 261 ill the long list of English sovereigns. They look on Ken's adherence to his cause as simply an instance of his devotion to the principle of divine hereditary right, and of faithfulness to his oaths of allegiance, uninfluenced by any personal attach- ment. I have been led to a conclusion so different from this that I "will state it clearly at the outset, and then submit to the judgment of my readers the evidence on which it rests To me it seems that no explanation of Ken's conduct is adequate which does not include the element of a strong personal attachment between the two men, sincere and loyal, in its way, on the part of James, and on Ken's part, in proportion to the greater fervour and spirituality of his character, deepening into an affectionate interest, as of one who, being a lover of souls, cared for that of his friend, as one who was worthy of his love, with a deeper feeling than the loyal obedience of a subject. For him, I can- not doubt, the intercessions for the King, which he used himself, and urged on others to use, daily, were something more than " State Pi'ayers." During the period of his Xon-juring life he inserted such prayers in his Manual for Winchester Scholars, not merely on principle as a protest against William's usurpation, but because these were the prayers that came from his own lips and heart. If I were to illustrate my meaning by analogies more or less applicable, I should say that, mutafis niutandia, Ken felt towards James as AVilberforce felt towards Pitt, and Lord Shaftesbury towards Palmerston.^ All this is, of course, very different from the tone and temper of the Whig historian, sitting on his seat of judgment, like Dante's Minos, and sentencing the men and women who came before him, according to their least, in tho highest degree douhtful. (See Strickland, Queens, ix. p. 125.) Burnet himself admits that James, on his first visit (1680 — 81), adopted a far gentler policy than La udo id ale, and was accordingly popular. — 0. T., B. ii., 1682. * 1 note, though I cannot follow up the inquiry, that tho same strong tie of personal affoclion is also found in tho relations between James and William Penn. It is impossible to read the letters of the latter without seeing in thi'Ui the tone of a real friendship. There must, I take it, have been something lovoablo in a man who won tho regard of two men who, like Ken and Penn, standing at opposite polos of reliiiioiis thought, had yet this in common, that each followed conscience and sought after holiness. I refer to the letters in Janney's Life of JVnn (Phila- delphia , for my knowledge of which I am indebted to the late Mr. John Bright. Mrs. Penn was a frequent visitor, after James's exil^ at St. Germain's. 2G2 KEN AND JAMES IJ. [chap. xvi. merits, to the pits of Malcbol^'e, in which, if not in tlic lower depths of Antenora or Cuinu, James is to find his place. I submit that the view which I have taken is more in accordance with the evidence, more in harmony with all we know of the temper and character of a man like Ken, and I await the verdict of my readers with equanimity. Let it he remembered, then, on James's side, that he had known something of Ken almost ever since the Restoration, through his intimacy with Morley. He had learnt to think of him and Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, as the best preachers among the English clergy.' Ken's ascetic purity of character, his freedom from all worldly aims, would impress itself on the King's mind as being after the pattern which, both before and after his conversion to Rome, he had been taught to reverence.^ He had not lost the capacity, which even Charles, with his more careless cynicism, retained, of admiring in others the virtues in which his own life was conspicuously wanting. He could scarcely fail to have had a share in Ken's appointment as chaplain to his daughter at the Hague, and in the expedition to Tangier. In spite of the difference in their creeds he must have listened, without being offended, to Ken's earnest pleadings with his dying brother, and recognised that they had, at least, prepared the way for what, from his point of view, were Huddleston's more availing ministrations. His choice of Ken, as one of those who were to attend the wretched Monmouth at his execution, may well be traced to his sense of his fitness for the work of a confessor. When, at his interview with the Seven Bishops, he turned round and said that he " did not expect such usage from the Church of England, especially from some of the petition- ers," we can scarcely doubt that he spoke from the bitterness of his heart, as feeling that he was thwarted by one who had been his familiar friend. And putting ourselves, as far as is possible, in Ken's position, ' A. a Wood, in Bowles, ii., 69 ; Life of Frampton, Evans, p. 45. ' James, in his letter to his daughter Mary, gives the greater holiness which he found in the Church of Kome, as the chief ground of his conversion. .Another influence was that of a nun in a monastery of Flanders who advised him " to pray every day that if he was not in a right way, God would set him right, which did make a great impression on him." — Burnet, 0. T., ii., 1662. A.D. 1686—87.] MELIORA LATENT. 263 we must remember that, over and above the feeling of gratitude for the confidence thus shown in him, there were elements in J.imes's character on which he could scarcely fiiil to look with interest and hope. He must have recognised the conscientious- ness which led him, at the risk of exclusion from the throne, the certainty of loss of office, to avow the change in his convic- tions, instead of wearing, as Charles did, the mask of Protes- tantism even to the end. He would seem to Ken to stand far above the French King, who was the world's hero, and who had changed his creed because " Paris was well worth a mass." Aud )esidesthisproof of his sincerity there were even then, struggling through the habitual sensuality of his life, the germs of that ascetic devotion which was afterwards developed in the seclu- sion of St. Germain's and of La Trappe. Burnet found him, in 1675, reading Nieremberg Of the Difference of Things Temporal and Things Eternal,^ and ready to enter into conver- sation on topics which that work suggested as to the vanity of the world and its pleasures. Charles's sneer at his brother's choice of unbeautiful mistresses as an act of penance com- manded by his confessor, would have obviously had little point, had it not been well known that James was in the habit of self-inflicted chastisement, even to the discipline of the scourge. At the time, too, of which I now speak, 16^5 — 6, he had made a spasmodic effort after a greater purity of life, had condemned the prevailing license of his courtiers, and had emancipated himself (alas! only for a time) from his thraldom to Catherine Sedley, afterwards Countess of Dorchester (was the title offered by way of solatium ?), the last of the "un- beautiful." Ken's sympathies at such a time would rather be with Petre and James's confessor, who had urged this reform of manners, than with llochester, who, in spite of his own somewhat effusive religiousness, sought to keep James in constitutional courses through the influence of a mistress.'^ ' Burnet, 0. T., B. iii., 1675. '-If Lord Arlinplon would read that book," said James, " he would not meddle in sd many aftairs us he docs." It is a curious coincidence that Kon probably derived his story of " The Jlonk and the Bird " (ii. p. 249), from this very work of Nieromberg's. "We ask, " Did James re om- mend the work to Ken, or Ken to James i"'' \Vu have, at any rate, a prool of sympathy. The volume is found in the Ken Library at Longleat. ' Maraulay, eh. vi. ; Heresliy, p. ^h&. 204 KEN AND JAMES II. [chap. ivi. Wore I free to assume, as I am inclined to do (I shall give reasons for my judgment at a later stage), the genuine- ness of two works which most of Ken's biographers reject as apocrvphiil, I should have a comparatively easy task. It is impossible to mistake the tone of personal affection which breathes, from tirst to last, through the Royal Sufferer. Diffe- rences of creed have not impaired the writer's power of sym- pathy in spiritual things with the sufferer to whom he writes. lie enters on a task which was nothing less than that of supply- ing the exiled king with an Icon Basi/ike, like that which had endeared the memory of Charles I. to so many thousands of his subjects, and invested him in their eyes with the character of a saint and martyr.* He apologises for his acts of misgo- vernment, such as the cruelties of the Bloody Assize and his interference in the Magdalen College election, on the ground that he was misguided by his counsellors. lie hopes that he may be guided through the changes and chances of life to a crown of " immarcescible glor}'." Nor is the evidence of the Letter to An-hbitihop Tenison less conclusive. The point on which the writer of that letter lays most stress, in indicting that prelate for his want of faithfulness in his ministrations at Mary's deathbed, is that he had not exhorted her to repentance for her needlessly undutiful conduct to her father, for her treatment of those who were loyally attached to her, and whom she had treated as her enemies simply because they were her father's friends. Had Ken been at her deathbed, he would have pleaded for that father's claim on his daughter's affection, with the warmth of personal attachment. Even on the assumption of the spuriousness of the works which I have named, it re- mains, as a fact not without weight, that this was what the authors of the apocryphal publications thought they could siifely present to the public, as being what Ken was likely to have thought and written.^ I pass to less controverted indications of Ken's feeling towards James in the language of devoted and confiding loyalty which breathes through the address from the Bishop * I may note, in passing, the dedication of churches at PljTnouth and Tunhridgc Wells to St. Charles the MartjT. There are, I believe, four others. * See Notes to chaps, xxi. and xxii. k.x>. 1686—87.] PERSONAL FRIEND SEIP. 265 and clergy of his diocese, quoted in chap, xiii., and which per- vaded the Coronation sermon preached by his dearest friend and old school-fellow Francis Turner. The same warm reirard is traceable in the portrait of Daniel, more or less unconsciously a self-portraiture, in the memorable Lent sermon preached at Whitehall in 1685. " He did greatly love, and there- fore he was greatly beloved ; that was all the court cunning, all the philtre that Daniel had." " Xone can serve the prince well, but he does serve the people too, and Daniel served his prince and not himself." "You have seen how love was reciprocal, how Daniel greatly loved the king and the people ; and this was the secret he had, which naturally attrjcted so universal a love." " Learn from Daniel a universal obliging- ness and benignity, an awful love to your prince, a constant fidelity, an undaunted courage, an unwearied zeal in serving him." Even the stress w^hich Ken lays on the higher obliga- tions of conscience, as illustrated in Daniel's refusal to obey the decree of Darius, is best understood when we see in it a forecast of the choice, which even then he felt he might before long have to make, between his personal afiection for the king and his duty to his God.^ And as yet James had not laid aside the moderation that might deceive more discerning eyes than Ken's. When Ken wrote to him, in conjunction with Sir Thomas Cutler, then in com- mand at Wells, to remonstrate against the cruelty of Feversham and his officers, and pleaded for the extension of the royal mercy to them, their request was granted without any signs of reluctance. The King thanked 8ir Thomas for his interces- sion, expressed how agreeable it was to him, and wished that the like humanity had engaged others to act in the same way.' A month or two later Ken met James at Winchester, where he had probably waited to renew his intercession for the ' The sermon presents an interesting paralklism with St. Francis de Sales. " No holy person can love God to that dci^ice, without passionuttly desiring to love Him more and more " (Round, p. 172). " If you want to love God, go on loving Him more and more ; never look back, pres.s forward continually." (Camus's Spirit of St. Franci.i, i.) The fact that Ken had Do Sales" Guide to a Devout Life in his library makes it probable that this was more than a coincidence of thought. (See p. 206 for a fuller account of the sermon.) ' Rfjlections upon Dr. Burnet's Posthumous Huitory, p. 100; Routh, ]>. 73. 2G6 KEN AM) J AMI'S II. [chap. xvi. rebels,' while Jeffreys w.is opening his "campaign," and Evelyn records a conversation on September 10, IGHo : — "Sept. 16. The next morning' sftting out early, we arriv'd soon enough at Winchester to wait»3 on tlio Xing, who was lodg'd at the Dean's (Dr. Meggot). I found very few with him besides my Lords Feversham, Arran, Newjjort, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Ilis Majesty was discounsing with the Bishop concerning miracles, and what strange things the Saludadors would do in Spaine, as by creeping into heated ovens without hurt, and that they had a black crosse in the roofe of their mouthes, but yet were commonly notorious and profane wretches ; upon which his Majesty further said, that he was so extreamly difficult of miracles, for feare of being impos'd upon, that if he should chance to see one himselfe, without some other witness, he should apprehend it a delusion of his senses. Then they spake of the boy who was pretended to have a wanting leg restor'd him, so confidently asserted by Fr. de Sta. Clara and others. To all which the Bishop added a greate miracle happening in Westminster^ to his certaine knowledge, of a poor miserably sick and decrepit child (as I remember, long kept unbap- tiz'd), who immediately on his baptism recover'd ; as also of the salutary effect of K. Charles his Majesty's father's blood, in healing one that was blind. " There was something said of the second sight happening to some persons, especially Scotch ; upon which his ^Majesty, and I think Lord Arran, told us that Mens. , a French noble- man, lately here in England, seeing the late Duke of Monmouth come into the play-house at London, siiddenly cried out to somebody sitting in the same box, Voild Monsieur, comme il entre sans Ute. Afterwards his Majesty spoke of some reliques that had effected strange cures, particularly a piece of our Bl. Saviour's Crosse, and healed a gentleman's rotten nose by onely touching ; and speaking of the golden crosse and chaine taken out of the cofftu of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster, by one of the singing men, who, as the scaffolds were taking down after his Majesty's coronation, espying a hole in the tomb, and something glisten, put his hand in and brought it to the Deane, and he to the King; his Majesty began to put the Bishop in mind how earnestly the late King (his brother) called upon him, during his agonie, to take out what he had in his pocket. I had thought, said the King, it had been for some keys, which might lead to some cabinet that his Majesty would have me 1 See Letter x. p. 228. • Probably a mistake of Evchii's for Winchester (see p. 91). A.B. 1686—87.] CONSECRATION AT WINCHESTER. 2G7 secure; but, says he, you well remember that I found UDtliiiip^ in any of his pockets but a crosse of gold, and a few in^iguiticant papers ; and thereupon he shew'd us the crosse, and was pleas'd to put it into my hand. It was of gold, about three inches long, having on one side a crucifix enanicU'd and eniboss'd, the rest was grav'd and garnish'd with goldsmiths' work, and two pretty broad table ametliists (as I conceived), and at the bottom a pendant pearle ; within was inchas'd a little fragment, as was thought, of the true Crosse, and a Latino inscription in gold and Eoman letters. More company coming in, this discourse ended. I may not forget a resolution which liis IMajesty made, and ha 1 a little l)efore ontcr'd upon it at the Council Board at Windsor or White-hall, that the Negroes in the Plantations should all be baptiz'd, exceedingly declaiming against that impiety of their masters prohibiting it, out of a ndstaken opinion that they would be ipao facto free; but his Majesty persists in his resolution to have them christen'd, which piety the Bishop blessed him for." It will be admitted that the tone on both sides in those conversations is that of men who respected and confided in each other, who felt that they had much in common in their religious convictions, and as to the rest, might well be content to ditt'er. Ken's story of the cure, which seemed to him to have a quasi-miraculous character, could scarcely fail to im- press itself on a man like James. The King's zeal for the baptism of the negroes in our plantations, his feeling that for them also Christ had died, and that for them was the kingdom of heaven, would touch the deepest chords in the heart of the Bishop. licfore long, however, the nation gazed, with wonder and alarm, on a more rapid development of James's plans. Romish controversialists circulated their pamphlets broadcast in cofl'ee- houscs and other places of resort, and entered into discussions with passengers in stage-coaches to Windsor and elsewhere. The Pope's Nuncio, Count Ferdinand d'Adda, who hud arrived in London in November, 1G85, after being consecrated in James's Chapel as Archbishop of Amasia, was received in state at Windsor on July 3rd, 1087.* In Ireland the Romish bishops ' Two ])is)i()iis, Crewo and Cnrtwright, wero siibservii nt enough to attend the ceremonial. Tho Diiko of Suincjrset wa.s diHmissi^d Ironi his posts at court because he refused to atttnd on tho occasion. Amasia was in Bithyiiia, a t.ee in parti iu$. 268 KEN AND JAMES II. [cuw. xvi. were authorised to lioM a convention on May l-^th, 1G86. The Irish judges were dispensed from taking the oath of supremacy. Nineteen Romanists were sworn in Privy Councillors ; in Ire- land the corporations wore filled with them. Three hundred Protestant officers and five thousand soldiers were dismissed from their regiments, and their places were filled up hy Papists. Romish priests were appointed military chaplains. The compara- tively cautious policy of Lord Clarendon (brother of the Earl of Rochester) as Viceroy was overridden by the more ' thorough ' action of the Earl of Tyrconnel, who at last formally super- seded him. In Scotland (March 2nd, 1G86) the King issued his first declaration of indulgence in favour of his Romish subjects, but did not extend it to the Presbyterians. A collusive trial, in the case of Sir Edward Hales, who, being a Roman Catholic, had been appointed Lieutenant of the Tower, had, in the hands of subservient judges, established the King's dis- pensing power. Lender the King's first Declaration of Indul- gence in l^^ST many thousand Papists and twelve thousand Quakers had been released from prison. In England a revived Court of Ecclesiaetical Commission, with vague, undefined powers in dealing with offences, was created (July 14th, 1686) by royal edict, in defiance of an Act of Parliament. Jeffreys was its leading mind. Sancroft had been placed on it, but declined to act, pleading the infirmities of age, and was consequently informed that the King no longer desired his attendance at Court. Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and Sprat of Rochester, however, consented to take tlie place assigned to them. The other members were Sunderland, Rochester, and Herbert, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. ^ Compton was brought before the Court, in August, 1686, for not having sus- pended Sharp, Dean of Norwich, and rector of St. Giles-in-the- Fields, for preaching a controversial sermon in spite of the King's proclamation forbidding all controversy. The officers of the Household were sent for to the King's closet, and off'ered their choice between accepting his policy or dismissal. It must have been a satisfaction to Ken to find that his old friend Lord Maynard, who tilled the post of Comptroller of the Household, 1 The Cdiirt was not inaptly described as the College de Propagnndn Fide, transferred from Rome to London. A. D. 1086— 87.] SERMOX AT innrERALL. 269 stood firm under this pressure, as he had done forty years before, when impeached by Parliament for his adhesion to James's father, and, with less wavering and delay, did as Rocliester had done, and resigned his office. So matters were going on when it came to Ken's turn to preach again at Whitehall, on the fifth JSunday in Tjent, 1G87. The King, of course, never attended these sermons, but the Princess Anne was there, and " at least thirty of the greatest nobility," and the chapel was crowded. Ken did not publish the sermon, and all that we know of it is to be found in Evelyn's Diary of March 10, 1687. His text was St. John viii. 46, " Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me ?" : ''Afost of the gveate Officers, both in the Court and rountrv, Lords and others, were dismiss'd, as they would not promise his Majesty their consent to the repeal of the Test and penal Statutes against Popish Recusants. To this end most of the Parliament men were spoken to in his Majestys closset, and such as refus'd, if in any place or office of trust, civil or military, were put out of their em- ployments. This was a time of greate trial, but hardly one of them assented, which put the Popish interest much backward. The English Cleargy everywhere preach'd boldly against their supersti- tion and errors, and were wonderful!}' follow'd by the People. Not one considerable proselyte was made in all this time. The party were exceedingly put to the worst by the preaching and writing of the Protestants in many excellent treatises, evincing the doctrine and discipline of the Reform'd Eeligion, to the manifest disadvan- tage of their adversaries. To this did not a little contribute the sermon preach'd at White-liall before tlie Princesse of I)enmark and a great croud of People, and at least .'30 of the gi-eatest Nobility, by Dr. Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, on 8 John 46 (the Gosi)el of the day) describing thro' his whole discourse the blasphemies, perfidy, wresting of Scripture, prefereiice of tradition before it. spirit of persecution, superstition, legends and fables of the Scriltcs and Pharisees, so that all the aiulitory understood his nicaning of n parallel between tnem and the Romish Priests, and their new- Trent Religion. He exhorted his audience to adhere to the written Word, and to persevere in the Faith taught in theCliuroh of Eng- land, whose doctrine for Catholic and sounchicss \\v prefi'rr'd to nil the Communities and Churches of Christians in thi' world; con- 270 KEN AND JAMi:s If. [chap. xvi. cludiiif^ willi a li)hof'y, tliat wliatftver it Ruffer'd, it should after a short trial cmorge to tho confusion of Ikt adversaries, and the glory of God.'" Tliis was followed up on the following Palm Sunday hy a sermon at St. Martin's-iu-the-Fiulds. I again quote from Evelyn, noting only that Ken's reverence for the day led him in this instance to eschew all controversy, and to confine himself to the mysteries of the Passion ; — " March 20.— The Bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Ken) preach'd at St. Martines to a crowd of people not to be express'd, nor the won- •lerful oloquonce of this admirable preacher ; the text was 26 ]\Iatt. 36 to verse 40, describing the bitterness of our Bl. Sa\-iour'8 agony, the ardour of his love, the infinite obligations we have to imitate his patience and resignation : the means by watching against tempta- tions, and over ourselves, with fervent praj-er to attaine it, and the exceeding reward in the end. Upon all which he made most pa- theticall discourses. The Communion followed, at which I was participant. I afterwards din'd at Dr. Tenison's with the Bishop and that young, most learned, pious and excellent preacher, Mr. AVake." It is the first recorded interview between the model bishop and the model layman, but, looking to the number of their common friends, it is probable enough that they were already acquainted, and that they were invited by Tenison, then Rector of St. Martin's, to meet each other for that very reason. During these visits to London he seems to have been the guest of his old schoolfellow, Francis Turner, at Ely House, near Holborn, and an undated letter from the Princess Anne to that bishop probably belongs to this period : — • An earlier sermon had been prea' hed by Ken on March Hth. 168J, Evelyn's report of which hns been given in p. 242. "What strikes one in the sermons of this period is that the necessities of the time forced him against his will, and against the usual tenor of his life, into the attitude of a controversinlist, and that he did not shrink from speaking the truth with boldness, precisely at the time when that boldness was certain to ))ring him into disfavour with the prince, whom he not only re^pected as a king, but also loved as a friend. He, at all events, would not tune his voice according to the time, and be like the Proteo of his owir Edmund (see ii. p. 243). A.D. 1086-^-87.] FIRST DECLARATION OF IXLULGEyCE. 271 " I hear the Bishop of Bath and Wells expounds' this afternoon at your Chapel, and I have a great mind to hear him ; therefore I desire you -would do me the favour to let some place be kept for me, where I may hear well, and be the least taken notice of : for I will bring but one body with me, and desire I may not be known. I should not have given you the trouble, but that 1 was afraid if I sent any body, they might have made some mistake. Pray let me know what time it begins." The Bishop's sermons were obviously making a sensation in London, and the suspicions previously entertained as to his Protestantism probably increased the interest with which men now listened to him. On the 4th of April, 1687, the King issued his first English Declaration of Indulgence." The nature of that document and its effect on the action of Ken and the other bishops will come under our notice at a later stage. Here I content myself with printing it in ejrtenso, as a State paper of the first order of historical importance.^ For the most part, English historians give little more than the briefest possible summary of it. The biographer of Ken may well think himself bound to bring before his readers the very words on which the Bishop had to form a judgment, which were to him and those who acted with him the occasion of the great crisis of their lives : His Majesties^ Gracious Declaration to all Bis Loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience. James R. " It having pleased Almighty God, not only to bring Us to the Imperial Crown well as Duty ; Which We think can be done by no means so effectually as by ' The wurd suirgehts that it was in the nature of a catfchetical lecture nithcr Ihan of a formal seriiiDn. Ken's gifts wuuld seem to have lain emphatically in this direction. The htler appears in the Genflemmi's Magazine for March, 1814, as communicated by Richard Fowkn. — Round, p. 208. * The theory of toleiation was at least no n> w thing with James. "Ho aasuied us (Burnet and Siillingfleet) he desired nothing but to follow his own conscience, which he imposed on noi oily else. He did very uften assure me that he was against all violent measures, and all persecution lor C(ln^cience' sake." — Bui net. (K r , B. iii , 1673. 3 Miscellaneous Printed Papers. Ashmole, 1818. Bodl. Libr. Howell, Slatt Triah, pp. 234—8. 272 Ki:y AM) JAMES II. [chap, xvr prnntincf to (hom thn frr-o Exorcise of their Iloligion for the time to come, anfl add that to I he perfect Enjoyment of their I'roperty, which has never been in any Case Invaded by Ua since Our comincr to the Crown : Which, beinp the two tilings Jfen vahie most, shall ever bo preserved in these Kingdoms, duiing Our Reign over them, as the truest Methods of their Peace and our Glory. Wo cannot but heartily wish, as it will easily be believed, tha' all the People of Our Dominions were Jlembers of the Catholick Cliiirch, yet We humbly thank Almighty God, it IN, and hath of long time been. Our constant Sense and Opinion (which upon diverse Occasions We have declared) that Ormscience ought not to be constrained, nor People forced in matters of meer Itcligion : It has ever been directly contrary to Our Inclination, as AVe think it is to the Interest of Government, which it destroys by spoiling Trade, dcpopiilating Countreys, and discouraging Strangers ; and finally, that it never obtained the End for which it was employed. And in this We are the more Confirmed by the Reflections We have made upon the Conduct of the four last Reigns. For after all the frequent and pressing Endeavours that wore used in each of them, to reduce this Kingdom to an exact conformity in Religion, it is visible the Success has not answered the Design, and that the diflBculty is invincible ; We therefore out of our Princely Care and Affection nnto all Our Loving Subjects, that they may live at Ease and Quiet, and for the increase of Trade, and incouragement of Strangers, have thought fit by vertue of Our Royal Prerogative, to issue forth this Our Declaration of Indulgence ; making no doubt of the Concurrence of Our Two Houses of Parliament, when We shall think it convenient for them to Meet. " In the first Place We do Declare, That We will Protect and Maintain Our Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and Clergy, and all other Our Subjects of the Church of England, in the free Exercise of their Religion, as by Law Established, and in the quiet and full Enjoyment of all their Possessions, without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever. " We do likewise Declare, That it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure, That from henceforth the Execution of all and all manner of Penal Laws in Matters Ecclesi- astical, for not coming to Church, or not Receiving the Sacrament, or for any other Non-conformity to the Religion established, or lor, or by Reason of the Exercise of Religion in any manner whatsoever, be immediately Suspended ; And the further Execution of the said Penal Laws and every of them is hereby Suspended. " And to the end that by the Libert}- hereby granted, the Peace and Security of Our Government in the Practice thereof, may not be indangered. We have thought fit, and do hereby straitly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects, That, as We do freely give them Leave to Meet and Serve God after their own Way and Manner, be it in Private Houses or Places purposely Hired or Built for that use; so that they take especial care, that nothing be Preached or Taught amongst them, which may any ways tend to Alienate the Hearts of Our People from Us or Our Government ; And that their Meetings and Assemblies be peaceably, openly, and publickly held, and all Persons freely admitted to them ; And that they do signifie and make known to some one or more of the next Justices of the Peace, what Place or Places they set apart for those uses. " And that all Our Subjects may enjoy such their Religious Assemblies with greater Assurance and Protection. We have thought it requisite, and do hereby Command, That no Disturbance of any kind be made or given unto them, under Pain of Our Displeasure, and to be further proceeded aguinst with the utmost !H-veritv. A.D. 1686-87.] FIRST DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE 273 " And forasmuch as we are desirous to have the Benefit of the Service of all Our Loving Subjects, which by the Ijaw of Nature is inseparately annexed to and inherent in Our Royal Person : And that none of our Subjects may for the future be under any Discouragement or Disability (who are likewise well inclined and fit to serve Us) by Reason of some Oaths and Tests, that have bein usually Administered on such Occasions : AVe do hereby Declare, That it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure, That the Oaths commonly called, The Oathn of Supremacy and Allegiance, and also the several Tests and Declarations, mentioned in the Acts of Parliament made in the 25th and 30th years of the Reign of Our late Royal Brother, King Charles the Second, shall not at any time hereafter be required to be Taken, Declared, or Subscribed by any Person or Persons whatsoever, who is or shall be Imployed in any Office or Place of Trust, either Civil or Military, under Us or in Our Government, And We do further Declare it to be Our Pleasure and Intention from time to time hereafter, to Grant Our Royal Dispensations under Our Great Seal to all Our Loving Subjects so to be Imployed, who shall not take the said Oaths, or Subscribe, or Declare the said Tests or Declarations in the above-mentioned Acts and every of them. " And to the end that all Our Loving Subjects may receive and enjoy the full Benefit and Advantage of Our Gracious Indulgence hereby intended, and may be Acquitted and Discharged from all Pains, Penalties, Forfeitures, and Disabilities by them or any of them incurred or forfeited, or which they shall or may at any time hereafter be liable to. for or by reason of their Non-conformity, or the Exercise of their Religion, and from all Suits, Troubles, or Disturbances for the same ; We do hereby give Our Free and Ample Pardon unto all Non- Conformists, Recusants, and other Our Loving Subjects, for all Crimes and Things by them committed or done contrary to the Penal Laws formerly made relating to Religion and the Profession or Exercise thereof. Hereby Declaring, That this Our Royal Pardon and Indemnity shall be as Good and Etfectual to all Intents and Purposes, as if every Individual Person had been therein Particularly named, or had particular Pardons under Our Great Seal, which We do likewise Declare shall from time to time be granted unto any Person or Persons desiring the same : Willing and Requiring our Judges, Justices, and other OflicerH to take Notice of and Obey Our Royal Will and Pleasure herein before Declared. " And although the Freedom and Assurance We have hereby given in relation to Religion and Property, might be sufficient to remove from the Minds of" Our Loving Subjects all Fears and Jealousies in relation to either; yet We liave thought fit further to Declare, That We will Maintain them in all their Properties and Possessions, as well of Church and Abbey-Lands,' as in any other their Lands and Properties whatsoever. " Given at Our Court at Whitehall the Fourth Bay of April, 1G87. In the Th\,d Year of Our Reiyn. " By His Majesties special Command. *' London, Printed by Charles Hill, Henry Hill, and Thomas Nnccomb, Printers to the King's Most Kxiellenl Majesty, 1687." ' The mention of the Abbey lands was noted as significant. "It b inked as if the design of setting up popery was thought very near being etfeited, aimo otherwise there was no need of mentioning any such thing." — Buruet, O.T, B. iv., 1687. VOL. I. T l-'74 KEN AND JAMES IT. [chap. xvi. It may be noted that the declaration seemed at first likely to accomplish its purpose. Addresses poured in from Ana- baptists, (Quakers, and other bodies of Nonconformists, thank- in See Evelyn, Diary, March 14th, 1686, in Note, p. 270. ' The words are not found in the west window now, but I am unable to say whea they were removed. A.D. 1686— 87.] JAMES'S '' TOUCETNG''' AT BATH. 277 iteration of time-worn and threadbare arguments. The press of London was teeming with such publications, and Hooper's books at Wells contain some forty volumes of them. What he actually did, and it sufficiently indicates the temper of his mind at this crisis, was to alter the sentence in the Practice of Divine Love with which his opponent had taunted him so as to avoid the possibility of a Romish interpretation.^ As yet, however, the part which Ken had taken does not seem to have given offence to the King. After dissolving Parliament in the hope that, by manipulating the elections, he might obtain a House of Commons more disposed to compliance with his wishes and to accept the Declaration of Indulgence, and after having received at Windsor the Pope's nuncio, Ferdinand d'Adda, Archbishop of Amasia, with great pomp (no such ceremony had been witnessed in England for a hundred and fifty years), James started on a state progress through the western counties, accompanied, of course, by his household, by his chaplains, by Father Petre, and (the juxtaposition is sufficiently strange) by William Penn. In the course of that progress James came to Bath, where his Queen was still staying, and there he and the Bishop met under somewhat tr^'ing conditions. The King, remembering probably the effect that had been produced by Monmouth's " touching" for the king's evil, and probably enough, really holding this to be among his most precious privileges as an anointed King, determined to hold a function of like character with all imaginable stateliness. It is difficult for us to realise the feelings which led to the long continuance of that ceremonial through the movements of the Reformation and the great Puritan rebellion, which might have seemed likely to bring about its natural death. To us it seems almost the uc jt/ua ultra of a sickly superstition ; and yet it held its ground through all the chances and changes of history, from the days of Edward the Confessor, with whom it originated, and to whose canonisation it had contributed. Not bishops and divines only proclaimed its efficacy, but men of reputed science accepted its supernatural cures. The work, in the words of John Browne, one of Charles II.'s " Chirurgeons in Ordinary," » See p. 236. 278 KEN AND JAMES IT. [chap. xvi. " carried more of Divinity than Majesty in it. The art of physick was non-plus'd, and Chirurgery tied up ; all chirurgeons what- soever must truckle to the balsamic power ; more souls have been healed by His Majesty's Sacred hand in one year than have been cured by all the physicians and chirurgeons of his Three Kingdoms since his happy Restauration." ^ One of the features of the ceremony naturally made it attrac- tive to real or pretended sufferers from scrofula. Each of those who came to the healing was presented with a gold coin, known from the device on it as an 'angel,' strung upon a white silk ribbon, which was hung round the patient's neck by the royal hands. It was natural, under such conditions, that the ceremonial should be well attended. Evelyn records (March 28th, 1684) that six or seven persons were crushed to death in the crowds at Whitehall in Charles II.'s reign. It was equally natural that the sufferers should often discover that their cure was not complete without a second application of the same talisman, and that the talismans themselves should sometimes find their way to the goldsmiths' shops. If, as recorded, Charles II. had " touched " some ninety-two thousand persons in the course of his reign, the ceremonial must have been a somewhat serious drain on the royal treasury. A special service, often printed and bound up with the Book of Common Prayer, in which bishops and chaplains took part, was used on the occasion. It is significant that William III. discontinued the practice as a silly superstition, that it was revived under Queen Anne (Samuel Johnson was " touched " by Queen Anne in his early childhood ; unfortunately, in his case, the cure was all too imperfect), and since the accession of the House of Brunswick the practice has happily become entirely obsolete.^ On this occasion the ceremonial was one of singular magnifi- cence, and the circumstances were such as must have impressed themselves on the minds of all beholders. Of all the many ' Browne's Adcnochoirodelogia : Treatise on King's Evil Swellings. 8vo, 1684, quoted by Anderdon, p. 374. See Pettigrew : Superstitions connected with Medi' cine, 1844, pp. 117 — 154. Inderwick's Side-Lights on the Stuarts, 1888, gives an engraviDg of the coin used. * The Jacobites of the time, of course, looked on the disuse as a practical con- fession that one of the special gifts attached to the Divine Eight of kings was wanting to the then wearer of the crown. A.D. 1686—87.] EUBBLESTONE AT BATH. 279 acts, insolent and insidious, by which James, as if possessed by the dementia in which the medioDval proverb recognised the note of a fore-ordained, self-wrought destruction, brought about his own ruin, this, though it finds no place in the long list of ofi'ences which enter into Macaulay 's narrative as counts in the indictment against James, and, though it was less violent and oppressive than his treatment of the two Magdalen Colleges or of Bishop Compton, seems to me at once the most insolent and insidious. The " touching " was to take place in the Abbey Church, which was popularly known as one of the two cathedral churches of Ken's diocese, and which, though it had no dean and chapter, was the church in which the Bishop, when at Bath, had his ccifhedra, and was so far entitled to the name. Ken was himself at Bath, and no notice was given to him of the intended ceremonial. The altar was decked and the ritual ordered by Huddleston, who had successfully interposed between Ken and the soul that he was seeking to win and save as a member of the English Church. According to a Bath tradition, Huddleston took the oppor- tunity to make a proselytising address to the crowds that filled the Abbey, exhorting them to return to the Church of their forefathers.^ A new form of service, reviving the order used under Ilenry VIII., was printed by the King's order for the occasion, distinctively Romish in character, in which the King was made to say, " I confess to God and the blessed Virgin Mary, to all saints and to you, that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed through my fault. I pray holy Mary, and all the saints of God, and you, to pray for me." ^ ' According to ono form of the same tradition Ken was present, and, as soon as Huddleston had finished, " mounted the pulpit and exposed his fallacies in ti strain of such expressive eloquence as astonished and delighted his congregation, and confounded Huddleston and the royal bigot " (Warner, Ilistory of Bath, p. 2.57). I incline, however, with Markland and Anderdon, to think that this was iinprohahle, and was a distorted version of the course which Ken reports that ho actually took. ''■ The City Records of Bath (for extracts from which I am indebted to Mr. B. H. Watts) throw no light on the Abbey scenes ; but the Council Books of that city of August 23rd, 1687, show that the King took the opportunity of *' commanding " the Council to elect Francis Carne as Master of the Free ychool. I surmise that the man was either a Papist or a Popishly inclined ti'acher, and that James was playing at Bath the same game as at Oxford. William K. Guest was also made a freeman of the city by the King's command. Both cased were probably intended to illustrate the Declaration of Indulgence. •.'80 KEN AX 1) JAMES, II. [chap. xvi. One cannot help thinking that James ventured deliberately on this audacious defiance of decency as calculating on Ken's non-resisting meekness. To some extent he was not disap- pi)inted. Ken (as wo see from his own account of the trans- action) made no public protest at the time. It did not seera to him expedient to condemn a ceremonial which, after all, h'! h:id no power to prevent, and which seemed to his people to be connected with a work of charity. What he actually did, and his apo/of/ia for it, we find stated with sufficient clearness in the following letter : — LETTER XVII. To AncHBisnop Sancroft. " All Glory be to God. '•My very good Lord, " Though I have always been very tender of giving your Grace any trouble, yett I thinke it my duty, having this opportunity of a safe conveyance, to acquaint you with one particular, which hap- pened at Bath, and to begge your advice for the future. "WTien His Majesty was at Bath, there was a great healing, and without any warning, unlesse by a flying report : the office was performed in the Chvirch, between the houres of prayer. I had not time to remonstrate, and if I had done it, it would have had no effect, but only to provoke : besides I found it had been done in other churches before, and I know no place but the Church which was capable to receive so great a multitude as came for cure : upon which con- sideration I was wholly passive. But being well aware what ad- vantage the Eomanists take from the least seeming complyances, I took occasion on Sunday from the Gospell, the subject of which was the Samaritan, to discourse of Charity, wliich, I said, ought to be the religion of the whole world, wherein Samaritan and Jew were to agree, and though we could not open the Church-doores to a wor- ship different from that we paid to God, yett we should alwayes sett them open to a common work of Charity, beoause, in performing mutuall offices of Charity one to another, there ought to be an universal! agreement. " This was the substance of what I said upon that action, which I humbly submit to 3-our Grace's Judgment ; and it was the best expedient I coidd thinke of, to prevent giving scandall to our owne people, and to obviate all the misrepresentations the Eomanists might make of such a connivance. I am very sensible of your A.D. 1686—87.] LETTERS TO SANCROFT. 281 Grace's burthen, and doe beseech Almighty Goodness e to support you under it. And I earnestly crave your Blessing, being ambitious of nothing more than to be one of the meanest of your Companions in the Kingdome and Patience of Jesus. "My good Lord, ** Your Grace's most obedient Son and humble Servant, "THO. BATH & WELLS.i "Aug. 2Gth, 1687." [It will be noted (1) that Ken did not trust the post with his letter, but waited till he could send it, without risk of its being tampered with, by a private hand. (2) That, though this was on a more conspicuous scale, there had been like services held in other churches before. I have not been able to trace where. Macaulay (ii. 794) says vaguely that " James visited Portsmouth, walked round the fortifications, and touched some scrofulous people." (3) The phrase as to charity being " the religion of the whole world " is singularly characteristic] James seems to have started immediately afterwards on a further progress, went to Gloucester, "Worcester, Chester,^ was joined at the last-named city by Penn, and made his way to Oxford, where he bullied and threatened the Fellows of Mag- dalen, and found that his threats were fruitless.^ lie went away in a rage, and rejoined his Queen at Bath. It was within that week that we find Ken writing another letter, which exhibits him in a state of some perplexity. Assuming the rumour of which he speaks to have had some foundation, James may probably have been tempted by his compliant silence at Bath, to think that he would find him in all things subservient to his wishes. Ken, he knew, had personal friends among the Fellows of Magdalen, and notably ' Bodleian Tanner MSS., vol. xxix. p. 6.5. ^ The King 'touched' at Chester, as he had done at Bath, but there Cart- wright was Bishoj), and, of course, there was nothing said by way of protest. (Cartwright's Diary, p. 7-1.) It was at Chester too that ho went, by way of a practicjil illustration of the Declaration of Imlulgence, to hear Ponn hold forth in a conventicle, after attending mass in the Shire-hall, fitted up for the purpose, in the morning. (Ibid.) * It is significant that one of James's reproaches at Oxford was that in his father's time" Catholicksand Protestants" used to live i)eaccably together, and now it was otherwise. Ho bade his hrarers remcmbiT that he, for his part, was det^nniniHi that he would have this altered. His filling Magdalen with a President, Fellown, and Demii'S, all of whom were Romanists, was, apparently, his first great stop in that direction. Why should men gruiigo one college to the members of the King's Church ? — A. il Wood, Life, pp. 361 — 363. 282 KEN AND JAMKH 11. [chap. xvi. Thomas Smith and John Fitzwilliam (both of whoso names >vill meet us af^ain), and he may have hoped that Ken would exercise his influence over the rebellious college, and persuade it to submission. In any case his visiting the Bishop in his own palace would impress the public mind with the convic- tion that he was in full accord with the King's proceedings. Mingled with this there may have been (we cannot, I fear, get out of the region of conjecture) a feeling of personal affection, and a wish to see something of the Bishop's saintly life in his own home. LETTER XVIII. To Lord Dartmouth. " AU Glory be to God. " My very good Lord, " Having been in that part of my Diocesse which is neere Bristoll, and passing through the City towards "Wells, I mett with a report that his Majesty was goeing for the West and would probably call at Wells : I was extreamely surprised at the newes. I know not what measures to take ; for to pretend to give the King such an entertainment, which is in some way sutable, is more than it is possible for me to doe at so short a warning, besides I doe not know whether he wiU passe through our towne, or on what daye. In this great perplexity between my desire of doeing my utmost duty and the difficulty of doeing it, I begge your Lordshippe's advice in a line or two, that I may know his Majesty's pleasure and what is expected from me. Let me then beseech your Lordshippe to lay my most humble duty at the Iving's feet, and to assure his Majesty that I shall esteeme it a very great honour if he conde- scends to grace my house, and to endure such an extemporary reception as I can at so short a warning contrive for him. I wait for your Lordship's directions not without some impatience. ''Sept. 6th (1G87)." [Reading the letter in the light of recent events we can well understand that Ken was indeed " extremely surprised " at the rumours which had reached him. He felt, perhaps, as he remembered Morley's princely hospitality at Famham, that his own lowlier style of living was little suited for a royal guest. On the other hand the letter shows a lingering aSection, and he probably waited, after his manner, for the providential guidance of events, not, perhaps, without hope that, if the King came, he might find an opportunity for saying some words of A.D. 1686—87.] MISREPRESENTATION'S. 283 much-needed counsel. I have not been able to ascertain whether the King carried his supposed intentions into effect. This is, indeed, the only mention of his purpose. The visit referred to in the opening words of the letter waa probably to the Misses Kemeys of Naish Court (Chap, xxiv.).] Two other letters belonging to the later months of the same year have to be interpreted as we best can : — LETTER XIX. To Archbishop Saxcroft, " All Glory be to God. " Most Revere>t) Father and my very oood Lord, " I had made my acknowledgments sooner to your Grace, for the favour of your letter, but that I delay' d them on purpose, hoping to have sent them by another hand. In the affair I mentioned in my last, I acted according to the best of my judgment, and that I might give no occasion to any more of those misrepresentations, xmder which I have so often, and so undeservedly, lay'n. The copy which I have by me, I will take care to send by my secretary, who, God willing, is to be in Towne at the Terme. There are some par- ticulars, especially those, which relate to Faculties, which by experience, I find not practicable, and many of the cures in my diocesse are so very small, that I am very glad to gett a sober person to supply them, though he is not a graduate, but as for ordinations, your Grace may be assured that I endeavour aU I can to lay hands suddenly on no man. I am very sensible of the charitable opinion you are pleased to have of me, and the favour- able construction you make of my actions ; God grant I may in some measure answer your Grace's just expectations, I beseech God of his infinite goodnesse, and in mercy to his poore Church, to give you a supereffiuence of his H. Spirit, to assist and support you, and I humbly begge your benediction. ' * My good Lord, " Your Graces most obedient son and Servant, "THOS. BATH & WELLS." «' Ocl. 1«/(1G87)." [The "affair mentioned in my last" is probably tho Bath incident. "We note the Bishop's sensitiveness to tho "misrepri'scntations," against whifth ho was anxious to guard. Tho rest of tho letter refers apparently to some regulations which Suncroft had issued for the guidance of the Bi.^hops of his province. There had apparently been some complaint*, in reply to which Ken makes his apologia, that he had admitted "literate persons," both to Holy Orders and to livings, 284 KEN AND JAMES II. [cilvp. xvi. but, 08 Ken plonds, not without Hufficiont reason. The reader of Expottulatoria (iiliiw Ichabnd) will romomber that Undue Ordination wa« on»j of the five " Com- pbiinto of the Church " on which the writer emphatically dwelt as tending to her di.s(-redit and decay (see p. 56). Wo may well believe that Ken sought eameatly to bo free from that guilt himself.] LETTER XX. To Arcubishop Sajjcroft. "All Glory be to God. " My very good Lord, " The entire veneration I have ever had for your Grace, makes your displeasure the more afflicting, especially so great a displeasure against me, as your letter expresses, and that too for such a crime which I abhorre, no lesse than insincere dealing, and in the whole, 1 am so unhappy as to be supposed guilty by your Grace, and to be treated by you as if I were. But I hope your Grace will have that charity for me, as to believe me, when I with all humble submission acquaint you, that I never had the originall you mention. And if I had had it, I know not the least temptation imaginable I could have had to have detained it. The onely copy I had, I have sent, and I thought it was the same you meant, having, as I understood 3'our letter, lost the other ; and I sent it to the Bishop of Ely, because I was tender of giving you the trouble of a letter which might be spared, and I sent it with a particular circumstance of duty to your Grace, that my old friend must needs be very forgett- full, if he gave no better account who it was that brought it, or how it came to his hands. I confesse I should have sent your paper sooner, and so I had done, had not the persons with whome my secretary was to transact businesse disappointed us, and this, if it be a faidt, I presume is a veniall one. But how much soever assured I am of my owne innocence, rather than tyre you with a tedious vindication of myselfe I choose to begge your pardon, as well as your benediction. ' ' My good Lord, " Your Graces most obedient son and Servant, " THO. BATH & WELLS. *'Dee. bth, 1687." [The sensitivenesB, noticeable in the previous letter, is seen here in yet stronger colours. Sancroft had apparently written accusing him of " insincere dealing," connected with some important document of which he thought Ken had kept the original. "What this was we can only conjecture, possibly some circular letter which Sancroft had written to his suflfragana on the character of James's policy. A.D. 1686—87.] POLITICS IN 1687. 285 Did he suspect that Ken had shown it to the King ? D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft (p. 146) shows that the Archhishop, about this time, received an important letter from the Princess Mary which he answered on November 3rd. Could this be the document referred to ?] So the year 1687 closed in darkness and gloom, which must have filled Ken's mind with sad and anxious forebodings. The King pursued his infatuated course without scruple and without fear. The Fellows of Magdalen were deprived by a Royal Commission packed for the purpose, of which a bishop of the English Church, Cartwright of Chester, was base enough to act as President. Corapton continued under the suspension inflicted by the Court of Ecclesiastical Commission. Sancroft was still excluded from the King's presence for his refusal to attend that Court. All the Lord Lieutenants who would not lend themselves to the King's schemes for securing a servile majority in the next House of Commons were summarily dismissed. * Regulators ' were appointed under the new charters, who exercised their powers by dis- missing all Church of England functionaries, aldermen, and others, from the Tweed to the Land's End, and filling their places with Papists, or with Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, who had joined in addresses to the King, thanking him for his Declaration of Indulgence. Men as they looked before and after might well " prognosticate a year of sects and schisms," even more appalling than that of the forecast of which Milton wrote. The date of the following letter leads me to insert it here, though it has no special connexion with the events related iu the chapter : — LETTER XXI. To Viscount WEYMOurn. " All Glory be to God. " !My VT.KY GOOD Lord, " Your Lordsliippe was pleased to offer me a generous kindnesse by D^ liollsted, w'''' I am very confident you dosign'd I should make use of : and it is upon the strength of that, I liavo sent my Servant to beji^j^'e halfe a buck. My Ijord ^Maiuard has been with me this fortnight, very ncer, and intends to returue the beginning of next 28r, KEN AND JAMES IT. [chap. xvr. wooko, and I liave engagod to wait c)n him at Longloat. I beseech your Ijonlshippo to present my liumljhjst service to my Lady. God of His Infinite Ooodnesse multiply His blessings on yourselfe & family, & fill you with y* perfect Lovo w''*' casteth out all feare. " My Good Lord " Your liordshippe's most humble & aifectionate Servant •' THO. BATH & WELLS, "/w/y l^th, 1687. " The two Manuals are for y* young Lady and Master." [I have not been able to learn who Dr. Bellsted was, or to what kindness Ken refers. Possibly it may have been the supply of some dainties for his patients, like the asparagus mentioned in Letter xv., p. 256. Lord Maynard, it will be re- membered, had recently been expelled from his office in James's household because he would neither turn Romanist nor comply with James's general policy (p. 269.) It is interesting to find the widower turning to his old friend for comfort and counsel in the troublous times through which both were passing. The two " Manuals" were probably copies of the Prayers for Winchester scholars, for the son and daughter of Lord Weymouth, to whom he had btfore sent his Exposi- tionofthe Church Catechism (see p. 229).] [Marj- Beatrice at Bath, p. 275. It is worth while to rescue from oblivion, as illustrating the excited hopes of the English Romanists at the time of the birth of the Prince, whom we know as the ' Old Pretender,' the inscription which till 1783 waa to be seen at Bath on a pillar erected by the Earl of Melfort. In PERPETIAM REors-.E Maki^ memoriam, QUAM, COELO IN BaTHOXIENSES ThERMAS Ikbadiantb, Spiritus Domini aui fertub super aquas Trium REGNORUM heredis Genetricem effecit. Utriqub PARENTI, NATOQVE principi ABSIT GlORIARI Nisi in crvce Domini Nostri Jesu Chbisti UT plenius hauriant AQUAS CUM GAUDIO Ex F0NTIBU8 SaLVATORIS. Students of French history will be reminded of like outpourings of devotion on the birth of Henry V., better known, perhaps, as the Comte de Chambord. I quote the inscription from Collinson, Mist, of Somerset, I. p. 41. J CHAPTER XYII. THE PETITION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS. •' So works the All-wise ! our sendees dividing Not as we ask ; For the world's profit, by our gifts deciding Our duty task. See in kings' courts loth Jeremiah plead, And slow-tongued Moses rule by eloquence of deed." J. H. Xewman. The year 1688 opened upon Ken with sufficiently gloomy prospects. Without were fightings and within were fears. The King, for whom he still cherished a lingering and loyal affection, for whom he yet hoped against hope, was rushing on in his infatuated career. It was difficult for a true churchman and a true patriot to see his way clearly in the tangled laby- rinth of the politics of the time. We have to draw a very different picture of the Bishop's life from the idyllic scene which at first presents itself to us, and in which he appears as sitting in the arbour, or walking up and down the terrace, in the Palace Gardens, singing his own hymns, or reading the Odes of Horace. One or two lines of those Odes may indeed have been often in his thoughts as reminiscences of his boy- hood. He may have thought of the rultus imtantis ti/ranni, of the ardor cicium prava jubcntium. He might have resolved that he at least would not accept the arhitrium popu/aris aunv as the standard of his conduct. If I were to conjecture — and here the conjecture would have at least the basis of fact — I should think of him as occupying himself with very different studies, reading the books on Moral Theology and Cases of Conscience, on the limits of the authority of the Church and State, of the Regale and Ponfijica/e, of kings and subjects, in which his library was exceptionally rich, perhaps recalling 288 PETITTON OF THE SEVEN lilSnOPS. [chap. xvii. the action of Nicholas ruvillon, when he found himself con- etruined to diaohcv Louis XIV. 's command to sign the con- demnation of the Jansenist propositions.^ And, to add to his troubles, he found himself misunderstood and misrepresented, suspected not only by the " rabble " but by a man like Bancroft, of " insincere dealing." IIow was he to clear his character, to detine his position, to ' walk warily ' in such ' dangerous days ' ? If I am right in assigning his Lenten address to his clergy to the spring of 1G88, as I have done in p. 244, it throws light on the state of his mind at this period. I have printed that address as connected with his pastoral work, and do not see sufficient reason for altering the arrangement, but it reflects, if I mistake not, the depression and agitation of his mind at this period, and it shows in what he had found strength and peace. Only by penitence, and prayer, and intercession for the Church and the nation and their rulers, was there any hope for the future. The closing words of the letter would at least serve to make his own position clear. His prayer was that he and those to whom he wrote might be settled " in the true Catholick and Apostolick Faith profess'd in the Church of England." So, adorning " that apostolick faith with apostolick zeal," it might be granted to them that " both priests and people may all plentifully sow in tears, and in God's good time may all plentifully reap in joy." A few weeks after this pastoral letter Ken found himself named, probably much to his surprise, for a Lent sermon at AVhitehall. The appointment must have had the King's sanction, even if it was not, as I think probable, his own direct nomination, and Ken did not shrink from the responsibility which it imposed. His preaching turn was fixed for the afternoon of Passion Sunday, April 1st, 1688. Evelyn's account, in his entry for that day, shows that the announcement had excited men's expectations far and wide. Stillingfleet preached in the morning. The service was followed by the celebration of Holy Communion. The sermon was " so interrupted by the rude breaking in of the multitude," who came "from all quarters," "jealous to hear" the afternoon preacher, that "the ' Palafox y Mcndoza, HUtoria Heal Saffrada ; Fr. dc Quevedo Tillegas, PoUtica d* Dioi at Bath Abbey, cum muUis aliis at Longleat and Wells. See II. App. II. A.D. 1G88.1 SER2WN AT WniTEIIALL. 289 holy office could hardly be heard, or the sacred elements be distributed without great trouble." Ken entered the chapel to find every eye fixed on him in eager expectation. The King, of course, was not there, but the Princess Anne was in the royal box. As usual he preached without book, possibly re- peating a written sermon from memory, after the manner of the great French preachers, but possibly also, one delivered with no other preparation than that of much careful thought, and reduced to writing afterwards for future publication. The style of the sermon and the occasional repetitions in it seem to me in favour of the latter view. He preached, Evelyn adds, " with his accustomed action, zeal, and energy." Of all his sermons it had most the character of a manifesto. It occupies thirty 8vo pages, and must have taken about an hour and a half in delivery. The text which he chose was fitted to stimulate the eager desire of his hearers to learn what part he was going to take in the struggle which even then was seen to be impending. It was from Micah vii. 8, 9. " Eejoice not against me, mine enemy : wlien I fall, I shall arise ; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light imto me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me : he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness." The words would naturally suggest, and were probably in- tended to suggest, to those who knew under what circumstances Ken was preaching, a directly personal application. This was his answer to those who might examine him. It was not Ken's purpose, however, otherwise than by that suggestion, to make a personal apologia ; and he proceeded at once to his exposition, every step of which must have kept his hearers on the qui vive of expectancy. The prophet spoke of the " reformed church of Judah It was a bold undertaking to denounce God's judgments to the King and to the Court .... but true prophets, in the delivery of their messages, fear none but God, and dare say anything that God commands them. And there are times when prophets cannot, must not, keep silence." They must speak, as Amos did, even ' in the King's Chapel and in vol.. I. u 2!)0 PETITION OF THE SEVEN BISJTOrS. [cn.U'. xvir. the Kiiif^'s Court.' " ITiippy was it fur the King," in the case of Micali, " that he so devoutly attended to the prophet ; happy for the prophet that he had the opportunity of preaching to the King himself." Otherwise " what tragical relations liad heen made of his sermon " by those who came "on purpose to wre&t his words, and with thoughts against him for evil! " Three times in the course of the sermon does the preacher dwell, in this half-aggrieved, half-pathetic tone, on the King's absence, and I can hardly help surmising that Ken had ventured to hope that the King would break through his usual rule, and come and hear his sermon, as he had heard Penn's, and that bis disappointment gave to what he said a greater flavour of despondency, if not of bitterness. Yes. The prophet's message was to the " reformed Church of Judah," but that reformation had been incomplete. The righteous were but a remnant. Men might be " reformed in their faith and in the public worship, but the generality of them were still unreformed in their lives." And the "enemies" of that Church (he abruptly changes the singular into the plural) were the Babylonians, the type of the " man of sin," of the mystical Babylon of the Apocalypse, which was identified with the Antichrist ; and the Edomites were " originally of the same blood and of the same religion with Judah, though they had revolted from the Church of God." Now they were allied with the Babylonians, in revenge for the loss of their birthright. Both took up their parable against Judah, and taunted her with being abandoned by the Lord in "Whom she trusted, in words which, as Ken uttered them, must have seemed to his hearers almost as an echo of those which were constantly in the mouth of Petre and his cabal, and of the Dissenters who were associated with them. Then came the preacher's forecast of the future. He saw no prospect of any near change for the better. For the " reformed Church* of Judah " (his hearers would read " of England " between the lines) there might possibly be the discipline of a seventy years' ' We note Ken's general use of the term " reformed " (1) as a pi-otest against the omission of that term in James's Declaration (see Evelyn's letter of October 10th, 1688, ii. p. 20) ; (2) as prohahly chosen as indicating more sym- piithy with the Huguenots of Franco than with the Lutherans of Germany. A.D. 1688.] JUDAH, BABYLON, EDOJr. 291 captivity. And Edora would share in that suffering. "■ Had Judah and Edom both joined for the common safety, both might have preserved their liberty, but Edom will be an easy prey to the Babylonian, now her neighbour, Judah, is led cap- tive." Where, then, was the hope of Judah ? It was to be found only in the "righteous remnant," in "the watchmen who were God's remembrancers." Discipline might at last do its work, and then " not only seventy years of Babylon, but seventy times seven, would be welcome." God could make " the hearts of the very Babylonians to relent towards her." And the duty of " reformed Judah " was to hasten the coming of that good time by patient submission to her King — to " sub- ject their persons to the Babylonish government, but not to prostitute their consciences to the Babylonish idolatry, when- soever the commands of God and of the King of Babylon stood in competition." ^ It would be their wisdom to renounce "all carnal expedients" and "the arm of flesh." "The true Israelites would always be martyrs, but never rebels." Those who were corresponding, or planning correspondence, with William of Orange, would understand the suggestive hint that the decree of Cyrus for the restoration of Judah was not to be looked for till the expiration of the seventy years. So far all was so plain that he that ran might read. It did not require much of the spirit that ' understands all parables ' to discern the meaning of the historic parallel. Towards the end of the sermon, however, there came a singular passage which must have disappointed not a few of those who had listened with rapt attention to the earlier strains of eloquence. The preacher warns his hearers, " since we have not the happiness ' The whole passage is worth quotinfr, as pxpressing the teinpei* of Ken's mind as he faced the crisis in which he found liimself : — " If this ho captivity, hy becoming a Babylonish .slave to become the Lord's fretman, may my cap- tivity last, not seventy, but seventy times seven years I No time, O Lord, is long; eternity itself is not tedious that is spent in Thy fruition. Almighty Good- ness, Thou only canst make captivity desirable ; welcome then darkness ; there will I sit, desiring to see no light but what comes from Thy countenance, for Thou art light und liberty and joy, and all in all to those who for Thy sike are content for a while to sit in darkness." What Ken anticipated was clearly the triumph of Rome for a time, perhaps for two or three generations. He picturea Limself, perhaps, as the Daniel or Jeremiah of the period. Hi« lot was to be fai different from that. 11 2 292 PETITION OF THE SEVEN niSHOPS. [chap. xvir. which Micah had, to have the King himself for an auditor, in whoso royal candour a faithful preacher might be secure" against possible mi8rei)resentations which miglit be made by " insidious men," that the prophecies as to the mystical Babylon were open to so many interpretations, some of them so uncer- tain and some so forced, that he had to confess that he did not understand, and, therefore, forbore to apply them. lie would not fix on any particular Church as f/ic Babylon of the Apoca- lypse. And as to Edom, personified in Esau, "a profane person, an apostate, one hated by God and a reprobate," " God forbid that I should bestow such names as these upon any one communion of Christians whatsoever ! " All that he meant was that so far as any professing Christians identified themselves with the characters of Babylon and Edom, to that extent they would be partakers of their plagues. And even of such as these it was true that the right way to encounter them was that which the Saviour had taught : " Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you ; and pray for them which despitefully use you and perse- cute you." " Judah has taught all the faithful how to weather out a captivity under them ; by repentance and submission." At first sight this looks, it must be admitted, somewhat like a rhetorical artifice, a parliamentary formula disclaiming a natural inference from what had been said before ; a plea for the defence, in the event of the preacher being called to account for the boldness of his utterance. Some might even go farther than this, and suspect even now the " insincere dealing " with which Sancroft had reproached him. " See," they M'ould say, " even he is ' trimming ; ' he disavows the natural inference from his own language ; he equivocates and leaves a loophole." It would, I am persuaded, be altogether unjust to Ken to put this interpretation on his words. What I see in them is the struggle between righteous indignation and personal affection, between the zeal of the prophet and the all-embracing charity of the saint. He has, like Izaak Walton, and like Hooker, known Romanists whose holiness of life he reverenced; he cannot think even of James himself as altog-ether 'in the jrall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.' He has known Dis- senters iu whom there was nothing of the Edom temper. He A.D. 1688.] SECOND DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE. 293 is therefore not afraid to risk being misunderstood in his thoughts of charit}^, and is content to bear the reproach of those whose zeal was at once narrower and more bitter than his own. Such, I take it, was now, as ever, the mind of Ken, almost eager, as it were, to forfeit the confidence ot both prince and people, rather than to incur the reproaches of his own conscience by courting the praise of either. Men might call him a * trimmer ' : he was willing to " become all things to all men, if by any means he might save some." And, like St. Paul, he had, as might be expected, his reward both for evil and for good. One immediate result he probably anticipated. The King heard of the sermon, and, as Ken's great-nephew records,^ sent for him to his closet, and reproached him for the controversial bitterness with which he had spoken. The Bishop's reply was simply that, "if his Majesty had not neglected his own duty of being present, his enemies had missed this opportunity of acc"u.5ing him," and with this he was dismissed. The answer was, in two ways, significant. It indicated the same sense of soreness at the King's non-attendance which had shown itself once and again in the sermon. It confirms the conclusion to which I have been already led that the sermon was preached memoriter with variations. The natural defence against the charge of disloyalty would have been to produce the ]\IS. It was not printed by way of defence till after his death. Ken went back to his diocese, and within a month from the date of his sermon, possibly as a direct consequence of the irritation it had caused, the King issued, on April 25th, his second Declaration of Indulgence. It reproduces almost ver- batim the earlier Declaration of April 4, 1687, given in the preceding chapter, and I therefore do not reprint it /;/ cxienso, but its opening words indicate a temper of increased impatience and provocation. " Our conduct," the King says, " has been such at all times as ought to have persuaded tlie world that we are firm and constant in our resolutions ; yet that easy people may not bo alarmed by the malice of crafty, wicked men, we think fit to declare that our intentions are not changed since the 4(h of ' Hawkins, p. 17. 201 PETITION OF Till': SEVEN li J SHOPS. [fiiAi. xvii. April, 1()M7, when wu i.s.sucd our Declaration for Liberty of Conscience." It then recites that declaration, and adds as follows : — " l'>or since we granted this indulgence, we have made it our principal caro to see it preserved without distinction, as we are encouraged to do daily by multitudes of addresses, and many other assurances we receive from our subjects of all persuasions, as testimonies of their satisfaction and duty, the efPects of which we doubt not but the next parliament will plainly shew ; and that it will not be in vain that we have resolved to use our uttermost endeavours to establisli liberty of conscience on such just and equal foundations as wiU render it unalterable, and to secure to all people the free exercise of their religion for ever ; by which future ages may reap the benefit of what is so undoubtedly for the general good of th(^ whole kingdom. It is such a security we desire, without the burden and constraint of oaths and tests, which have unhappily been made by some governments, but could never support any. Xor shoidd men be advanced b}' such moans to offices and employ- ments, which ought to be the reward of services, fidelity and merit. AVe must conclude, that not only good Christians will join in this, but whoever is concerned for the increase of the wealth and power of the nation. It would perhaps prejudice some of our neighbours,' who might lose part of those vast advantages they now enjoy, if libert}' of conscience were settled in these kingdoms, which are above all others most capable of improvements, and of commanding the trade of the world. In pursuance of this great work, we have been forced to make many changes both of civil and military offices throughout our dominions, not thinking any ought to be employed in our service, who will not contribute towards the establishing the peace and greatness of their coimtry, which we most earnesth* desire, as unbiassed men may see by the whole conduct of our government, and by the condition of our fleet, and of our armies, which, with good management, shall be constantly the same, and greater, if the safety or honoui' of the nation require it. We reconnnond these cunsiderations to all our subjects, and that they will reflect on their present ease and happiness, how for above three years, that it hath pleased God to permit us to reign over these kingdoms, we have not appeared to be that prince our enemies ' This alludes, obviously, to the Dutch, who were, at that time, conspicuous among the nations of Europe for their general toleration of diversities in religion, and for their consequent commercial prosperity. A.D. 1688.] JAJfES'S THEORY OF TOLERATION. 295 ■would have made the world afraid of, our chief aim having been not to be the oppressor, but the father of our people, of which we can give no better evidence than by conjuring them to lay aside all private animosities, as well as groundless jealousies, and to choose such members of parliament as may do their part to finish what we have begun, for the advantage of the monarchy over which Almighty God hath placed us, being resolved to call a parliament, that shall meet in November next at farthest." ^ Many things, of which no one then dreamt, were to come to pass before that November in which Parliament was to be summoned. We must, for the present, endeavour to place ourselves mentally in the position of Ken and others when they read or heard of the Declaration in the early days of May, 1688. The general principles of toleration stated in what we may call the preamble of the Declaration have taken their place in the creed of all Liberal statesmen, among the platitudes of all Iviberal rhetoric. It is only fair to James to remember that he had, from the first days of the Restoration onwards, contended for them, when he stood almost alone, that in the long struggles of the Popish plot and the Exclusion Bill he had been a con- fessor, almost a martyr, in defending them. He probably thought that such a declaration by a king, in the full pleni- tude of his power, was needed to balance the effect produced on the minds of his people by Louis XIV. 's revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Men should see that a Roman Catholic sovereign could be tolerant in proportion to the extent of his prerogative. England should follow, in spite of Parliamentary opposition, or, as he persuaded himself that his management of the elections might succeed in effecting it, with the consent of Parliamect, the example that had been set by Lord Baltimore, the Roman Catholic Governor of Maryland. It is of course easy to point to James's action at the very time when he thus stood forward as the apostle of toleration, and to question alike his consistency and his sincerity. Was he not imposing the test of conformity with his own plans, if not with his own religion, upon almost every holder of important office, military or civil ? Were not Protestants in every branch of the government ser- vice cashiered and their places filled by Romanists ? Was he ' 12 Howell's State Trials, pp. 234—8. 2!)r. PETITION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS. [cirAi-. xvii. not forcinp Romanists on both ('ainbrifl^c iuid Oxford? Ifafl not llochcstcr been dismissed because he would not be converted, would not even express approval of the Declaration of Indul- gence? Could James's word be trusted when this was the fulfil- ment of the pledge given to his council on the word of a king that he would protect the Church of England in the enjoyment of all its rights ? I may seem to be maintaining a paradox, but I am disposed to think, and I believe Ken would have thought with mo, that James was not consciously insincere, nor even consci- ous of his inconsistency. He did not impose the acceptance of the Mass as a qualifying test for the Privy Council, or for com- mand in the army and navy, or for magisterial offices. A king was surely — his enemies themselves being judges — entitled to choose his immediate servants, in his household and his councils, among those he could most trust, and it was natural that he should trust members of his own Church more than those of a rival and hostile communion. Did he not show enough com- ]irehensiveness when he admitted Penn and other Noncon- formists to his favour ? Was it not natural that he should look with a certain indignant intolerance on those who were the persistent opponents of toleration ? James's ideal of a patriot King was, I fancy, that of a monarch presiding over a Privy Council in which Church of England men, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters sat on equal terms, all equally ready to register his decrees, and to give him their best advice as to carrying his intentions into effect. If it were compatible with the dignity of history to compare great things with small, I should be tempted to say that his mental attitude was like that of the schoolmaster of Orbilian fame (was it Busby or Keate?) of whom it is related that he once addressed his scholar?, "Boys, it's your duty to love one another, and if you don't, I'll flog you till you can't stand." ^ ' James's words to the Vicc-Chancellor at Oxford, in 1687, are really hardly more than a paraphrase of these words : " Of all things 1 would have you avoid Pride, and leamc the Vertue of Charitie and Humilitie. There are a host of People among you that are Wolves in Sheep's Clothings ; beware of them, and lot them not deceive you and corrupt you. . . . Let not, therefore, your Eye be e\il, and mine he good, but love one another and practise Divinity : do as you would be done to, for this is the Law and the Prophets." — Ant. a \V..,,.l /,/•.-. p. 301?. A.D. 1688.] ORDER m COUNCIL. 297 And then as to the dispensing power. Had not subservient lawyers assured him that it came within the limits of his pre- rogative ? Had not the Court of King's Bench ruled, in the case of the collusive action against Sir Edward Hales, who, being a Roman Catholic, had been appointed as Lieutenant' Governor of the Tower, that he had a right to dispense with the tests imposed by Parliament in each individual case in which he chose to exercise that right, and if so, where was the line to be drawn ? Could he not do in all cases what he might rightly do in any one ? Had the King confined himself to publishing this second Declaration of Indulgence, as he had done the first, in the London Gazette, it is possible that it might have been little more than a nine days' wonder. Laymen might have talked and shrugged their shoulders ; bishops might have sighed ; Parliament, when it met in that promised session of November, might, or might not, have remonstrated, according to the success of the manipulating manoeuvres of the " regu- lators;"^ but there would probably have been no concerted opposition. Happily for the liberties of England, the King "was bent on bringing matters to a more speedy issue. The Declaration of April 25th was followed up by an Order in Council of May 4th, which directed the Bishops to send it to their several dioceses, and to have it read during divine service, on the 20th and 27th, in nil churches and chapels in London and Westminster, and within a distance of ten miles, and elsewhere throughout the kingdom on the 3rd and 10th of June.^ Matters now began to look serious. The mere command to read a royal declaration in church was, of course, not illegal in 1 The name was given to the official personages appointed to manage the new corporations, the old charters having hcen in most instances revoked hy tlio Crown, with a view to securing a govermmnt majority. (Macanlay, chap, viii.) Even the liOrd-Lieutcnants of Counties " wore ordered to examine the gonlle- men and free-holders as to tlicir ])arliamentary action ; which they did very lukewarmly." — liurnet, O.T., B. iv., 1GS7. '" It may be noted as one of the proceedings which tempted James to persevere, that Cartwright hud dmwn up a form thanking the King for the Declaration, which was signed Uy himself, Parker, of Oxford, and Sprat, of liochester. Wliite, of Peterborough, askeil for a day to dclibi^-ate and lln'n utterly r(>fuscd. — Cart' ■Wright, Dianj, p. 47. 21)8 riri'iTioN or rm: skvfn nisirors. [cwm'. xvn. itself; it was clcjirly within the ranf^e of the rubric tliat follows the Nicene Creed in the Communion Service. It had been done once and ap;ain uiuler Cliarles II. Sancroft himself had moved in Council that tliat King's proclamation, in 1081, dis- solving the Oxford Parliament, should be published by the clergy in all clmrches. James probably persuaded himself that though the pill was a bitter one, as he meant it to be, the Bishops could not, in face of these precedents, refuse, and would, though not without some remonstrances and wry faces, ulti- mately swallow it. lie had failed to lay to heart the advice whi( h Bishop Morley had sent him from his deathbed, through Lord Dartmouth, that " if ever he depended on the doctrine of non-resistance he would find himself deceived. The clergy might not think proper to contradict that doctrine in terms, but he was very sure they would in practice." To James that seemed tiie counsel of " a very good man, but grown old and timorous ; " and he was genuinely surprised as well as indig- nant when Morley's prophecy was fulfilled. Sancroft, in spite of his age and infirmities, rose to the emer- gency of the crisis. A memorandum, found among his papers,^ probably gives the first result of his deliberations with his own reason and conscience, and was put on paper for his own guidance and that of others. "We can scarcely doubt that it lormed the basis of all his subsequent deliberations with his colleagues. "Eeasoxs for xot publishing the Declaration. "1. I am not averse to the reading the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience for want of due tenderness towards Dis- senters ; in relation to whom V shall be willing to come to such a temper^ as shall bo thought fitt, when that matter comes to be con- sidered and settled in Parliament and Convocation. " 2. The Declaration, being foimded on such a Dispensing Power, as may at pleasure set aside all laws Ecclesiastical and Civil, appears ' The mcmonindum is in the Tanner IISS. in the Bodleian Library, and is lipre ropriiduced in fac-simile. ' SancrotVs leniency to Dissenters, as compared with Sheldon's conduct is noticed by Overton {Ltfe in E. C, p. 57). Compare his language in July, 1688, urging the clergy " that they have a very tender regard to our brethren the Protest-vnt Dissenters." — D'Oyly, Life, chap. vii. ■• " Temper ■' in the old sense of compromise or settlement. A.I). 1G88.] SANCROFTS MEMO RAX UUJI. 209 to me illegal; and did so in the Parliament both in the year 1662, and in the year 1C72, and in the beginning of his Majesty's reign, and it is a point of such consequence that I cannot so far make my- self a party to it, as the reading of it in the Church in the time of Divine Service will amount to." u > 2. > ^1 ^ >^ c^ Sancroft, it is clear, had not forgotten the niemorable scene in the Council Chamber, in 1G72,^ when Charles II., yielding to ' It was this declaration, wo may remember, that set Btinyan free after lii.s twelve years' imprisonment in F.f.Ilord paol. and released thousands of other Dissenters, including Quakeis, from like sMflcrings. 300 PETfTIOX OF THE SEVEN JSIHIIOPH. [chap. xvii. the pressure put on him by liis rarliament, had with his own hands toin up tlic Deehiration in vvliieh lie had, to some extent, anticipated James's action. Like the Duke of Somerset, when he refiised to introduce the Pope's Nuncio, the Primate felt that, tliougli the King might be above the law, he was not. Prudence, as well as conscience, dictated a policy of non-com- pliance, which, as he was prepared to suffer the consequences, was, from his point of view, quite compatible with, the theory of passive obedience. The time was short, and it was not easy to take adequately concerted action. The wiser and less servile Dissenters addressed many of the London clergy, imploring them not to read the Declaration. The London clergy them- selves held a meeting, at which fifteen Doctors of Divinity were present, and resolved, chiefly under the influence of a manly utterance from Dr. Edward Fowler, Vicar of St. Giles', Cripple- gate, a Churchman of the school of Tillotson, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, on Frampton's deprivation in KiOI, that they would not read it. Their resolution was signed by all who were present, including Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock, and Still- ingfleet. Sancroft, meantime, was not idle. He called a meeting at Lambeth on May 12th, at which Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, of Ely, White, of Peterborough, and Tenison, rector of St. Martin's, were present. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, the most subservient of James's instruments (he had been President of the Magdalen Commission) came, probably uninvited, and as a spy. Chirendon gave the conference the benefit of his official experience. They waited till Cartwright had left, before speak- ing their minds openly. A man who joined Tyrconnel in his drinking bouts, and spent his Sunday afternoons in consultation with Father Pctre, was not one whom they desired to admit into their counsels. Tyrconnel had told him that he hoped, before long, to see him Archbishop of Canterbury,^ and with that prize before him, he was apparently willing to do James's dirtiest work. The Archbishopric of York was actually vacant at the time, and that would not be a bad stepping-stone. After his departure the Bishops resolved that other prelates of the province of Canterbury, whose names would carry weight with them, should be taken into coimsel. Special messengers were Cartwrisrht, /'cfj-y, pp. I J, ?:?, 91. A.D. 1688.] CONFERENCES AT LAMBETE. 301 sent with the letters to country post-towns, near their several residences, in order to avoid the risk of their being opened in the London Post-office. It was probably, therefore, on the 14th or loth of May that Ken received the following letter at Wells :— " My Lord, " This is only in my own name, and in the name of some of our Brethren, now here upon the place, earnestly to desire you, innnediately upon the receipt of this letter, to come hither with what convenient speed you can, not taking notice to any that you are sent for. Wishing you a prosperous journey, and us all a hapjjy meeting, I remain ' ' Your very loving Brother, " AVILLIAM CANTUAE." The letter was sufficiently mysterious in its vagueness to give rise to many anxious conjectures. The journey might not be without other dangers than that of perils of robbers. For Ken, however, the path of duty was clear, and as he arrived in London, where he stayed at the house of his friend Hooper, who was Rector of Lambeth, on the evening of the 17th of May, he had probably started without an hour's delay, and made his way to London with utmost speed. ^ On the following day another conference was held at Lam- beth. Besides the six Bishops who with Sancroft signed the petition which was the outcome of their deliberations, Comp- ton was again present, but, being under a sentence of sus- pension, did not sign. Mews, Bishop of Winchester, was detained by illness. Frarapton arrived a day or two afterwards. The letter to Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, had miscarried through the country post-office. Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tenison, Sherlock, blaster of the Temple, and Grove, Hector of St. Andiew's Undcrsluift, were also present. Bancroft's merao- ' I think it probable that he made the journey on horseback, as Frampton did. Perkins, in liis poem on Ken's death, notes the characteristic fact that, while other Bishops wont "in a grand carosse," he, when in London, was com- monly seen on foot (ii. '2G3). The later practice of posting was then unknown. Cartwright took the stage to Chester {Dianj, p. 9), as did Sir J. Roresby, to Lon- don, his servants following on horseback. — See Blarkland, in Archceologia, xx., 443. Evelyn's journey to Althorp, in two coaches hired for him by the Coiintesa of Sunderland, was probably exceptionally magniliceut (August loth, 1G88). 302 PJ:TIT1(jX of the seven lilSIfOPS. [ciiAi'. xvii. riuulum served as the basis of their counsels, and the petition on which they ultimately agreed emhodied, as will be seen on comparing the two documents, many of its expressions. The language of the petition was carefully considered and toned down, as is shown by the interlineations and corrections in Sancroft's rough draft,* to the last degree of moderation com- patible with firmness. The deliberations lasted till a late hour in the evening, and it was not till 10 p.m. that the six Bishops who were to present it (Sancroft had been under orders, ever since he refused to act on the Ecclesiastical Commission Court, not to appear at Whitehall) started in the Archbishop's barge. The petition is, I think, worthy of being printed in cxtemo. It is high time in this bi-centenary of the trial of the seven Bishops that men should know the facts of the case somewhat more accurately than is common. Those who read Ken's Life should have before them the very words to which he attached his signature. "To THE KING'S Most Excellent Majesty. " The humble Petition of Wilham Archbishop of Canterbury, and of divers of the suffragan Bishops of that Province (now present with him), in behalf of themselves and others of their absent brethren, and of the Clergy of their respective Dioceses, "HXJMBLY SHEWETH ; " That the great averseness they find in themselves to the dis- tributing and publishing in all their churches your majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, proceedeth neither from any want of duty and obedience to your majesty, (our holy mother the Church of England being both in her principles and in her con- stant practice, unquestionably loyal ; and having, to her great honour, been more than once publicly acknowledged to be so by your gracioiis majesty), nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a temper, as shall be thought fit. when that matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation ; but amongst many other considerations, from this especially, because that Declaration 1 Tho draft is reproduced in fac-simile, as frontispiece to Vol. ii., from the original in tho Tanner JI8S. in the Bodleian Library. See Note at end of chup.i-r. A.D. 1688.] TEXT OF TEE PETITION. 303 is founded upon such a Dispensing power, as hath been often declared illegal in parliament, and particularly in the years 1 062, and 1672, and the beginning of your majesty's reign; and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to the Avhole nation, both in Church and State, that your Petitioners cannot in prudence, honour, or conscience, so far make themselves parties to it, as tlie distribution of it all over the nation, and the solemn publication of it once and again, even in Grod's house, and in the time of his divine service, must amount to, in common and r('asona])le construction. "Your Petitioners therefore most humbly and earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be graciously pleased not to insist upon their distributing and reading your Majesty's said Declaration. " And your Petitioners (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c.^ "Signed. " W. Ga^t. Tho. Bath & Wells. S. Asaph. Tho. Petribuegens. Fran. Ely Jon. Bristol. Jo. CiCESTR. With a view to a like completeness it will, I think, be worth while to give a few pages to the lives and characters of the six prelates who, on that memorable evening, more fateful than any of them then dreamt, were dropping down the silent river from Lambeth bearing with them, though they knew it not, the fortunes of the English nation. A full biography of each docs not, of course, come within the limits of sucli a work as this. But what it is important to remember is that the}', one and all, like tlie venerable Primate whom they had left at Lambetli, were men who had special claims on James's confidence. This has been made clear already as regards Ken. (1) Lake, of Chi- chester, had in early life served in Charles I.'s arm}' at Basing House, Wallingford, and had refused to take the Covenant or the ' On two other copies of the ahove petition, one of wliirh is in the Aichbishoi/s hand, are the following subscriptions : Approbo. H. London. May 23, 16^8. William Norwich. Muy 23. Robert Gloucester. I\Iiiy 21, 88. Seth Sarum. May 2G. P. Winchester. Tho. Exon. May 29, 16S8. Gutch, CoUretaiiea Cnrinsa, T. p. 336. ;5() I PKTITIOX OF THE SEVEN JilSJIOPS. [chap. xvii. Engagement. When he returned to his college (St. John's, at Cumbridge), he was " gated" as a suspected person for many months and not allowed to go outside the college, and he ran the risk of taking orders in 1()47 from one of the deprived Bishops, probably Skinner. lie was promoted through various stages of preferment after the Restoration. He officiated at the marriage of Evelyn's friend, Margaret Blagge, who had been maid of honour to James's first wife, and Godolphin. As Archdeacon of Cleveland and Prebendary of York, he had taken a promi- nent part (1680) in suppressing disorders in the Cathedral.^ lie resigned his prebend for the see of Sodor and Man with a much smaller income. He was recommended by Turner (Ken's friend) to the then Duke of York in 1684, and by him to Charles, for the Bishopric of Bristol. While there he had taken an active part in the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. James translated him to Chichester in the October of that year. (2) Thomas White, of Peterborough, had also been brought into personal contact with the King. He had shown his personal prowess in knocking down a trooper who had insulted him and the Bishop of Bochester, and Charles, delighted with the story, had first told him that he should impeach him for high treason, for assaulting the King's soldiers, and had afterwards thanked him for teaching the fellow better manners. On the marriage of the Princess Anne with Prince George of Denmark, he had been made, — her father must surely have had a hand in the appointment, — one of her domestic chaplains, and the King had been so satisfied with him that he had named him for the bishopric which he now filled in October, 1685. (3) Francis Turner, of Ely, had been more closely connected with James's household. He had been with Ken at Winchester and New College. Later on in life (1669) he was elected Master of St. John's College, Cambridge." He was the friend of Peter Gun- ning, his predecessor at Ely, was chosen by the Duke of York, after his conversion to Rome, as a chaplain in his household, ' On one occasion he left his stall in the Minster, went down the nave, and knocked ofl" the hats of the loungers to right and left.— Strickland, Lives of Seven Bishops, p. 110. ' Soe p. 72. A.D. 1688.] TEE SEVJSN BISHOPS. 305 and attended him during his exile in Scotland in the time of the Exclusion troubles in England. Charles II., on the Duke's recommendation, made him Dean of AViudsor and Lord Almoner (1683), In the same year he was made Bishop of Rochester, and in 1684, on Gunning's death, was translated to Ely. James, as we have seen, had chosen him to preach his coronation sermon, and had assigned to him, in conjunction with Ken and Hooper and Tenison (the last, however, at Mon- mouth's request) the painful duty of attending the Duke on his execution. (4) Lloyd, of St. Asaph, though less distinctively Anglican than the others (he had accepted a living from the Presbyterians at Oxford in 1654,^ and had satisfied the " triers"), had risen into high favour on the Restoration and been rapidly promoted, chiefly on the strength of a book, more or less biographical, in which he had set forth the saintliness of the great Anglo-Catholics, such as Andrewes, Ussher, Taylor, and those of whom Walton wrote, and this had drawn forth James's praise (before his conversion to Rome) as " an excellent book by a learned and very worthy man." He was named chief chaplain in the household of the Princess Mary on her marriage. His old Puritan leanings showed themselves, how- ever, in his allowing the Princess to attend the chapel of Eng- lish, or Dutch, Congregationalists at the Hague, a habit which Hooper had some difficulty in breaking, and in the part he took in a furious anti-papal sermon on the murder of Sir Edinoudburj' Godfrey, and in otherwise backing Gates and the other contrivers of the Popish Plot agitation. Charles II. had, perhaps, sent him to St. Asaph to get him out of the way. He was, probably, of all the six, the least acceptable to James. He maintained with great vehemence, as Burnet did, the spuriousness of the so-called Prince of Wales, was among the most active Churchmen in William's support, and was appointed almoner to Mary. A little later he got entangled in apocalyptic studies, and fixed the date of the end of all things as near at hand. ' See p. 66 for somo incidents of his Oxford life. Ho had also held 8e^^^ces at the Embassy Chapel at Paris during the Commonwealth, where Morloy, Cosin, Eurlo and otliers preached, and wlicre tho Dukes of York and Gloucester wor- shipped (Evelyn, October 1st, IGol, «.). Evelyn mentions with high praise tlie moderation of his sermon ou liomanism preached before Charles 11. (iS'u- vetnber23rd, 1C79). VOL. 1. X 306 VKTITION OF TUE SEVEN lilSUOrS. [tJi.vi'. xvii. Lastly, there was (o) Trelawncy, of Bristol, representing one of tho most ancient and most loyal of Cornish families. His father had boon in James's household when he lived at Deptford, in tho early days of the Kcstoration, and he had distinguished himself in suppressing the "Western rebellion. His sister Anne was brought up with the Princess Mary and accompanied her, as her chief maid of honour, to the Hague. In ICSo he was selected for the see of Bristol, but he found the income of that see inadequate (he says it was only £300 a year), and begged hKrd, through the Earl of Rochester, for a better bishopric. He was consecrated on November 9th, and was introduced into the House of Lords by Ken. As yet his application had not been successful, and the disappointment was keenly felt. It will be seen later on that he and Lloyd were the only two out of the seven petitioners who took the oaths of allegiance to AVilliam, and whose names were coupled together in the Jacobite saying, that " the King had sent the seven to the Tower to be tried in the fire, that the others had proved to be as the fine gold, but they had turned out to be Prince's metal." ^ Such were the six men who landed at "Whitehall Stairs on that memorable evening of May 18th. The tale of what fol- lowed has been often told, but the scene was one in which Ken bore 80 prominent a part that I cannot do otherwise than reproduce it. I follow Macaulay in the main narrative, with some side lights from an unpublished letter, without a signa- ture, to Lord Weymouth, dated May 24, in the Longleat MSS. Lloj^d, on landing, left his five companions at the house of Lord Dartmouth, near the Palace, and, probably as senior Bishop, went straight to Sunderland. Would he read the petition, and ask the King whether he would receive it ? The Minister shrank from the responsibility of complying with the first half of the request, but went at once to the King and informed him of the arrival of the Bishops. James, we may well believe, felt no uneasiness when he knew who the Bishops were. What he had heard from Cartwright had prepared him to expect, perhaps, some application for a ' The point of the saying lay, of course, in the fact of the close local con- nexion ot the Tower and the ^lint. " Prince's metal," a mixture of copper and zinc, derived its name from Prince Eupert. A.D. 1688.] TUE BISUOPS AND THE KING. 307 little longer time, some request for a modification of one or two phrases in the Declaration. Late as the hour was, he graciously consented to receive them. They came and knelt before him. He bade them rise, and took the petition from Lloyd's hands, who, as the senior bishop, took the leading part. He recognised the familiar handwriting. " This," he said, " is my Lord of Canterbury's hand," and Lloyd admitted that it was. As he read it his face darkened, and the portraits of James show that, under such conditions, he could look suffi- ciently fierce. He grew " heartily angry." " This," he said, " is a standard of rebellion." ^ He repeated part of his Oxford speech (" I am king ; I will be obeyed. Is this your Church of England loyalty ? ") " This is a great surprise to me. I did not expect this from your Church, especially from some of you," and, as he spoke, he "looked more sternly than ordinarily " on Trelawney. The Bishops passionately professed their loy- alty, but the King, after his manner, went on harping on the phrase, " This is a standard of rebellion." At last Trelawney lost his self-command and burst out. He fell on his knees, and told the King " that he presumed he was not of that opinion when he sent him into the West, when he had like to have fallen into the enemy's hands ; and asking if he thought fit to persist in his opinion," he added, " If some of ray family had proved rebellious to the Crown I should not have much stood in need of your favour or protection." When James repeated the charge of rebellion, he flatly contradicted him : " Sir, with submission I speak it, you know to the contrary." We can scarcely wonder that James should have said afterwards, that of all the Bishops he of Bristol was the *' most saucy." The other five Prelates may well have stood aghast as they listened to this altercation. They endeavoured to pacify the King's wrath. " We put down the last rebellion," said Lake, who had been Bishop of Bristol at the time, " and we shall not ' Clarendon, who must have had the report from one of the Bishops (probably Turner or Ken), g'ives the phrase as "the standard of Sheba," referrintr of course to the history of 2 Sam. xx. Probably it was altered in the publisht>d repoil, as being too obscure an allusion for common readers, or James may have used both phrases. Assuming him to have used this, it is ciu"ious to find him beginning and ending the interview with an allusive reference to Old Testament history. X 2 nOR PKTITinX OF THE l^KVEN JtlSIlOPS. [chap. xvii. riiiso nnollior." "Wo robol ! " exclaimed Turner; "we are rondy to die at your Majesty's feet," Ken's words were calim'r and more characteristic: "Sir," said he, "I hope tliat. you will grant to us that liberty of conscience which you j,'rant to all mankind." Still James went on, "This is rebellion. This is the standard of rebellion. ])id ever a good Churchman question the dispensing power before ? Have not some of you preached for it and written for it? It is a standard of rebellion ; I will have my Declaration published." " We have two duties to perform," answered Ken ; " our duty to God and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you; but we fear God." " ITave I deserved this?" said the King, surprise and disappointment adding bitterness to bis wrath ; "I, who have been such a friend to your Church ! I did not expect this from some of you. I will be obeyed. My Declara- tion shall be published. You are trumpeters of sedition. AVhat do you do here ? Go to your dioceses and see that I am obeyed. I will keep this paper ; I will not part with it. I will remember you that have signed it." " God's will be done," said Ken, and White, of Peterborough, echoed the words. " God has given me the dispensing power," replied James, " and 1 will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thousand of your Church who have not bowed the knee to ]}aal." With this somewhat strange application of the words heard by Elijah, as the King's List utterance, the Bisbops had to be content and they respectfully retired. They returned to Lam- beth, as they had come, by water,^ and so they were spared, for the momeat, the shock of consternation which they would have felt on hearing the document, which they had looked on, as in the highest degree, private and confidential, hawked about the streets of London, read and discussed, even at that late hour (it must then have been near midnight), in every coffee-house. Everywhere the people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the hawkers. Who had been the traitor is one of the unsolved problems of history. Sancroft, whose veracity is unimpeachable, declared that he had taken every precaution against publication. He knew of no copy {i.e. no fair copy, ' There was no Westminster Bridge, it must be remembertd, till 1730. A.D. 16S8.] WHO rUBLISEEH THE PETITION? 309 for the rough draft remained, as we have seen, among the Sancroft MSS.) but that which the Bishops had taken with them.^ Macauhiy thinks it " by no means impossible tbat some of the divines who assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short a composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The prevailing opinion, however, was that some one about the King had been indiscreet or treacherous," Sunderland himself was suspected of having played a double part, at one and the same time urging the King on his career of violence, and inflaming pojDular indigna- tion against him. It is, however, against this theory that Sunderland, as we have seen, would not read the petition, that the King said he would not part with it, and that there was scarcely time to get it printed after the Bishops took their departure. I confess that I am reluctantly compelled to suspect Compton of the breach of confidence. It would have been easy for him to write the words of the petition, while it was under discussion, clause by clause. He was deeply implicated in the negotia- tions with William, which were carried on by Henry Sidnej', with whom he was in con'^tant communication, and the pre- varicating answer which he gave, when James questioned the Bishops as to their share in these negotiations, shows that he was not a man of very scrupulous conscience. I surmise that he went straight to Sidney on leaving Lambeth, and that they decided on immediate publication. If so, he may probably have had some hand in the letter which, on the very next day, was sent by the post and by carriers to every clergyman in England, exhorting them in the strongest terms not to read the Declaration, and which some ascribed to Sherlock and some, including Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, who was a principal agent in distributing it, to Halifax.^ The story of the Sunday that followed has been told by all historians. In the whole city of London the Declaration was ' A fair copy, in Lloyd's hand (or, perhaps, Ron's), is, however, found in the T-inner ilSS., and is roproducod in CardwoU's Ihcumcntary AiinaU, ii. 316. - I quote one pregnant Benteneo from the letter. " If wo read the Deolamtion, we fall to riso no more. We fall unpiiied and despised. We fall ainidst the curses of a nation whom our compliance will have ruined." — JIacaulay, ch. viii. nio PETITION OF Tin: SEVEX I! is no PS. [cuai-. xvn. read in four clmrolirs only. It was road in the Chapel Iloy.il at Wliitehall, though not in that of St. James's, in spite of the Lord Cliamherlain's express orders. Sprat began it at West- niinstiT, and every one left the Abbey except the singing men and ehoristers.* Samuel AVesley, the i'uther of John and Charles, preached on the answer of the three Jews to the Chaldiran tyrant : " Be it known unto thee, King, that we will not serve thy God, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." We may be quite sure that it was not read in tlie cliapels at Lambeth Palace or Ely Rouse, nor in the Parish Cliurch at Lambeth, which Ken probably attended, and of which Hooper was rector. In the course of the following week the petition received the signatures, with an Approho, of the bishops whose names will be found attached to it (p. 303).^ The Longleat letter states that it would be signed by all the Bishops except the few w'ho were conspicuously subservient to James's policy, Crewe, of Durham ; Sprat, of Rochester ; Cart- wriglit, of Chester ; Croft, of Hereford ; and Watson, of St. David's. Barlow, of Lincoln, is named as doubtful. Parker, of Oxford, would probably have found a place with Crewe and Cart- wright, but he had died on March 20th, and the see was still va- cant. During that week there was abundant discussion as to the line the King would take. On the 24th, the date of the Longleat letter, it was generally believed that the judges were in favour of separate prosecutions (qu. before the Ecclesiastical Commis- sion Court ?) against each particular Bishop, as guilty of a mis- demeanour. Finally, on Jeffreys' advice, who thought it more prudent to keep to constitutional forms of legality, and felt sure that the Judges and Crown Counsel could not fail to ob- tain a verdict (juries were not uncommonly fined, as in Penn's trial, for a verdict against the Crown), and was probably not ^ The Longleat letter, however, already quoted, says that Sprat, -who had de- clined, when asked, to sign the petition, left town on the S.iturday, givinn-ordeis that it should be re:id the following day. Lord Dartmouth's statement quoted in Stanley's Memorials of Wtstminstcr (p. 4.52^, is, however, decisive. He was at Westminster School at the time, and heard Sprat read it. StillimiUeet and Tillotson went to their country houses. (Clhrendon, State Letters, ii. 198.) - Mews accompanied liis signature by a "very handsome letter," sending hi3 opinion " so fully and warmly that he has gotta world of reputation."— Longleat Letter. A.D. 16S8.] PROSECUTION DECIDED OX. 311 unwilling to transfer the responsibility of presiding at tlie trial to the Lord Chief Justice, it was decided to prosecute them collectively for publishing a seditious libel (the presentation constituting the publication, for it was impossible to prove any complicity, on the part of the Bishops, with the issue of the printed copies), and the Bishops (Sancroft v/ith them) received notice, on May 27th, that they were to appear bet'ore the King in Council on the 8th of June. Enough had passed since the former interview to embitter James's feelings. Never had there been a greater ^a&ro than that unhappy Order in Council of May 4th. It had proved an utter failure in London and Westminster on the two appointed Sundays. There had been time for tidings to arrive from all parts of England that it had been equally inoperative through- out the country. The mind of London was excited to the utmost point. Other bishops, as w^e have seen, had given an ex po^t facto adhesion to the petition. The Bishops appeared in the Council Chamber,^ Sancroft this time accompanying them. ' I am enabled through the kindness of lilr. C. L. Peel, C.B., Clerk of the Pi ivy Council, to give the list of those members who were actually present, and who, accordiug to the practice which then obtained, must have been specially summoned for this purpose. It is significant that Father Petrc was thus invited to sit in judgment on Bishops of the English Church. He, however, did not sign the warrant for their committal to the Tower, nor did the Earl of Berkeley. Arundel of Wardour, Melfort and Castlomainc also were Romanists. It must have been, I imagine, a special grief to Ken and the other Bishops, to find the signature of Lord Dartmouth on the warrant which scut them to the Tower. extiiact from the council register, 8th June, 1688. " At the Court at Whitehall. " Present, " The King's most Excellent Majesty. " Lord Chancellor (JcCFroys). I<:arle of Middlcton. " Lord President (SundurlunJ). Earlo of Melfort. " Lord Privy Scale (Arundel of Wardour). Earlo of Castlemain. " :\Iarquiss of Powis. Viscount Preston. " Lord Chamberlain. Lord Dartmouth. " Earle of Huntington. Lord (Jodolphin. *' Earle of Peterborow. Lord Dover. " Earlo of Craven. Jlr. ChanccUr. of ye Excheqr. *' Earle of Berkeley. Lord Chief Justice Herbert. " Earle of Moray, Sir Nicholas Butler. " Mr. Petre." 312 rETITIOX or Tine SEVEX niSnOPS. [chap. xvn. Tlio King presided in jxisoii. .TefTrcys was there to direct the hiw proceedings. The IJishops were not accompanied by counsel, but it is nutural to believe that they had been in consultation with some of those who afterwards conducted their defence, witli Sawyer^ and Finch, with Pemberton and licwis, with Treby and Somers.^ They had come fortified by the rules of action which counsel, in such a case, would be sure to give. ihoy were to admit nothing, but leave the whole onuH prohandi to the prosecution. Above iiil. they were not to criminate themselves. Accordingly, when Jeffreys began by taking up the petition, which was lying on the table, and asking Sancroft whether that was the paper which he had written, and which the Bishops had presented, the Archbishop declined to answer. It was with pain and regret that he found himself in the position of an accused person. Being in that position, he must claim its privilege, and be cautious in answering questions. No man was bound to answer questions that might tend to the accusing of himself. That, Lloyd added, was the opinion of "all divines, as well as of all lawyers." To the King this seemed the " mere chicanery" of a pettifogging lawyer. " Were they going to deny their own hands?" Sancroft, on being further pressed, said, "Sir, I am not bound to accuse myself. Nevertheless, if your Majesty positively commands me to answer, I will do so, in the confi- dence that a just and generous prince will not suffer what I say in obedience to his orders to be brought in evidence against nie." Jeffreys roughly interposed, "You must not capitulate with your sovereign." James added that he would give no such command. " If you choose to deny your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you." JeiYreys was clearly nonplussed. The King could not be placed in the witness-box, and unless they relied on the evidence of experts in handwriting — a kind of proof at that time little recognised in the courts of law — they had no other proof that ' Sir Eobort Sawyer, who was owner of Hiffhclere, may have known Ken personally \rhen he was rector of Woodhay, which was in closest neighbourhood to Highdere. Clarendon relates, in his Bianj (ii., p. 200), that on June 5th \if had seen Ken and Turner, and that he " had advised ihem to consult the best lawyero. and to be ready for all questions." * Audtrdon, p. 419. A.D. IGSS.] THE SEVEN BEFORE TUE COUXCIL. 313 the accused were responsible for the petition. The Bishops were ordered to withdraw to the ante-chamber once and again, and on each return to it a like altercation ensued. At last the King positively commanded them to answer, and then, either as thinking that he did so under the implied condition on which they had insisted, or believing that the time for passive obe- dience, at any risk of suffering, had come, or, it may be, weary of taking a line which, though advised by counsel, must obviously have been uncongenial to men who were ready, if not eager, to act the part of martyrs or confessors, they gave way, and when called in for the third time, acknowledged their respective signatures. The result showed that they were in the presence of men sufficiently unscrupulous. They were now asked whether any others had been present when the petition was framed, whether they knew anything of the letter which had been circulated with the petition through the length and breadth of England. Here, as men with a conscience and a sense cf honour, they felt that they must draw the line. "It is our great infelicity," remarked Sancroft, " th;.t we are here as criminals ; and your Majesty is so just and generous that you will not require me to accuse either ourselves " (he must mean, of course, as regards the other matters as to which they had been questioned) " or others." Jeffreys tried what could be done with the rough side of his tongue, "fell into anger and reproaches," dwelt on the tendency of what had been done "to diminish the King's authority and disturb the peace of his kingdom." On this point, however, they stood firm, and there was nothing more to be said. They were formally told that they would be prosecuted for a misdemeanour and must give their own recognisances to appear in the Court of King's Bench. ^ 8ir Robert Sawyer and the peers with whom they had taken counsel (Clarendon probably among them) had prepared them for that stage in the proceedings. They declined. They stood, they said, on their privilege as peers, ' Compton, wiitiiifT to Snnrrofc, the day before the Moetinc: of the Council, tolls him tliiit ho had hoard thiit tho Clirks of the Council were to bn nmde Justices of the Peaco in order to take their recoRiiisaTicos, so thut the Bishops were forewarned and forearmed ou this poiut. — (iutch, Collect. Curtosa, i., p. 343. :il t PETiriOS OF Tin: seven LISIIOJ'S. [. iFAi'. XVII. wlio wore not bound, like other accused persons, to enter into recognisances. They would give their word of honour to appear, but nothing more. They were resolved " to maintain the rights of the Peerage as well as those of the Church ; being equally bound to oppose all innovations, both in Government and religion." Here again the Council was taken by surprise. Jeffreys lost his temper or his head. " In that case, unless they would immediately recant and withdraw the petition, he would send them at once to the Tower." They answered calmly, in tlie tone of the three ' children ' of the Book of Daniel, that " they were ready to go whithersoever the King might please to send them, that they hoped that the King of kings would be their protector and their judge ; they feared nothing from men ; for, having acted according to law and their own consciences, no punishment should be ever able to shake their resolution." After much wrangling on this point they were again ordered to withdraw.^ When they came back the King ^ Gutch, i., p. 3.51, prints the following dialogue, ns having passed hetween the King and the Bishops at some stage ot the proceedings, from the Tanner ilSS. iu the Bodleian Library. " King. — What brought you to London ? What is the tcmpir you are ready to come to with the Dissenters ? "Answer. — We reft-r ouiselves to the Petition. " Kiiiif. — What mean you by tlie Dispensing Power being declared illegal by Parliament ? " AMicer. — The words are so plain that we cannot use plainer. " J^ixg. — What want of prudence or honour is there in obeying the King? "Answer. — What is against conscience is against prudence and honour too, especially in persons of our character. " Fing. — Why is it against your conscience ? ' Answer. — Because our consciences oblige us, as far as we are able, to preserve our Laws and Religion according to the Reformation. " King. — Is the Dispensing Power then against Law ? "^/«,s(r«-.— We refer ourselves to the Petition. " King. — How could the distributing or reading the Declaration make you parties to it ? "Answer. — We refer ourselves to the Petition, whether the common ana reasonable construction of mankind would not make it so ? " Aing. — Did you disperse a printed letter in the Country, or otherwise dis- suade any of the Clergy from reading it ? "Anstrer. — If this be one of the Articles of Misdemeanour against us, we desire to answer with the rest." It is probable, I think, thai this represents the substance of the last interview A.D. 1G88.J TaE BISUOPH iiE2^T TO TILE TOWER. 315 had vanished, apparently content to leave Jeffreys in the chair as master of the situation. lie " used them very roughly." At last the final step was taken. They with- drew for the last time. The Earl of Berkeley came from the Council Chamber, and once more tried to persuade them to yield as to the point of recognisances. They, however, stood firm, and soon the Sergeant-at-Arms came with a warrant signed by fourteen hands to take them as prisoners to the Tower. Another with nineteen signatures was sent to the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep them in safe custody. The Attorney - General (Powys) and Solicitor (Williams) were ordered to conduct the prosecution. To prevent the tumult that might be caused by their passage to the Tower through the streets they were sent by water in one of the King's barges. It is a singular instance of the perpetuation of a popular, but false, impression that it was believed then, and has been gener- ally believed since, that the seven Bishops were sent to the Tower, because they refused to read the Declaration of Indul- gence and to withdraw their petition. As the history of the proceedings shows, they were sent there because they stood firm on the purely technical point of their privilege as peers, and refused to enter into recognisances. A week later, when they appeared before the Court of King's Bench, and the point, after being argued by their counsel, was decided by the Court against them, they were content to waive their right and gave the recog- nisances which were required. It was, of course, a splendid piece of strategy as regards its effect on the minds of the people. They, unaccustomed to the nice questions of constitutional law, saw the concrete fact that seven Bishops were conmiitted to the Tower after tliey had presented their ])etition against the Declaration, and that was enough to lead them to the con- clusion that they were committed because they had ])etitioned. ]iut it is not less true that they had forced the K'ing's liand, aided by Jeffreys's hot-lieadedness, ar.d so had led, as James afterwards complained, to a step which more than anything before the Kinp'a «itlulniw:il, but I hiivi; thiupbt it licttiT to ^ivo it nsa s(>|mnit(> il'iciiiHont nitluT than to Htii'in|it to intcrweaviMt with the contiiiuoua uiiinilive jjiveu by other aulhoritiua. It wua probably Stincrol't's roj>ort. ;J1G PETITION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS, [ciiap. xvii. olso roused the passions of the people against him. One of llunn at least (Turner, of Ely) in after 3'ear8, when he saw to what all this had led, looked back with regret on the courst they had been advised to take as " a wrong step, and an un- necessary punctilio of honour in Christian bishops." ^ ' Strickland, Hishcpx, p. 197. Sottiethinf? of tho sainc feelinp is tracea'hle in Ken's languago in th(3 Jioi/al Sufferer, assuming that book to be his, when he sfiyn that, though ho "did indeed soon perceive of what ill consequence" the part taken hy the Bishops " would be to his Majesty," he had acted " without any evil design," and that it " was not in his power to help it " (p. 74). [XoTE ON THE Draft Petition, p. 302. — Alost of the alterations made by the Bishops in the process of revision are simply verbal, but two are suflicicntly im- portant to call for special notice : — (1). ITin Draft describes the " dispensing power " upon which the Declaration of Indulgence was founded as being *' such as may at pleasure set aside all our laws, both ecclesiastical and civil, which appears to them most manifestly illegal." ('!). The Innguage of the prayer of the petition is much stronger in the Draft than in the form in which it was presented to the King. " Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly beseech your Majestic that you will be grai iously pleased to supersede and revoke tho ( ':) Order of Council by which this heavy burthen is imposed upon them, o proclaiming Lihorty of Conscience to your other subjects, even to their enemies, with the manifest violation of their own, who have been always, in the highest and most hazardous instances, and resolve, by the grace of God, ever to continue your Wajestie's most faithfuU, loyal, and obedient subjects and servants, the Clergy of the Church of England by Law established." It would seem from the opening and closing words as if the petition was originally intended to be signed by many other bishops on behalf of the clergy at large, but for this, manifestly, there was no time. It vrill be seen that trie thoughts embodied in the omitted passages crop out more than once in the dialogue between the Bishops and the King (pp. 307 — 8). The Draft is found among Sancroft's papers (Tanner MSS., Bodleian Librari"), and is believed to be in his hand. (See Cardwell's Documentary Annals, ii. 316.)] END OF VOL. I. Pmr«TKD BV J. 8. TIBTCE AND CO., LUtlTBD, CrTY BOAD, LONDOS. THE T TT^RARY WmERSIli Or LAUFORNIA UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 297 347 5 mm:^