The exact situation of Lynn, as to its Latitude and Longitude, has been ascertained with the utmost accuracy by Mr. Walker. He informs the author, that the Latitude of St. Nicholas’ Chapel, in this town, deduced from observations with a mural circle made by Mr. Troughton, is 52d. 45m. 25s to North; and its Longitude, by Chronometers, 1m. 35s. in time, East of Greenwich. The original, or British name may pretty safely be concluded to have been Wysg, or Gwysg. Except, perhaps, about Castlacre. Something of the same kind is related of the rivers Thames and Medway in the reign of Henry I. See Stow, 138. His last years were spent at East Dereham in Norfolk, where he finished his course in 1800. In the north transept of that parish church, where his remains have been deposited, is a neat monument of white marble, with the following inscription:— In Memory of WILLIAM COWPER, Esquire, Born in Hertfordshire, 1732:
Buried in this Church, 1800. Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel
Of talents dignified by sacred zeal,
Here, to Devotion’s Bard devoutly just,
Pay your fond Tribute due to COWPER’s dust.
England, exulting in his spotless fame,
Ranks with her dearest sons’ his fav’rite name.
Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise
So clear a title to affection’s praise:
His highest honours to the heart belong:
His virtues form’d the magic of his Song.
The Cam and the Larke also passed then along with the Ouse by Wisbeach. See Vancouver’s Map, and his Appendix, p. 10, where the original track or course of these rivers appears to have been divided by a kind of ridge or higher ground from that of the lesser Ouse and Wessey or the river of Stoke, (sometimes also called Winson and Storke) which together with the Lenne or Nare seem to have been the only original Lynn rivers. The haven and river of Wisbeach while the Ouse passed that way went by the name Wellstream and the Water of Well, while those of Lynn went by the name of Wigenhale Ea, and the Water of Wiggenhale. Vide MS. late Mr. Partridge’s. Hist. Embank. chap. 37. By an arm of the sea he meant, probably, something similar to what Lynn Haven is now. A Commission is said to have been issued 21 Edward I. for sending the Waters of Well by Wisbeach, their ancient outfall; which further corroborates the idea that Wellstream or Waters of Well, was formerly a name of the Ouse about Wisbeach. Elstobb speaks of several efforts having been made to turn the Nene down to its ancient outfall at Wisbeach; and particularly that— “about the year 1490 John Morton, bishop of Ely, and Lord Chancellor of England, [afterward Archbishop of Canterbury and a Roman Cardinal] for the better obtaining that end, and for the more effectual recovery of the outfall at Wisbeach, cut a new river, or drain 14 miles in length, 14 feet wide, and about 4 feet deep, beginning at the high grounds, within a mile of Peterborough, and continuing it down to Guyhorn, an hamlet in Wisbeach parish; and setting down a sluice across the old river Nene at Standground, turned the waters of that river down this new cut. This (he adds) with some other works, said to have been done by him, did for a time make some improvement in the fens about Wisbeach, so as to make them good sheep pasture, &c. But this (he further adds) continued not long, being cut too shallow, and not sufficiently embanked, or kept clear and free from impediments and obstructions.” Elstobb’s Observations, p. 25, 26.
Bishop Morton was in his time one of the most distinguished characters in this country. He was a person of deep penetration, singular address, and sound judgment; and possessed, in the highest degree, those rare talents that constitute the profound politician and consummate statesman. He was a warm and determined partisan of the House of Lancaster. Richard III. rightly considering him as too dangerous a person to be left at liberty, took care betimes to have him secured. He was accordingly imprisoned in the castle of Bracknock, where he was committed to the custody of the Duke of Buckingham, then the said king’s most powerful and confidential adherent. Somehow he managed to seduce the Duke from his allegiance to Richard, and engage in his scheme in favour of the Earl of Richmond. The Duke’s ruin soon followed; but Morton escaped to the continent, where he afterward joined Richmond, and with him returned to England. After his victory at Bosworth, and elevation to the throne, Morton became his most confidential servant and counsellor. He was preferred to be Lord High Chancellor of England, archbishop of Canterbury, and at last, a Cardinal. He may be presumed to have been an adviser and promoter of the most important measures of that reign; of which the depression of the nobles, and elevation of the commons, were not the least memorable or salutary. He died, before Empson and Dudley came into employ; so that he had no share in their malpractices. Kinderley’s Ancient and Present State, 2nd Edit. p. 68. Kinderley, p. 77. Badeslade p. 98.—Here it ought not to be forgotten that the said large accession of fresh waters to the Lynn river, while it widened and deepened the harbour, seems to have proved eventually fatal to a great part of West or Old Lynn, which (including one of its churches and church yard) was in time swallowed up by the waters. This, it must be allowed, was a disastrous event. It is, however, an ill wind (as the proverb says) that blows nobody good: though the church is gone, the income remains, which the incumbent still duly receives, for nothing; for it is a sinecure, and not a very poor one. The Nene, of late years, has been gradually choking up, till it is at length become, it seems, a mere shallow ditch, filled with mud, and hardly navigable at any time. Its navigation is become, of course, inconsiderable and unproductive; to the no small loss and injury of those unfortunate people, who, in an evil hour, had entrusted their property in that ill fated concern. Most inexcusable mismanagement is said to have occasioned this; and much of the blame has been confidently, if not truly imputed to the abominable inattention and neglect of certain Lynn Merchants. In p. 4. Badeslade p. 12. In 1645, five or six years before Denver Sluice was erected, Lynn Haven was in a very good condition. It had two channels, one called the East, the other the West Channel, in which the biggest ships, drawing 13 or 14 feet water, sailed up and down on the neap as on the spring tides. One John Attleson, aged 80, deposed that for 60 years and upwards, he had known the river Ouse, and all the rivers falling into the same; and that before the erection of the sluices near Salter’s Lode, all the rivers were free and open, and received such quantities of water by the flood from sea, that large barges with from 26 to 30 chalders did constantly pass with great ease up to Cambridge town.—See Budeslade: also Elstobb’s Observations, p. 23, 24. Armstrong, it seems, ascribed the silting of Lynn Haven, and of the river above, to the hundredfoot drain.—See Kinderley p. 29. Hence we hear of manufacturers of Bays, Dyers, Dyehouses, Falling-mills, Button-makers, and worsted-weavers at Lynn, with some thousands employed in knitting stockings, &c.—In behalf of the latter, a petition against the worsted-weavers was presented to parliament in 1689.—See Town Book, No. 10.—Mackerell, about 70 years ago, makes the population of Lynn to amount to upwards of 20,000—if his estimate was right, even within 5 or 6,000, (and he published it under the auspices of the Corporation) the town must have been far more populous than it is at present. See Mackerell, p. 93.—From the great, and increasing number of empty houses now in the town, it may be concluded, that its population is at this time decreasing. The rapid decay of trade, the prospect of an endless war, and the daily increase of the public burdens, are doubtless among the causes of this depopulation. Neither the paving, nor yet the new poor’s rate laws, are likely to realize the vast benefits promised or held out by the promoters of them, and fondly expected by many of the inhabitants. On the contrary, those very Acts are said to be severely felt by a large portion of the householders, many of whom, it seems, have already broken up housekeeping, and many more are expected to take the same course. Upon the whole, it does not seem to appear, either from the Registers of Births and Burials, or from any other known circumstances or sources of information, that the population of Lynn, within the last twenty or thirty years (as generally supposed) has exceeded that of former periods. This subject, however, shall be reserved for future consideration. They are still called, The Roman Banks. See Badeslade, p. 15. See Carte’s History of England, vol. 1, p. 115, 119, 122. Philosophical Transactions, No. 481—also Beauties of England, volume XI, p. 94. Vita Agricola. Compare Dugdale’s maps of this tract in its morassy and improved states p. 375, 416. History of Embanking. No, surely, not sufficient proofs that the surface was lower; but rather, or only, that the country was once dry and woody, and long remained so: for upon the reasonable supposition of an Earthquake, as was before repeatedly suggested, the probability would be, that the surface was anciently as high at least, if not higher than at present, but was considerably lowered by that convulsive event, which would make way for the violent bursting in of the sea. Of this undertaking Elstobb gives the following account— “That it was entered into by the Earl, at the earnest request and importunities of the country in general, who at a numerous sessions of sewers held at Lynn, January 13, 1630, became humble suitors to him to undertake the business, which he condescended to comply with, and accordingly contracted with the commissioners and the country, and engaged that he would use his best endeavours to drain the said marsh, fenny, waste and surrounded grounds, in such a manner as that they should be fit for meadow, pasture, or arable; and the work to be completed within the compass of six years. To the end the Earl might the more confidently undertake and effect the said work, and be assured of enjoying the 95,000 acres, as the fruit and recompence of his labours and charge; and that the country might be more assured of obtaining a benefit proportionable to the very great quantity of land they were to part with, it was agreed that 12,000 acres, part of the 95,000, should be presented to the king, in lieu of all and every benefit he might claim by a certain law of sewers, made in the 19th year of king James, or by any other law or decree of sewers, and for his royal approbation and confirmation of the contract, &c.”—Having described the work in its commencement and progress, he adds, that having expended about £100,000 these lands were so benefited that, in about seven years time, from the first undertaking, viz. in 1637, at a session of sewers held at Peterborough, October 12, the Level was adjudged to be drained, and the 95,000 acres were, by six or more commissioners set out for the Earl, his heirs and assigns.—But it being soon after discovered that these lands, though benefited, were not perfectly recovered, but in winter were still subject to inundations, the very next year, 1638, at a sessions of sewers held at Huntingdon, April 12, the Earl’s undertaking was adjudged defective. The King then taking the business into his princely consideration, and understanding by an estimate made by Sir C. Vermuiden, that if this Level of near 400,000 acres were made winter-lands, it would be of extraordinary advantage, viz. of about £600,000 to the common wealth, his Majesty determined to become himself the undertaker; and accordingly on July 18, the same year, he was actually declared undertaker; and was to have, not only those 95,000 acres, which had been set out for the Earl of Bedford, but also 57,000 acres more, from the country, it being his Majesty’s design to make the land good winter-ground. The Earl, in consideration of the costs he had been at, was to have 40,000 acres out of the 95,000 before granted him.—The King to manifest his real and earnest purpose of speedily effecting the business, caused the following works to be done: a bank on the south side of Morton’s Leam, and another begun on the north side: a navigable sass at Standground: a new river cut between the stone sluice, at the Horse-Shoe, and the sea below Wisbeach, sixty feet broad, and two miles long, with banks on both sides: also a sluice in the marshes below Tydd, upon the outfall of the Shire Drain. But the King being embroiled in a civil war, the Level lay neglected; and the country complaining that they had received no benefit by the draining, they entered upon the 93,000 acres again, which had been taken from them.” Elstobb’s Observations, p. 9 to 12.
Estobb, speaking of the above act, says, that the Governor, Bailiffs, and Conservators were made Commissioners of Seven, for preservation of the Level, by convenient outfalls to the sea; and they or any five of them, whereof the governor or any of the bailiffs be two, to act as commissioners of sewers within the said great level, and of the works made, or to be made without the said level for conveying the waters by convenient outfalls to the sea. No other commissioners to meddle. A governor or bailiff to have 400 acres out of the said 95,000; the conservater 200; and the commonalty electors 100 acres, to enable them to vote. Elstobb’s Observations, p. 14. See Beauties of England, vol. 2. This fund was at first usefully applied, and the channel and navigation of the Nene considerably improved. The interest of the money borrowed on the occasion, was also for some years regularly and punctually paid; so that the river Nene securities, as they were called, were generally reckoned very good. Of late years, however, the state of things has greatly altered for the worse: the river has been neglected, and suffered to be filled up with silt and mud; the navigation impeded; the interest of the money borrowed between fifteen and twenty years in arrears, and the creditors gravely told, that there is no money in hand for them. Their case therefore seems to be without remedy and without hope; there being, it is to be feared, no prospect of another chance to restore or improve the said river. What is become of the said fund? See Agricultural Survey of Cambridgeshire. Beauties of England, 2, 18. See Beauties of England, 2, 18, 19. In consequence of the late improvements of the Smeeth and adjacent parts, the reeds are said to have become much more scarce than they used to be. The small feathers are plucked five times a year, (about Lady day, Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas,) and the larger feathers and quills twice. Goslings are not spared; for it is thought that early plucking tends to increase their succeeding feathers. Some proprietors are said to have had a stock of a thousand, and even fifteen hundred, or more, beside the young ones. It has been said, indeed, that mere plucking hurts the fowl but little, as the owners are careful not to pull until the feathers are ripe; that is, until they are just ready to fall; because if forced from the skin before, which is known by blood appearing at the roots, they are of very inferior value. Those plucked after the geese are dead, are also said not to be so good—see Beauties of England, vol. IX. p. 553. Gough’s Camden.—Also Beauties of England. “All this tract (of Marshland) and adjoining fens being little higher than the level of the sea, or that of the rivers that pass through the country, was once so exposed to inundations from floods and high tides, that till dikes and drains were made, it was all one large morass; and even now, after so much labour and expence, the country is still liable to be overflowed by extraordinary high tides or floods, or other casual events. By the evaporation of this water, and especially by that of the water of the numerous ditches, in which various plants and insects die and rot, the atmosphere during the latter part of summer and autumn is filled with moisture, and with putrid and insalutary vapours.—Another cause of the insalubrity of the atmosphere is an imperfect ventilation. As there are no hills here to direct the winds in streams upon the lower grounds, the air is apt to stagnate and become unwholesome. An additional cause of the unhealthiness of this flat and marshy country, may be the impurity of the water in common use; for this being either collected from rains, and preserved in cisterns, or drawn from shallow wells, is, in hot and dry-seasons soon corrupted. This being the case, the general tendency to putrefaction must be increased by the use of such water, as well as by the meats, which in a close, hot, and moist air, are quickly tainted. Several circumstances therefore in this country concur in summer, not only to relax the solids, but to dispose the humours to putrefaction; and as the combination of heat and impure moisture is the great cause of the speedy corruption of animal substances, so it is observed in every place to produce remitting and intermitting fever.”—See Pringle’s Observations on Diseases of the army, pp. 2, 3, 4. Brief view of the Sufferings and living Testimonies of the Martyrs, p. 392. Milner’s Letters to a Prebendary, No. 4. Challoner’s memoirs of missionary Priests, I. 392, 436. This bishop, whose christian name, as it is called, was Lancelot, seems to have been in his day one of the better sort of the men of that order, as appears by the following anecdote, related of him after he had been translated from Ely to Winchester.—Waller, the poet, being one day at court, while James I. was dining, overheard the following conversation between his sacred majesty and two of his bishops, of whom one was Andrews of Winchester, and the other Neale of Durham. These two prelates, standing behind the king’s chair, were asked by him, “If he might not take his subjects’ money when he wanted it, without all the usual formality in parliament?” To which his lordship of Durham readily answered, “God forbid, sir, but you should; you are the breath of our nostrils.” The other being silent, James addressed himself to him, “Well, my lord of Winchester, and what say you?” Andrews replied, that he was “not competent to judge in parliamentary cases.” Upon which the king exclaimed, “No evasions, my lord, I expect an immediate and direct answer to my question!” “Then, sir,” said he, “I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neale’s money, for he offers it.”—It is easy to see that there was some difference between these two bishops, and that the latter was the better man of the two, being by no means so lost to all shame and decency, or so abject a flatterer of majesty as the other. Which of them the majority of their successors have resembled most, may be a point not very easy to determine: nor would it be, perhaps, of very material consequence. History of the Boroughs, Volume 8. Hutchesson’s Account—also Beauties of England. According to Hutchesson they used to dine at a groat a head: but a groat then was equal perhaps to two or three shillings of our money. In all the adjacent villages the title of Town-Bailiff is given to the treasurer or manager of their respective charitable establishments.—Beauties of England. Beauties of England, volume 2. Hutchesson’s Account of Wisbeach—and Beaut. of Engl. as before. The text is footnoted but there is no footnote for it in the book.—DP. See Blackstone’s Commentaries—also Hutchesson’s Account—and the Beauties of England, as before. Beauties of England, as before. It is really a ditch or dyke that separates Wisbeach from Marshland. Queen Henrietta, by her numerous indiscretions, contributed largely to the alienation of the affections of his subjects from the king her husband; and she suffered very severely in consequence of it. After her retirement into France, that court, at the head of which was her nephew Lewis XIV, is said to have been very remiss in administering to her relief, so as to leave her often in want even of the necessaries of life. It has been reported that she was in such distress at Paris, in 1643, that she and her infant daughter were obliged to lie in bed, in their room at the palace of the Louvre, for want of wood to make their fire with. One time during the Protectorate, as Granger reports, she was so reduced, that she actually applied to Cromwell for relief, as queen dowager of England. In 1660, after an absence of many years, she returned to London, where she seems not to have been treated with much kindness by her son Charles. In 1665, at the breaking out of the plague, she again retired to France. From Sir John Reresby’s memoirs it appears, that she was secretly married (probably about that time) to Henry Jermyn, earl of St. Albans, who had for many years attended her as chamberlain of her household, or some such character, and who afterward treated her in a most unkind and brutal manner. She died in 1669, in her 60th year. History of Freebridge, p, 258. A single jail, in Alfred’s golden reign,
Could half the nation’s criminals contain.
Fair Justice then, without constraint ador’d,
Held high the steady scale, but deep’d the Sword:
No spies were paid, no special Juries known;
Blest age! but ah! how different from our own! Johnson’s London. See Hughes’s Letters; also Petit. Andr. History of England. 1. 233. Particularly as an Hebrician, according to the learned Hugh Broughton. One Brook, now a dashing orator at or about Burnham, and who also holds forth sometimes at Lynn, is said to have used the same experiment, and boasted of it,—and also of having doomed and consigned a certain neighbouring minister to eternal torment, for presuming, forsooth, to differ from his creed. Master B. is classed among the evangelicals, and seems to be very much in their spirit. How well he used them upon the poor popish prisoners in the Tower, whom he there most unmercifully flogged, or rather racked and tortured, we have seen above (p. 93) from the testimony of Dr. Milner. Some of the numerous puritan sufferers of that time might, probably, share from him the same fate; which may account for what Fuller calls his being foully belibelled by them, in return. After such treatment it would be very natural for them to think that they had some right as well as reason to complain: and it might also be natural for him, as well as for Fuller, to give those complaints the name of libels. Parkin, 308. See Parkin, and Norfolk Tour, 131. Walter Coney, Alderman, and four-times mayor of Lynn, in the fifteenth century, who is supposed to have lived in the corner house at the bottom of High Street, on the east, fronting the Church.—Further accounts of the above three families may be found in Blomefield and Parkin’s History of Norfolk.—? To what was before said of Terrington (Section XIII) it may be here added, that the impropriation of the great tithes was given by James I. as an augmentation to Lady Margaret’s professorship of divinity at Cambridge; and that this revenue, or income has so much increased of late years, as to render that chair the most lucrative piece of preferment now in the gift of the University.—Here it may be also noted, in addition to what was before said of Walpole (Section XI.) that in the year 1727, a person digging there in his garden found, about three feet beneath the surface, numerous roman bricks, and an aqueduct formed of earthen pipes, which were twenty inches long, three inches and three quarters in the bore, and half an inch thick; the one end diminishing, so as to be inserted in the wider end of the other. Twenty-six were taken up whole, and distributed among several antiquaries.—See Beauties of England, v. 11, 289. See Beauties of England, vol. XI, and Kent’s View of Agriculture of Norfolk, p. 40, 41. Kent’s General View—and Beauties of England, as before. Kent’s General View—Beauties of England, as before. Ibid. Brancaster was one of those forts erected by the Romans along the Icenian coast, to guard the country against the incursions of the piratical Saxons, who used to infest this coast long before they obtained any footing in the country, and while it formed a part of the Roman Empire. From their frequent hostile visits, this coast was called the Saxon shore. The forts along the coast (the chief of which was Brancaster,—to which Rising might be a kind of appendage,) were garrisoned by a strong body of cavalry, called the Dalmatian horse, whose superior, or commander in chief, was denominated the Count of the Saxon store; and sometimes Branodunensis, from Branodunum, the Roman or Latin name of Brancaster.—Brancaster is now an obscure village, exhibiting no vestige of its ancient dignity, except some entrenchments, or earthworks, the remains of a Roman Camp, including, as Camden says, some eight acres; which the neighbours call Caster—all whose dimensions, according to his annotator, agree with the Roman models, in Cesar’s Commentaries.—See Gibson’s Camden, 391, 398. See Norfolk Tour, and Parkin. Beauties of England. 7, 505. Otherwise Titherington Hall. See Beauties of England, volume Xl. Norfolk Tour. Beauties of England as before. The following lines of his, quoted by Lord Teignmouth in his Life of Sir William Jones, is supposed to be expressive of the manner in which he distributed, or employed his time. “Six hours in sleep, in Law’s grave study Six,
Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.”
For which Sir William Jones is said to have substituted the following, “Six hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.”
The worshipful kindred of John Reeves, and John Bowles; alias the pretended Antijacobins, who have been of late years such monstrous benefactors to this country, and to the world. A curious circumstance that attended Sir E. Coke’s second marriage ought not to pass here unnoticed.—That marriage was solemnized in a private house, without banns or licence, in consequence of which the married couple and the officiating clergyman, together with Lord Burleigh, who was one of the company, were prosecuted in the archbishop’s Court; but upon their submission, they escaped excommunication, and the consequent penalties, because, says the record, “they had offended not out of contumacy, but through ignorance of the Law in that point.”—So then the Lord Chief Justice of England, even Sir Edward Coke, transgressed the law through ignorance. Which must have been about as reasonable as the old woman’s advice to leave off thinking, for fear of thinking wrong. For the sympathies of his nature and qualities of his heart, see his Letter to Simon Taylor, in Flower’s Pol. Rev. Mar. 1807, p. xxxvi. See the Memoirs of Dr. Priestly, Vol. 1. and also the London Magazine, for November, 1783. The late Mr. Carr, a merchant of Lynn, used to say, that his father once killed six Bustards at one shot.—They were probably much more numerous then, than they are now.—A respectable gentleman of Lynn, however, assures this writer that not many years ago, he saw no less than eight or ten of them together, in the neighbourhood of Stanhoe. The fen-fowlers, with their long guns, make terrible havock among them, killing sometimes between 20 and 30 at one shot; and of Coots twice that number; which however, is nothing like the number of Starlings which they have sometimes slaughtered:—a person of veracity, who has lived long in the fens, assures this writer, that he knew, an instance, near Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, of 36 dozens of Starlings being killed at a single shot, by one Thomas Hall. Just after their arrival in October, the Woodcocks are said to be sometimes exceedingly abundant here. So called, probably, from the river on whose banks it stands, and which, it seems, was formerly called Ey: so that Sechey may signify, Sech on the Ey, or on the banks of the river so called.—See Parkin. Anciently it was called Downham-hithe, i.e. Downham-port. Gibson’s Camden. See Norfolk Tour, last Edition, p. 365. Also Description of England and Wades, volume 6, p. 251. For a further account of Swaffham, see Norfolk Tour: also Beauties of England, volume, xi. Beauties of England as before. Ten single threads of cotton to each of those 18 lamps, make in all 180: now a street lamp in London, is said to contain 28 single threads, and if we divide 180 by 28, we shall have 6 3/7: hence the oil consumed in the Hunston Light-house, is less than that consumed by 7 London street lamps.—The advantages derived from Mr. Walker’s plan, are, 1. The strength of light may be proportioned to the distance at which it may be necessary to be seen. 2. It may be maintained at a less expence than where the light is equally diffused all round the compass. 3. It requires little attendance. 4. It always appears of the same magnitude—provided, as was above hinted, the glass be kept clean, and the lamps in a proper trim—circumstances that must be attended to, and not neglected.—Here it may be further observed that the improvement of light-houses is not the only subject that has undergone Mr. W.’s close and successful investigation. Many papers written by him, have appeared in Nicholson’s Philosophical Journal, and Tilloch’s Philosophical Magazine, giving an account of divers useful inventions of his, and new discoveries is physics, chiefly under the following heads.—1. On a method of using candles, so as to produce no smoke, nor require snuffing.—2. A method of obviating the effects of thick wires in transit telescopes. 3. On the Plumb line and Spirit level. 4. On the vibrations of pendulums in vacuo. 5. On a standard of light, by which we may compare the strength of any other light. 6. Description of an apparatus for conducting sound, and holding conversations at a distance. 7. Description of a new reflecting quadrant. 8 On the best method of ascertaining the dip of the horizon at sea. 9. On the methods of observing the longitude at sea. 10. On the phenomenon of the horizontal moon. 11. Description of a new cometarium. 12. On transit instruments. 13. On vision. 14. Description of a new optical instrument called a Phantasmascope. 15. Observations on vision, when objects are seen through a mist. 16. On the power of the eye, by which it is adjusted to see objects distinctly at different distances. 17. On the apparent magnitudes of the same object seen under different circumstances. 18. On deal pendulum rods. 19. On the human eye: in which many errors of former writers on vision are pointed out, and the true theory explained. It was not till after the erection of these, that the Corporation of the Trinity House had some Light-houses constructed on similar principles, which are now in use, and well approved. Catus Dicianus, as was observed before, was the Roman Procurator over the province of the Iceni in the reign of Claudius, and perhaps in that of Nero; and seems to have been, not only the chief cause of Boadicea’s revolt, by his brutal treatment of her and her daughters, but also the principal director of the canals, embankments and other works and improvements then carried on in and about the fens.—See above, Part I. Chap. 2. Section 1. “The Triads of the Isle of Britain, are some of the most curious and valuable fragments preserved in the Welsh language. They relate to persons and events, from the earliest times to the beginning of the seventh century.”—Owen’s preface to the Works of Llywarch Hen. Supposed to be the Aristobulus of the New Testament. See British ArchÆology, lately published: also Owen’s Cambrian Biography. Annal. I. 13. C. 22. Before the introduction of Christianity, the prevailing and established religion of Britain and of Gaul, was Bardism, or Druidism, as it is more commonly called, of which very different accounts have been given by different authors. According to our best informed antiquaries and most competent judges, it was of very remote if not of patriarchal origin, and exhibited for no short period a most strikingly rational and venerable appearance. It taught the existence, unity, spirituality, and benevolence of the Supreme Being; also the doctrine of a future state, of providence, and the immortality of the soul: but it taught withal the transmigration of the soul, and even the final salvation of the whole human race, with other tenets equally grating to an orthodox ear. Its fundamental object and principle were a diligent search after truth, and a rigid adherence to justice and peace. The religious Functionaries never bore arms, nor engaged in any party disputes. They were employed as heralds in war, and so sacred were their persons considered, in the office of mediators, that they passed unmolested through hostile countries, and even appeared in the midst of battle, to arrest the arm of slaughter, while they executed their missions. So far they appear singularly dignified and respectable; but this did not always continue—like the priests of other professions, they, in time, departed from their original principles, and introduced various degrading changes, especially among the Gauls. In Britain the system was preserved in greater purity: hence the first families of Gaul sent their children hither for education, as Cesar testifies. We have often heard Druidism represented as a monstrous and shocking system: but if it was so, it must have been in its corrupt, and not in its original state. Even christianity itself, in a corrupt state, becomes an object equally monstrous and shocking; but that can furnish no argument against genuine christianity, or the religion of the New Testament. As to the human victims which the Druids are said to have offered, they were, it seems, chiefly malefactors: in that view we may be said to have our human victims too, and that in far greater numbers probably, than those of the Druids. Our executions are very frequent, and the victims we thus offer up are more numerous than in any other country we know of. These victims we offer up to law and justice, but they are very few compared with the myriads upon myriads we have offered on the altar of injustice, persecution, ambition, and folly. Badeslade, §. 3. page 15.—Colonizing was an essential branch of the Roman policy in conquered countries, and it is likely that such an important undertaking as that of recovering and improving these fertile parts, would be by them committed to colonists, such as they might introduce from Belgium, who must from their habits and employment at home, be peculiarly rated for the task.—Circumstances also lead us to think, that the work was begun here, which being nighest the inhabited parts, seems to have been the right end, where common sense would dictate that it should commence. Salen. Village au bord d’un Marais. Sal, bord; Len, marais. Mullet, Memoires Sur la langue Celtique. Tom. 1. p. 136. Ey, is also said to have been another of its names. See Gough’s Edition of Camden’s Britannia. Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmsbury, Dugdale, &c. The Saxons, as before hinted, were long distinguished from other nations for their piratical propensities, and predatory adventures, as well as for the success that generally attended their favourite operations. It was no wonder, therefore, if their neighbours would by degrees become attached to similar pursuits: and that it did so happen is undeniable. “In the ninth century (says a respectable historian) it was an established custom in the North, that all the sons of kings except the eldest, should be furnished with ships properly equipped, in order to carry on the dangerous, but not dishonourable profession of piracy.”—So reputable was the pursuit, that parents were even anxious to compel their children into that desperate and detestable occupation. By an extraordinary enthusiasm for which, they would not suffer their children to inherit the wealth which they had gained by it. It was their practice to command their gold, silver, and other property to be buried with them, [see Turner’s History of the Anglo Saxons, and Edinburgh Review No. 6. p. 368]—Here it may not be improper to observe, that what determined the Saxons to piratical enterprises was a most daring, singular, and memorable achievement of a numerous body of their neighbours and allies the Francs, whom the emperor Probus had transported from their own country, on the borders of the Rhine, to the distant shores of the Euxine, with a view of weakening the strength of that warlike nation, which was so very formidable to the neighbouring Roman provinces. These exiles, though removed to a country not inferior to their own, could not bear the idea of seeing their native land no more. There is what may be called a law of nature, which attaches us to the region where we first drew our breath, or spent our childish and youthful days, and which makes it often most painful to think of being for ever separated from it. So it seems to have been with those exiled Francs. Unable to bear the thought of a perpetual separation from their kindred and native country, they seized the earliest opportunity of abandoning their appointed settlement, and regaining what appeared to them the sweetest blessings of life. “They possessed themselves of many ships, and formed the astonishing plan of sailing back to the Rhine. Who were their pilots, or how they conceived, on their untutored minds, the possibility of a project so intricate, and, for such barbarians, so sublime, has not been revealed to us. Its novelty and magnanimity ensured it success. They ravaged Asia and Greece; not for safety merely, but revenge and plunder were also their objects. Landing in Sicily, they attacked and ravaged Syracuse with great slaughter. They carried their triumphant hostility to several districts of Africa, and sailing adventurously to Europe, they concluded their insulting and prosperous voyage by reaching in safety their native shores.”—This amazing enterprise discovered to them and their neighbours, that from the Roman colonies a rich harvest of spoil might be gleaned by those who would seek for it at sea. They had desolated every province almost with impunity; they had plunder to display, which must have fired the avarice of every needy spectator; they had acquired skill, which they who joined them might soon inherit; and perhaps the same adventurers, embarking again with new followers, evinced by fresh booty the practicability of similar attempts.—The Saxons, then inhabiting the parts about the Elbe and Heiligoland, are supposed to be among the first to emulate the exploits of the returned exiles.—Thus originated that system of piracy by which the northern nations were so long distinguished, and for which the Saxons were for many ages deservedly infamous. They became by degrees so powerful and formidable by sea, like the modern English, that some of the competitors for the Roman imperial dignity actually formed alliances with them, in order to insure their own success.—Like ourselves, and perhaps with equal justice, they seemed to aim at the sovereignty of the ocean: but among all their deeds of infamy, it is doubtful if any one of them ever exceeded in baseness and atrocity our own late memorable expedition to Copenhagen, though conducted by such as made pretension even to piety and evangelism, which indeed but rendered it the more detestable.—In vain we look to Algiers and Tunis for more flagitious or fouler deeds. [See Hellfried’s Outlines of a Political survey of the English Attack on Denmark—and for an account of the expedition of the Francs, and the Saxon and northern piracies, see Turner, as before.] Gildas Epistle. § xxiii. Henry the Lion, the prime actor in these brutal proceedings, was another time affronted by the inhabitants of Bardewic, one of the largest cities of Germany, for which he stormed it, and, except nine churches, left not one stone on another. No wonder that he is said to have been universally dreaded. He afterward quarrelled with the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, but there he was overmatched, and expelled from Germany. He then took refuge with his wife Matilda, at the court of our Henry II, his father-in-law. He was afterward restored to his hereditary domains only, Brunswick and Lunenburgh, to which august and illustrious house he belonged. [Nugent—Petit Andrews.] See Nugent’s Hist. of Vandalia: also Monthly Review 35. 174. Gildas, as before, xxiv, xxv. They are mentioned in Domesday, and by many of our topographical writers, without attempting to account for their origin. Their condition seemed as abject as that of our modern West India Negroes. We seldom hear of them after the bloody contest between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, which proved to them, it seems, a most beneficial contest, as it occasioned their emancipation, in order the more easily to recruit the contending armies. As the lust of Henry VIII. proved favourable to the success of the reformation, so the ambition of those rival houses, proved, it seems, no less so to the manumission of these poor slaves. That this country, in the time of the Romans, contained many populous, flourishing, and well-built towns, is allowed on all hands; and that they were mostly overthrown and destroyed by the invading Saxons, is confirmed by the testimony of Gildas; it may therefore very naturally be concluded, that the original Lynn was involved in the common fate of its neighbours.—See Gildas, No. xxiv. Parkin, pp. 69. 115. William of Newburgh.—Gibson’s Camden—Parkin 116. Parkin, 237. Ibid. 69. Of those Salt-works the present writer regrets his inability to give the reader a more particular and satisfactory account; but as he has hitherto met with nothing that gives him any further light upon the subject, it must be here dismissed: but it shall be again resumed, in case any new discovery should be made before the work is completed. Our topographical writers, as well as our old records, only allege the existence of numerous salt-works in these parts, without attempting a description of them, or of the process therein pursued, or even so much as giving any hints, or intimations, to assist and direct our inquiries. Beauties of England, 2. 149. Canute, one of the greatest and wisest of our kings, next to Alfred, had a mighty veneration for relics, and even employed agents in foreign countries to purchase and collect them for him. One of these, an archbishop of Canterbury, called Agelnoth, being at Rome, in 1021, purchased, of the Pope, an arm of St. Austin, bishop of Hippo, for an hundred talents, or 6000 pound weight of silver, and one talent, or sixty pound weight of gold. A prodigious sum! greater (says Granger) than the finest statue of antiquity would then have sold for. It may enable us, as another historian observes, to form some idea of the unconscionable knavery of the sellers, and the astonishing folly and superstition of the purchasers of those commodities. Enormous sums were then expended in the purchase of relics, and the roads between England and Rome were so crowded with pilgrims, that the very tolls which they paid were objects of importance to the princes through whose territories they passed: few Englishmen, as Henry expresses it, imagined they could get to heaven without paying this compliment to St. Peter, who kept the keys of the celestial regions.—Such was the wisdom, and such the piety and christianity of the people of this country in former times, and for many ages.—Even Alfred, according to Rapin, was much attached to relics, and received, with no small satisfaction and gratitude, those sent him as presents from the Pope, and from Abel Patriarch of Jerusalem. His foibles, however, were greatly overbalanced by his great qualities, good deeds, and shining virtues. Or rather Abingdon, in Berks, according to bishop Gibson. Even nowadays, many of our gentry and wealthy people, are very strict in requiring their domestics and dependents regularly to attend at some place of worship, while they themselves live in the entire neglect of it! so that they too may be said to perform religious exercises by proxy. Petit Andrews. We regret that the abolition of slavery was not among them. The reign of Alfred, however, was certainly distinguished by numerous and important national benefits: war and internal disorder were made entirely to cease; learning, and the useful arts, revived and flourished; wholesome and important regulations were adopted and introduced, whose salutary effects are still felt; trade and commerce were much encouraged and extended: in all which, and especially the latter, Lynn, as may be presumed; must have been greatly interested. Alfred employed skilful and adventurous mariners, to explore the most distant northern regions, and (by means of Ofthere, supposed to be a banished Norwegian chief,) actually gained intelligence of the Dwina, on whose banks Archangel stands; a river not again spoken of in England, till 1553, when Richard Chanceller found his way to the White Sea. What follows is still more surprising: by means of a correspondence which Alfred engaged in with Abel, patriarch of Jerusalem, he heard of a sect of christians who lived in penury on the south eastern coast of Asia, the present Coromandel; and he chose a spirited priest, named Sighelm, to go and relieve those his oppressed brethren. By what track or route this gallant adventurer proceeded, any further than Rome, we know not. It is certain that he reached the end of his journey, delivered the royal presents, and brought back from India many curious jewels, some of which were to be seen in the days of William of Malmsbury, at Sherborne Cathedral, of which see Alfred had made the fortunate and intrepid Sighelm bishop, after his return. Others of these jewels are believed still to exist in an old crown, kept in the tower of London.—After such enterprizes, to celebrate this great prince as the inventor of horn-lanthorns, may be deemed ridiculous; yet nothing can less merit ridicule: there were then no Clocks in England; Alfred contrived wax tapers of a proper length, to last one, two, or more hours; and to prevent the winds from deranging his plans, he defended the taper, with thin, clear, horn. Such were the improved English time keepers of the 9th century: the merit of which improvement, is due to Alfred; a merit not inferior, probably, to that of the Harrisons and Arnolds of modern times.—See Petit Andrews Hist. Gr. Britain. It is curious and ludicrous enough to think of the difficulties that puzzled our celebrated missionary, after his arrival here, and of which he wrote to Rome for the solution. Of what sort they were, the reader will be able to judge from the following queues and answers; the former by the said missionary, saint Austin, and the latter by his infallible holy master, saint Gregory: “Query. 1. Are cousin germans allowed to marry? Answer. This indulgence was formerly granted by the Roman law; but experience having shewn that no posterity can come from such marriages, they are prohibited. Query. 2. Is it lawful to baptize a woman with child? Answer. No inconvenience can arise from the practice. Query. 3. How soon after the birth may a child be baptized? Answer. Immediately if necessary. Query. 4. How soon may the husband return to the wife after her delivery? Answer. Not till after the child is weaned. Query. 5. How soon after sexual intercourse, is it lawful for a husband to enter the church? Answer. Not till he has purged himself by prayer and ablution.”
These nice and delicate queries, with more of the same sort, were accompanied by others concerning episcopal duties.—With the solution of these problems, the pope sent Austin the pall, (a piece of white woollen cloth, to be thrown over the shoulders, as a badge of archiepiscopal dignity;) sundry other ecclesiastical vestments and utensils, and instructions to erect twelve sees within his province, and particularly to appoint one at York, which, if the country should become christian, he was to convert into a province, with its suffragan bishops.—Thus did Austin become the first archbishop of Canterbury, and thus originated our ecclesiastical establishment, the renowned Church of England. [Aikin’s Biogr. vol. 1.]—Among other counsels which Austin received from the pontiff on the above occasion, was an exhortation “not to be elated with vanity on account of the miracles which he had been enabled to perform in confirmation of his ministry, but to remember that this power was given, not for his own sake, but for the sake of those whose salvation he was appointed to procure.”—Thus we have it from very high authority, that the first archbishop of Canterbury was a worker of miracles. The other orders were the middle and inferior thanes: the former are said to be the lesser barons, or lords of manors; and the latter made up the lowest degree of freeholders. Dyde Hist. Tewksbury. 141.—All others in the Anglo-Saxon community below these thanes, who were the nobles of those times, are sometimes comprized under the heads of untitled freemen, and slaves—the latter, constituting the great mass of the inhabitants, were the property of their lords, like the present Russian or Bohemian peasantry. Petit Andrews, 1. 83. Henry, and Petit Andrews. Dyde’s History of Tewksbury, 139, 40, 41. See Parkin. “Directly opposite the Irish coast, (says William of Malmsbury) there is a seaport town, called Bristol, the inhabitants of which frequently sail into Ireland, to sell there people whom they had bought up throughout all England. They expose to sale maidens in a state of pregnancy, with whom they had made a sort of mock-marriages. There you might see with grief, fastened together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings, of both sexes, of elegant forms, and in the very bloom of youth, (a sight sufficient to excite pity, even in barbarians,) daily offered for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! Infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brutal instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay even their offspring!”—Life of Wolstan, bishop of Worcester, B. ii, C. 20.—[see Edinburgh Review, July, 1808.] Petit Andrews Hist. of Great Britain, 1. 84. Another historian informs us, that the great lords and abbots, among the Anglo-Saxons, possessed a criminal jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish or protect without appeal. This power, he says, was in some measure restrained by the established administration of justice, by the courts of decennary, the hundred, and the county. In the Anglo-Saxon courts, the accused was allowed to clear himself by his own oath, and the concurring oaths of his friends. These were called compurgators, and sometimes amounted to 300. The practices also of single combat, and the ordeal, were allowed in doubtful cases; and absurd as they may appear, the result was deemed complete evidence, for or against the accused, or suspected person.—The punishment of crimes was not less singular than the general proofs of guilt. A fine was the customary mode of commuting the punishment of the blackest offences; and as fines were a source of revenue, they were fixed with the nicest care, on a graduated scale, corresponding to the magnitude of the crime. Thus a wound of an inch long, under the hair, was compounded for with one shilling; a wound of the like size in the face, with two shillings; and thirty shillings was the compensation for the loss of an ear; and so on in proportion.—Mavor, 1. 77. See Andrews. Dr. Henry, and Petit Andrews. Dr. Henry—Petit Andrews.—Another modern historian informs us that the Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries after the conquest, was near three times the weight of our present money. There was (as he says) forty eight shillings in the pound, and a Saxon shilling was nearly a fifth heavier than ours. Dr. Mayor’s Hist. Engl. 1. 78. The princess Githa, daughter, or near relation to king Canute, and wife of Earl Goodwin, is said to have made a vast fortune by dealing in slaves; a traffic which then shockingly disgraced this country, as indeed it has done in our own time. Bristol was then, what Liverpool has recently been, the chief port to cherish and carry on this detestable commerce. This northern coast also, from Scotland to the Humber, was distinguished on the same account. We are told, by William of Malmsbury, that the Northumbrians used to sell their nearest relations for their own advantage; and Dr. Henry says, that English Slaves were then, like cattle, exposed to sale in all the markets of Europe. Many of the Slave-merchants of that period were Jews, who found a good market for their English and christian Slaves among the Saracens in Spa in and Africa. At Rome also, we read of English slaves being exposed for sale, as early as the 7th century. It is, moreover, highly probable that Lynn, and other neighbouring ports were long concerned in the same odious employment. Even as late as the reign of king John, the Irish used to import many slaves from Bristol. To add to the brutality of this vile proceeding, the Sellers always took care that the females should be in a condition which might enable them to demand a higher price from the purchasers. What put an end, at last, to this horrid traffick, is said to have been, not the virtue of the English, but the compunction of the Irish, who were shocked at it, under the idea that certain national misfortunes which had befallen them were divine judgments, for having been concerned in so iniquitous a business.—Our unfeeling advocates for the slave trade, who have so long dishonoured this nation, and are still in no small numbers among us, are little aware, that time was, when their own ancestors were in a similar situation with the present inhabitants of Africa; being liable, like them, to be bought and sold into slavery; and that other nations actually traded here for Slaves, as we have so long done in modern times to the coast of Guinea.—If they cannot put themselves in the place of the poor negroes, and feel for them, they ought, at least, to do so in regard to their own ancestors, and so learn some degree of justice and humanity, if nothing else can teach them. He might have said, somewhat less than a shilling an acre, if, as some have asserted, the hide comprehended 120 acres. Henry iv. 237, 8, 9. Henry iv. 234. As a proof of the salubrity of Croyland, and the temperance of its monks in those days, it has been remarked, that when Turketul, who had been chancellor of England, and one of the greatest warriors and statesmen of his time, retired from the world, and became abbot of Croyland, he found five aged monks there, to whom he paid particular attention. The eldest of them died in 973, in his 169th year: the second died within the same year, at the age of 142: the third died the neat year, aged 115; the other two are thought to have been about the same age as the last. Their names were Clarenbald, Swarling, Turgar, Brune, and Ajo.—Croyland is not now remarkable for its salubrity, or the longevity of its inhabitants. Andrews—Mavor—Henry. Henry iv. 313. I. Walingford, apud Gale, t. 1. p. 536: quoted by Henry. 4. 324. Henry, iv. 299. Henry, iv. 329. Seven, however, was not invariably their number, they were sometimes more and sometimes less. Some, indeed, have seemed rather to doubt if its origin here was as early as the days of Edward, as Ingulphus, a contemporary writer, makes no mention of it. Malmsbury, however, who lived not long after, affirms it; and the Confessor seems as likely as any to have taken the lead in such a business and become our first practitioner. Owing partly, as it is supposed, to the aguishness of the air, and partly to other causes, not peculiar to these parts. He was also Duke of Wessex, and Earl or Governor of Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex. Carto 1. 416. Flower’s Political Review, vol. 1. 299. We are apt to deem it a grievous hardship upon the good people of England, under the Norman princes, to be deprived of the administration of justice in their own mother tongue, or to have their legal proceedings all transacted in a strange language, without considering, that the Welsh, the Irish, and the Scotch Highlanders, are to this day used by our own government in the same manner; in which nevertheless, we seem to perceive no great or very material harm, hardship, or impropriety:—so loth do we often appear to place ourselves in the situation of our neighbours, and to use them as we would wish to be used by them.—England must have made a queerish appearance when law was administered in French, and religion in Latin, and the people knew no language but English. “Ailred as well as Malmsbury observe, that the Confessor cured a young married woman, reduced by the Evil to a deplorable condition, by stroking the place affected with his hand; upon which she grew sensibly better, the humour dispersed, the scar wore off, and in a week’s time the cure was perfected!!”—Carte 1. 357. That Francis touched for the evil is said to be averred by Servetus, in his 1st edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. Of its success, indeed, we are told that he appeared far from being a believer, but it was not the only instance of his unbelief or incredulity. He often disbelieved what others firmly credited; for which the bloody reformer Calvin made him pay very dearly, at last, without the gates of Geneva. Nor does it appear that it belonged exclusively to certain christian potentates; for, long before there were any such, it had been ascribed to the pagan emperors Vespasian and Hadrian, who are said, by their touch, to have restored sight to the blind; and the fact seems as well established as any of the accounts of cures effected by the touch of our christian and English monarchs. See Occasional Thoughts on the Power of curing the King’s Evil, ascribed to the Kings of England—superadded to Werenfel’s Dissertation upon superstition in natural things. Lond. 1748. Carte, 1. 357. Carte adds, that archbp. Bradwardine, Lord Chancellor Fortescue, and other grave authors, give the like testimony in behalf of the cure, as well as the practice, by that prince’s successors:—[Richard I, John, Henry III, and the three Edwards, we may suppose.] Carte, as before. Occasional Thoughts, as before, 58. Ibid. Though some, perhaps, would choose to ascribe that gift, virtue, or power, rather to the throne, as the infallibility of the pope has, by one of our old satirists, been ascribed to the papal chair, in some such lines as the following, If the devil himself should get there,
Although he be full of all evil,
Yet such is the virtue in Peter’s old chair,
He would be an infallible devil.
Occasional Thoughts, as before, p. 60—also New. An. Reg. 13, [180]—It does not appear, who among Henry’s bishops, or ecclesiastics drew up this new office for his use: but we find that it went in the manner and form following—First, the king, kneeling, shall say, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” And as soon as he hath said that, he shall say, Give the blessing. The chaplain kneeling before the king, and having a stole about his neck, shall answer and say, “The Lord be in your heart, and in your lips, to confess all your sins. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Or else he shall say, “Christ hear us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Then by and by the king shall say, “I confess to God, to the blessed virgin Mary, to all the 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 to pray for me.” The chaplain shall answer and say, “Almighty God have mercy on you, and pardon you all your sins, deliver you from all evil, and confirm you in good, and bring you to everlasting life. Amen. The almighty and merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, time for repentance and amendment of life, with the grace and comfort of his holy spirit. Amen.” This done the chaplain shall say, The Lord be with you. The king shell answer, And with thy spirit. The chaplain, Part of the Gospel according to St. Mark. The king shall answer, Glory to thee O Lord. The chaplain reads the gospel, “Last he appeared to those eleven as they sat at the table: and he exprobated their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them that had seen him risen again. And he said to them: going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to all creatures. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And them that believe these signs shall follow: in my name, shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues. Serpents shall they take up, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall impose hands upon the sick and they shall be whole.” Which last clause, (They shall impose &c.) the chaplain repeats as long as the king is handling the sick person. And in the time of repeating the aforesaid words (they shall impose &c.) the clerk of the closet shall kneel before the king, having the sick person on the right hand, and the sick persons shall also kneel before the king; and the king shall lay his hand upon the sore of the sick person. This done the chaplain shall make an end of the Gospel. “And so our Lord Jesus, after he spake unto them, was assumpted into heaven, and sate on the right hand of God. But they going forth preached every where; our Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs which followed.” Whilst this is reading, the chirurgeon shall lead away the sick person from the king. And after the Gospel the chaplain shall say, The Lord be with you. The king shall answer, And with thy spirit. The chaplain, The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. The king, Glory to thee O Lord. The chaplain then shall say the Gospel following, [i.e. the first words of John’s Gospel, ending at verse 9th.] It was the true light which lightneth every man that cometh into this world. Which last clause, (It was the true light, &c.) shall be restated so long as the king shall be crossing the sort of the sick person, with an angel of gold noble, and the sick person to have the same angel hang’d about his neck, and to wear it until he be full whole. This done, the chirurgion shall lead away the sick person as he did before, and then the chaplain shall make an end of the gospel [i.e. read on from verse the 9th, where he left off before, to the end of verse 14.] Then the chaplain shall say, The Lords name be praised. The King shall answer, Now and for ever. Then shall the chaplain say this collect following, praying for the sick person or persons: O Lord hear my prayer. The king shall answer. And let my cry come unto thee. The chaplain, Let us pray. “Almighty and everlasting God, the eternal health of them that believe; graciously hear us for thy servants for whom we implore the aid of thy mercy, that their health being restored to them, they may give thee thanks in thy church, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” This prayer following is to be said secretly, after the sick persons be departed from the king, at his pleasure.—“Almighty God, Ruler and Lord, by whose goodness the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and all sick persons are healed of their infirmities: By whom also alone the gift of healing is given to mankind and so great a grace, through thine unspeakable goodness toward this realm, is granted unto the kings thereof, that by the sole imposition of their hands, a most grievous and filthy disease should be cured: Mercifully grant that we may give thee thanks therefore, and for this thy singular benefit conferred on us, not to ourselves, but to thy name let us daily give glory; and let us always so exercise ourselves in piety, that we may labour not only diligently to conserve, but every day more and more to encrease thy grace bestowed upon us: And grant that on whose bodies soever we have imposed hands in thy name, through this thy virtue working in them, and through our ministry, may be restored to their former health, and being confirmed therein, may perpetually with us give thanks to thee the chief physician and healer of all diseases; and that henceforth they may so lead their lives, as not their bodies only from sickness, but their souls also from sin may be perfectly purged and cured: through our Lord Jesus Christ thy son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God world without end. Amen.” The reader will readily perceive that the above office, or formulary was entirely of popish manufacture; the king and whole nation being then papists; but it probably differed not much, if at all, from those used afterwards by our protestant princes, except in the article of invoking the Virgin Mary and the Saints; in which also consists, seemingly, the chief difference between the Romish and English Liturgies: in other respects the resemblance is great and striking; which is not much to be wondered at, as the model of the latter is pretty well known to have been taken from the former. Seward’s Anecdotes, 1, 38. Occasional Thoughts, as before, 61. So little did those reformers know of the spirit of christianity; and yet they are still held up, by a numerous and powerful religious party among us, as patterns of orthodoxy and pure religion: as if those men, who knew the least of the spirit of Christ, and the principles of common justice, were most likely to know most of the doctrines and precepts of the gospel, and be of all men the fittest to follow; or as if that religion should be the most orthodox, pure, and estimable, that shews the least of the spirit of the New Testament, and even allows of intolerance, persecution, and murder. Her conduct, in torturing and burning those whom the deemed heretics, cannot well be thought more diabolical or execrable than that of her successors Elizabeth and James, toward those whom they viewed in a similar light: the latter burns them, as Mary did, and no less cruelly and unjustly; and the former imprisoned, tortured, hanged, embowelled, and quartered them. This was the good queen Bess. Her whole bench of bishops, all of the right reformed and evangelical stamp, applauded her deeds. That part of the ceremony, however, appears to have been expunged in the next reign, and discontinued afterwards till that of James II. without any diminution of the effect. See Oc. Thoughts, as before, 62. Carte, 1, 357. Carte, 1, 358, note. AthenÆum No. 4. This proclamation therefore must have been published and affixed in some open place at Lynn. See the AthenÆum No, 4, p. 360. See the AthenÆum for April and May 1809. AthenÆum as before. Would not the case have been the same with their descendants of the present generation, had our three last monarchs thought proper to continue the practice, or the present sovereign chose to revive it?—How strikingly was the easy faith of the nation exemplified in the implicit credit it gave to a late premier’s possessing extraordinary and plenary ability to heal all the national or political maladies of Britain, of Europe, and of the world? And had he pretended to a power to cure the scrofula, or any other bodily complaint, with his touch, would it not have been readily believed by all his numerous admirers, and by the greatest part of our countrymen? And would not numerous witnesses have soon appeared, ready to attest the reality and completeness of his cures?—Circumstances seem evidently to favour these conclusions: nor will the story of the Dumb Doctor, still fresh in every body’s memory, (not to mention other cases) allow of our making here an exception in favour of the inhabitants of Lynn. For the sake of those readers who live at a distance from Lynn, the affair here last alluded to may require some explanation. Be it known therefore, that the empirical Adventurer, called the Dumb Doctor, made his appearance at Lynn about four and twenty years ago; and for a good while after spent most of his time between this town and Wisbeach. It was given out that he had been deaf and dumb from his birth, and that he was a native of New England, or some part of North America, where he had, somehow, (miraculously, or at least in some very extraordinary and wonderful manner no doubt) acquired very deep knowledge and skill in the healing art; and after having performed great and astonishing cures in his own country, had actually crossed the wide Atlantic out of pure kindness and compassion to the sick and infirm folk of this kingdom, most of whose complaints he might be expected capable of removing.—The tale very generally took with our good townsmen, and numbers of ailing people, gentle and simple, well-bred and ill-bred, from all quarters, flocked to the impostor for relief. Not a few of them also declared that they had actually derived great benefit from his prescriptions.—Thus he went on very prosperously, till an old acquaintance of his unluckily came to town, blew him up, and blasted all his hopes. He then suddenly decamped, and was never since seen or heard of in these parts.—It seems he had belonged so a company of strolling players, from which honourable fraternity he had been on some occasion expelled: upon which he took up the medical profession, pretending to be deaf and dumb, and a native of North America, as was before stated.—This may serve to shew that with all our skepticism and infidelity, and our large stock of fancied light and discernment, learning and refinement, we are by no means so far removed from the easy faith and blind credulity of our ancestors, or become such complete proofs against the wiles of imposture, or the specious arts of daring deceivers, as might be supposed, from our confident, loud, and boisterous boastings. Sullivan’s Lectures on the Feudal System, and Laws of England, p. 180. Blackstone ii. 51, and iv. 411. See Caste 1. 423. Sullivan’s Lectures, No. xvii, xviii, and xxviii. Leckie’s Historical Survey of the foreign affairs of Great Britain, Part I, page 57, &c. Leckie, as before, p. 66. Blackstone iv. 408. Neal Hist. Pur. I. 1. Blackstone iv. 409.—Our Game Laws are not only exceedingly detested, by those of the middle as well as lower orders, throughout the country, (which constitute the major part of the nation,) but seem also to be among the most grievous and disgraceful of all our present laws. In no view can they be deemed respectable or defensible. Nor is the conduct of our magistrates perhaps ever more unseemly or disreputable than in the unfeeling, cruel, and relentless rigour with which they put these vile laws in execution. In nothing probably more than in this does our present state resemble that of France before the revolution. The Game Laws there were then intolerably severe and grievous, and enforced by the magistrates with unrelenting and diabolical rigour; so that they used to fill even the very Gallies with their hapless victims: all which recoiled with vengeance upon them and their abettors, the privileged orders, in the dreadful change which ensued. Those laws no longer exist in that country: but a recent traveller, (Pinkney,) informs us, “that though there are now no game laws in France, there is a decency and moderation in the lower orders, which answer the same purpose. No one presumes to shoot game, except on land of which he is the proprietor or tenant.”—No where in England are these laws supposed to be more grievously felt than in Norfolk; of which a popular and respectable author of the present day speaks as follows—“What is denominated Game is very plentiful is this county. The arable lands affording both food and cover, and the gentry, being particularly attached to the amusement of sporting, have recourse to the strong arm of the law for its preservation. This tenacity on the part of the landholders, producing covetous desires in the tenants, is a strong inducement to poaching, and the source of numberless disagreements, which too frequently terminate in suits at law. Hence they are oppressive to one party and disgraceful to the other. The various statutes, called ‘the Game Laws,’ are justly deemed the opprobrium of the English code; and in no county perhaps are those statutes acted upon with greater rigor than they usually are in Norfolk. The endless litigations upon this despicable point have lately become the subject of theatrical ridicule; and this county has on the occasion been made the butt of dramatic satire. “Searchum, get warrants immediately, for seizing guns, nets, and snares; let every dog in the parish be collected for hanging to-morrow morning. Give them a taste for Norfolk discipline.” Happy would it be for the country, if ridicule, as reason has hitherto failed, should be able to induce the legislature to abrogate laws, which, as they were made to support an assumed claim, can only be continued in force to protect an usurped right.” [Beauties of England v. xi. p. 90, &c.] It is most disgusting to men of sound and liberal minds to hear with what complacency, selfgratulation, as well as selfimportance, the magistrates, at the convivial meetings of the gentry, will be sometimes expatiating on the rigour of their proceedings against the transgressors of the game laws, and describing how effectually they curb and keep in awe the farmers, and trounce to their utter undoing some of the most active among the lower order of poachers. Such a conduct is nothing less than a publishing of their own shame, and a boasting of their own misdoings; and had they expanded and reflecting minds, or any minds at all, they would blush for such a conduct, and carefully and studiously refrain from it, as well as from all manner of excess in their proceedings against poachers, many of whom with their luckless families have been utterly ruined by them. Some of those ill-fated culprits have perished in prison, after long and rigorous confinement: one of whom, named Saunders, died miserably in goal, after a six years incarceration, who probably was as well bred as some of his relentless judges; on which occasion the following lines were composed: “Epitaph on Nathaniel Saunders, gentleman: “Nat! thou’st escap’d just in the nick of time!
Thine was a barbarous and a bloody crime!
How long confin’d?—six years—that’s only fair;
What was his crime? the scoundrel kill’d a hare!”
Blackstone, iv. 410. Ibid, 411. Not a few of the most high-spirited and warlike withdrew into foreign parts; some sailed to the Mediterranean, and found at Constantinople a ready protector in the emperor of the east, who united them to the Barangi, or battle-ax guards, as some of their countrymen had been long before. [See Andrews, vol. 1.] Blackstone, vol. 1. Robinson’s Sermon on Slavery, and appendix. Sullivan’s Lectures, 258. It has been suggested that some vestiges of our ancient vassalage is discoverable still in the abject state of the bulk of those miscalled freemen, nine out of ten of whom, perhaps, have no will of their own in the choice of representatives, but implicitly act under the direction of the modern masters of the town.—The author, however, does not mean to give the name of slave-holders to the two families that now nominate, appoint, return, or send our members to parliament. The author hopes the reader will excuse the repetition of this topic: he wishes all the different orders of the community may be convinced that they are brethren, and that those of the higher orders may possess the proper feelings towards their inferiors, even of the very lowest degrees, who though they have not so much at stake in these perilous times, are yet of the very same species with themselves, and so must be entitled to their tender and fraternal attentions. The same seems also to have been the case in the recent continental conquests and changes: the lower orders and bulk of the people appear to be gainers rather than losers by those events: they were so burdened and oppressed by the old governments, without any hope of redress, or the least prospect of melioration, that they became at last quite regardless who should be their rulers, and rather hailed than deprecated the French emperor’s successes and triumphs; believing, it seems, that, if he became their master, their condition, as it could not well be worse, would or might probably be better than what it then was become under their own native princes, who treated them, not as men, or beings of the same species with themselves, but rather as beasts of burden, made only for their use and service; and who were oftentimes disposed of by them and sold like other cattle. Such was the abject and degraded state of the lower classes and great body of the people in most of the regular and old established governments of Europe, before the French revolution. Had the rulers been wise enough afterwards to conciliate the good will and esteem, and secure the attachment of the people, by holding out and granting to them what would be worth contending for, the French had never been able to over-run every country and overturn every government as, they have done. Emancipating the people, and admitting them to the enjoyment of real freedom, would render them a different race of men, capable of effectually defending their country; and repelling any hostile attack or invasion. But the statesmen, directors, and managers of the old governments are not, it seems, to be convinced of these obvious, salutary, and important truths. Instead of adopting such a plan, they have too plainly manifested a disposition to augment rather than diminish the burdens and sufferings of the people. The consequence was natural, and what might have been expected. But the managers of the old institutions have not yet begun to learn wisdom from observation and experience.—Even the pretended patriots of Spain, who have made such fuss about their national liberty and independence, have shewn as much reluctance as the rest, to ease the burdens of the people, or ameliorate the condition of the great body of the nation; and as they seem bent upon perpetuating the old tyranny, and unwilling to avail themselves of the only step that would give their resistance any chance of success, their miscarriage and downfal ought to be viewed without regret. See Carte, and Parkin; also Beauties of England, vol. xi. The business was at least acceded to by bishop Nykke, but the surrender seems to have been made by his successor bishop Rugg. It must be a mistake, and should no doubt be 1039; so that he filled the see but one year.—See Beauties of England, as before. See Beauties of England, vol. xi, where a fuller account is given of some of these bishops. Armstrong’s history of Norfolk, vol. 1. p. 206. See Tour of Norfolk, p. 180: also Beauties of England as before. Pope Urban promised the full remission of all their sins, not only to everyone who crossed the seas in that quarrel, and personally engaged in that bloody crusade against the other pope and his adherents, but also to all who would engage to pay any number of able soldiers employed on the occasion, and even to all such as would advance any part of their substance to the general (bp. Spencer,) towards defraying the expences of the expedition. The pope’s absolution, pronounced by the said episcopal commander in chief, was expressed as follows— “By the authority apostolical, to me in this behalf committed, We absolve thee A. B. from all thy sins confessed with thy mouth, and being contrite with thy heart, and whereof thou wouldst be confessed, if they came into thy memory: and we grant unto thee plenary remission of all manner of sins, and we promise unto thee thy part of the reward of all just men, and of everlasting salvation. And as many privileges as are granted unto them that go to fight for the Holy Land, we grant onto thee; and of all the prayers and benefits of the church, the universal synod, as also the holy catholic church we make thee partaker.”—(See Fox, Vol. 1.)
There were doubtless many Lynn people in that army; the general being lord of this town. It is somewhat remarkable, that though both Mackerell and Parkin appear to have made use of that MS Volume, and the former drew most of his materials from it, for the most part verbatim, yet neither of them take any notice of those letters, which yet form the most curious part of the whole volume. The documents or papers above referred to, consist of 1. a Letter from John Wentworth mayor of Lynn to the king (Hon. iv.) dated on St. Martin’s day 1403, and complaining of the opposite party, as outrageous persons who committed the most horrid crimes, and proceeded in the most riotous manner against their opponents, with the intent to spoil and rob them of their goods, burn their houses, slay and dismember their persons, &c. It is not the first letter he wrote to his majesty, for he refers to others of anterior date. Those however are lost, or we might possess a more correct knowledge of this business. The second of those papers is a Letter from Petipas, then mayor, to some of his friends, complaining of Wentworth and his adherents and assentaunts for troubling him in the discharge of his duty, and requiring them “be bille or be mouthe” [by letter or by word of mouth] to acquaint his reverend lord of Norwich [i.e. the bishop] with the affair, and solicit his interference. &c. Its date is 1413, the first of Henry V.—The third is from the same, and seemingly to the same, and written, it is presumed, in 1414, the former part of which was the latter part of his 2nd year, for he was then mayor two years successively. The fourth was from Thomas Hunt, who became mayor in the autumn of 1415 to Johan Spencer, viscount de Norff. [i.e. the High Sheriff of the county] and is dated “atte Lenn ye tede day of the mone of Juylet, ye yere of ye regne of King Henry ye fyft ye ferth:” which was A.D. 1416. This curious paper complains of Thomas Felwell, goldsmith, who had been indicted for his misdeeds, as an instigator of a rysing and ryot—also of Thomas Hardell, and Thomas Enemethe, “and very many of the misdoers resorten and drawen again in counsailles to Barth. Petipas in sustenance of his p. tie,” &c. It also offers the said Viscount, or high sheriff, a present of a young He-Bear, which seems a queer circumstance. But what makes this paper of most importance, is its confirming, along with the other documents, the very distracted state of the town at that period.—The fifth is addressed “to the lord bishopp of Norwich” (the above John de Wakeryng it seems.) “from his owen humblest tenants and devout Bedesmen, the Mayre and good men of his town of Lenne Bishopp.” Its date is the 9 of March, the 3rd of Henry V. which seems to answer to A.D. 1415, or 1415–16, and the mayor was probably the above Thomas Hunt.—The sixth and last of those papers was a royal injunction or mandate from “Henry (VI.) by the Grace of God king of England and of France and lord of Ireland unto the Mair of the town of Lenne Byshopp;” and relates chiefly, as was before hinted, to some irregularity or neglect in the choice of the 24 Jurats, directing and enjoining that they should be freemen and lawful, and of the most discreet, sufficient, and least suspicious persons of the said town; and each of them possessing property in lands and tenements to the amount of C. S (i.e. one hundred shillings) a year—equal no doubt to more than 100l. a year now: also directing that in case any of the 24 Jurats happened to die in the course of the year, others equally unexceptionable should be immediately chosen in their room, &c.—As a sample of the style and orthography of the magistrates of Lynn 400 years ago, and a specimen of their mode of address to their prelatical lord and master, we shall here subjoin the mayor and aldermen’s Letter to bishop Wakeryng. “Worschipfull Lord and reverent fader in God, we commaund us unto yow, humble thankant yow wt alle oure hertes, of good & graciouse lordschip yt. yo han schewed to us before yis tyme prayand to yow of good continunace & revrent fader, for as meche as we han conteyned be John Thornham yor. servt. yt ye are & will be graciouse lord to us, therefor as unknowen men, we wryten to yow in our symple manr. preying yow yt Barth. Petypas, Will Hallyate, Thomas Middleton taylor, Thomas Barrington goldsmyth, Thomas Monethe, Thomas Beckham, John Balders, Thomas Littleport, Thomas Hardell, John Blome, Rich. Baxter, Andrew Fourbe, abide out of yor. towne of lenne unto the tyme of yor. stalling at Norwich, the whiche schalle not be longe be the grace of God, atte which tyme we shalle mete with yow & fulliche declare to yow all manr. of hevynesse ye whiche yay han wroght to us, & yt. to yor. worschipfull person disclosed & fulliche in hye & in lowe, put it in govnance of yow & of yor counsayll, & for truly sire sithen ye. tyme yt. yay wenten out of ye town of Lenne, of whiche ye shun sone be lord of, be ye grace of God stode never in beter reste & pees than it hath done sithen that tyme, & yet dothe atte this day, & be yor. good governance, these persons above wretyn sett an syde, we tryste in God to have reste & pees for ever more in yor. towne & in our persons ye shal fynd us as lowly tenants as any that longs to yow within yor. lordshippes, & wt. our bodyes & our goodes, be as lowly to yow worschipful and revrend fader in God we preye, ye. holy trinite: keep yow body and soule, & fullfill your desires as ye can yor. self devise. Written at Lenne ye IX day of Marche under ye seall of the office of Mayralty. Your owen humblest tenants and devout Bedesmen,
Mayre and good men of your towne of Lenne Bishopp.”
In this lowly and abject manner did these humblest tenants and devout beadesmen, the mayor and corporation of Lynn, of that day, approach their high and mighty lord, bishop Wakeryng. They were indeed his subjects and vassals, as their predecessors had long been; and they might think that such cringing conduct became them: but some of them would occasionally shew a disposition to kick and resist, as had been the ease in bishop Spencer’s time, and also now, it seems, in the case of Patipas, as well as of Miller afterwards, who is said to have gone to law with the bishop and cast him. But, in general, corporations, while they are some of the most unfeeling, relentless, and tyrannical towards their inferiors, are at the same time some of that most abject and obsequious of all men towards their superiors and masters: hardly presuming at any time to have a will of their own. They are as ready to erect statues to bad as to good kings; and the premier, however corrupt or flagitious, is pretty surf of being always their lord chancellor, or keeper of their conscience. That year the king and queen, with their eldest son Arthur prince of Wales, and Margaret countess of Richmond, the king’s mother, visited Lynn, and were lodged at the Austin monastery, on the site of which Mr. Rishton’s house now stands. The occasion of this royal visit we know not. See Tour of Norfolk 286, &c. also Beaut. of Engl. as before. See Smith’s Inquiry, 2. 101. He also observes that how servile soever may have been originally the condition of the inhabitants of the towns, they yet arrived at liberty and independence much earlier than the occupiers of land in the country. Smith, as before, 104. Among the other principal works that relate to these matters are Madox Firma Burgi, and Brady’s historical treatise of cities and boroughs. See Political Review for December, 1809. See Monthly Rev. for August 1805, p. 446. Smith, as before, p. 106. Smith, as before, p. 108. Smith, 110. See Mackerell, 223. See above, page 366. Of the spirit, or principle that dictated the erection of those statues it may now be safely said, that it was thoroughly vile and disgraceful.—What better can be said of the spirit that was so predominant here during Pitt’s administration and execrable reign of terror, when all honest men who saw, deprecated, and reprobated his madbrain system were held up to the contempt and derision of every political coxcomb, and even to the fury of the populace, as Jacobins and traitors? Time has already done something towards justifying the views and principles of these persecuted people; and futurity will do them still ampler justice. The present generation is likely to be now soon convinced that their politics, which have been so bitterly and violently decried, were a thousand times more worthy of adoption than those of their malicious opponents and revilers: and posterity will not fail to exhibit in their proper colours the extreme folly and wrongheadedness of the measures that this illfated country has been pursuing for the last eighteen years and upwards. Parkin, 116. The Jews were then very numerous in this country, as well as very opulent, and continued so for no short period. They were generally ill used, and sometimes underwent the most cruel and base treatment. Yet on some occasions, they met with different and better usage, and at least what may be called the appearance of favour and encouragement. The following instance is not a little remarkable and striking—“It will hardly be credited, [says Andrews] that, in 1241, Henry III issued writs to the sheriffs, ordering them to convene a parliament of Jews: six from some towns, and two from others. The writs are now extant. The Jews were proud of this; but Henry only meant to plunder them.” The last assertion if probably too true. Henry was just that kind of man. It is however very little known that he was, beforehand with Bonaparte in convening a Jewish parliament or Sanhedrim. But the characters of these two potentates are extremely dissimilar, and so probably were their motives for convening the Jewish delegates.—In the above mentioned reign of Richard I. the Jews were most shamefully and cruelly plundered and massacred here in different places. In the guilt and infamy of those foul and horrid deeds Lynn appears to have been deeply implicated. The tragical tale is related by Parkin from William of Newburgh, and by Mackerell from Hollingshed.—It states that one of the Lynn Jews being converted to christianity, his brethren were so enraged against him, that they resolved to kill him whenever they had an opportunity. Having accordingly met him one day in the street, they instantly fell upon him, fully intending to execute their bloody purpose, but he escaped out of their hands, and fled into the next church; they followed him thither, and breaking open the doors, would have taken him out by force. Crowds of the inhabitants, with a great number of foreigners, consisting of mariners and others, who traded here, now came upon them, rescued the man, and drove them into their own houses. The townsmen refrained from any further acts of violence, fearful of incurring the displeasure of their sovereign, who had taken the Jews under his protection; but the mariners and the other strangers followed them to their own dwellings, massacred them there, plundered their houses and set them on fire, and immediately taking shipping, escaped with their spoil.—Of the truth of some part of this story some doubt may very reasonably be entertained. It is not very likely that the Jews should act as is here represented toward their converted brother, as they could not be insensible of the extreme risk of such a conduct. Nor is it at all probable that the town rabble should refrain from assisting the strangers in the massacre of the Jews, or desist from joining them in plundering and burning those unhappy people’s houses. These may be presumed to be additions to what did then really happen, and designed for the purpose of exaggerating the conduct and blackening the character of the poor Jews, as well as throwing the whole blame and infamy of the most shocking part of the conduct of the opposite party on those foreign mariners and other strangers who happened to be then in the town. It was always the manner of the pretended christians of those days, to impute some previous horrid atrocity to the Jews, in order to blind people’s eyes, and extenuate their own barbarous and diabolical treatment of them. Upon the whole the plunder and massacre of the Jews seem to be that part of the above story which is unquestionably authentic. But Lynn was not the only place in England where the Jews were then so treated. The brutal and horrid work began in London, whence it extended to Lynn and other places, even as far as York, where it ended in a scene most shockingly tragical; the effects of which proved fatal to the commercial prosperity of that ancient city.—See Andrew, 1. 192. Parkin, 120 whose authority is Madox’s Hist. of the Exchequer. Parkin, as before. That Lynn was a mayor-town in the reign, or before the death of John, has been disputed by some; but the fact seems fully ascertained from the Patent rolls—that king’s letters patents, dated at Devizes, Wilts, June 7 (1216) in the 18th year of his reign, being addressed to the Mayor and good men of Lenn. See Gibson’s Camden—Parkin—Mackerell, and Tour of Norfolk. Carte 1. 340. Compare Parkin, Rapin, Carte, and Andrews. See Gibson’s Camden. Parkin, 122. Parkin, p. 122. Parkin, as before. Parkin 123. See Parkin, as before; who further observes, that Lynn was famous at that time for importing wine: and it seems that foreign wine was then very cheap here, compared with what it is at present. Hence Parkin mentions a pipe of wine as selling here then at 1l. 15s. and a tun of wine at 50s. These were probably red wine, for he afterwards mentions a tun of white wine as having been sold for three marks and a half, i.e. 2l. 6s. 3d.—The mark being 13s. 4d.—Wine sells here now at a price above 50 times higher than what it did at that period. Salmon was an article that appears to have always fetched a high price in those days; and Parkin, in the place from which these articles have been extracted, mentions 20s. as paid for 5 Salmons sent to the bishop of Norwich at South Elmham, on Monday before the feast of the purification. Ten such Salmons were then, it seems, as valuable as a pipe of wine. The word Gild, (says Chambers,) is formed from the Saxon Gildan, to pay, became every man was gildare, i.e. to pay something towards the charge and support of the company. Annual Review, for 1807, 490. See Jacob’s Law Dictionary, under the word Guild. Religious persons, clerks, knights and their eldest sons, excepted. Chamber’s CyclopÆdia, under Gild and Frank pledge. See Turner’s Hist. of the Anglo-Saxon, 2nd Ed. vol. 2. p. 109, &c. Parkin, 134, 5. The Gilds of the common people, or those which had no large possessions attached to them, were then probably not meddled with, but suffered to go on as before. Some of them, as we have before seen, existed in Camden’s time, and perhaps a good while afterwards. St. George’s Hall, after it became the property of the corporation, was long used as a court-house, to hold the quarter-sessions for the county. Those sessions have since been removed to the Trinity Guildhall, now the Town-hall: since which time St. George’s hall has been converted into a Play-house, and is now during the mart time, and for sometime after, occupied annually by a company of comedians. A word is here left out: Security, perhaps. surety, perhaps. It probably should be 2s. Here is an illegible word: those that follow also are scarcely intelligible. Our modern clerks are better paid. They had secrets, it seems, which they deemed of much importance; but it does not appear of what sort they were. Some word or words seem here wanting. This shews that this Gild also had a Hall. Supposing the number of members to be 50, his annual stipend, or salary amounted to only 25s. A chaplain now would expect fifty times that sum, at least. Hoods must have been the word omitted. A strange word, whose meaning seems not very easy to ascertain. This shews that some of the members of this Gild were poor. This Gild consisted then, it seems, of 50 members. By this it appears that the Corpus Christi Gild had a separate Hall, but where it stood does not appear. That Gild seems therefore to have been another of the superior order. It seems by this that the Gild of St. Lawrence also was one of those of a superior order. The minstrels, it may be supposed, were employed on their public days, to add to the conviviality, or glee and hilarity of those meetings; which shews the members were not of an uncheerly cast. Minstrels must have been then in no small request at Lynn. “A Bill” [of expences relating to the Almshouse, with memoranda.] | s. | d. | | The Alderman’s ffee | 3. | 4. | | Mess [Mass] Pence | 6. | 8. | | For sowing [sewing] blankets & Sheets | 0. | 8. | | A Bucket for the Almeshouse | 0. | 5. | | Straw to the Beds | 0. | 3. | | To Wm. Lister Almes | 0. | 4. | | To Nicholas . . . Almes | 0. | 8. | | To a Mason for a daies work | 0. | 7. | | His man | 0. | 4. | | Shinks | 0. | 1. | | For 3 pair sheets | 7. | 6. | | 2 pair ditto | 4. | 8. | | 3 Mattrisses | 8. | 0. | | For Mass pence at Oferings | 4. | 0. | | For the Hearth making in ye Kitchen | 1. | 8. | | For a Lanthorn in the middle of the house | 0. | 7. | | For the Bed bottoms | 1. | 1. | Paid for the souls of Nicholas Bardeny Prior of Lynn, Wm. Wattlett, John Dean, and many more, each of them 2s. 6d. Robt. Soame gave a Load of Oatstraw for repairing their Beds. Ordered that the Keeper ring the Bell at 6 o’clock at night, & there be prayers daily, & that the Alderman visit the Almeshouse once a month to see that nothing be amiss. This is the only mention we have met with of Saint Julian’s Horn, the history of which, no doubt, would be very amusing, if it could be recovered. This shews that even our suffragan bishops assumed the power of granting indulgences, or licences to sin with impunity, on such conditions as they chose to prescribe. Parkin, 130. Ibid. 141. Parkin, 142. Those of the Gilds seem to be the only aldermen of Lynn in those days, see page 395. Of St Audrey and her smock, and our Lady and her appearances at Thetford, some account may be found in Martin’s History of that town. Speaking of the church of St. Audrey, he says, it was of but small revenue, but that a famous relique made ample amends to the priest for the smallness of his stipend. He then introduces the following extract from Bacon’s Reliques of Rome, fol. 181.— “In Thetford, a Mayor town in Norfolk, there was a parish church, now destroyed, called St. Audrise. In this church among other reliques, was a smock of St. Audrise, which was there kept as a great Jewel and precious Relique. The virtue of that smock was mighty and manifold, but specially in putting away the toothach and swelling of the throte: so that the paciente was first of all shriven and hard masse, and did such oblations as the priest of the church enjoyned.”
The Vulgar supposed this relique to be so full of sacred virtue, that they ordered, in their Wills, certain persons to go in pilgrimage to it for the salvation of their souls. Margaret Whoop, of East Harling, had the following clause in her Will, which was dated 1501: “I will that another man go in pilgrimage for me to Thetford, and offer for me to St. Audrey’s Smock.” See Martin’s Thetford, p. 79.—Nothing is more probable than that this same smock, in those days, drew many a pilgrim from Lynn to Thetford. Of the blessed Virgin’s appearances to divers persons at Thetford, one was to a woman who had lost the use of her tongue, but whom she cured the same time. The person who asserted and recorded this was a monk. The same monk has prefaced his account of another of the Virgin’s miracles at Thetford in the following notable and curious manner. “I have thought proper to relate a most remarkable miracle, because of its tendency to exemplify the mercy of God, and to exhibit the praise of his mother, and is most worthy of public attention; for whatever tends to the Glory of God, and relates to his mother, is not to be concealed or denied, but to be received as matter of fact.”—[Then comes the marvellous tale—] “William Heddrich, junr. carpenter, and Isabell his wife, lived in a town of Norfolk, called Hockham. They had a child 3 years old, who in harvest time was carried with them into the field, as was customary with peasants who went to their day labour. On a certain day about sun setting, the child happened to be sleep, and actually fell into a sound sleep on the edge of the field where his parents were reaping. In the dusk of the evening, a man driving his cart along that side of the field where the child lay, unfortunately the wheel went over the child’s head, unknown to the driver, and killed him on the spot. The father of the child was following the cart when the accident happened. He took the child up in his arms, and finding him dead and besmeared with his own blood, he made bitter lamentations. He then ran to an eminent surgeon in the same town, who had healed many who had laboured under various infirmities, by the sovereign efficacy of his medicines. After the surgeon had minutely examined the child, he found no symptoms of life; but he advised the father to carry it home, and the next day prepare for its funeral. When the father had heard the opinion of the surgeon, and was convinced that he was deprived of his child, with heart full of grief he look up the corpse and went to his house, and delivered it to his wife, that she might lay it on the bed. Then he assembled his friends and neighbours together, in order to watch that night, as was customary before a funeral. Being thus met they devoted themselves to watching, and with the greatest ardour of devotion prayed to the blessed mother of God, vowing that, if by her intercession the child should be restored to life, they would go on a pilgrimage naked to the image of the blessed virgin, in the church of the monks in Thetford, and there make the usual offering. When they had made an end of their prayers and vows, about midnight, the child revived. Those that were present, when they beheld the happy effect of their prayers, praised and blessed God. And, to perform their vows, they took the child, and carried it before the image of the blessed virgin, and fulfilled the obligation they had put themselves under.”—see Appendix to Martin’s Thetford, p. 83.
Such were some of the pious and popular tales of other times, in the parts about Lynn: but before we affect to pity the credulous weakness and miserable stupidity of our ancestors, who could receive them, let us be careful that we ourselves are free from similar failings, or from other failings equally inexcusable and disgraceful. The electioners, this year, who chose the Alderman and Scabins, were 8 persons deputed. What wages! There to play an anteme of our Lady. Parkin, 145. Mackerell’s History of Lynn, 254.—what the last expression, after the conquest, means, seems difficult to make out. Of this Tabernacle the author regrets that he can give no particular account. The above extract is the only record where he has met with any mention of it.—It was probably a rich shrine enclosing an image of our Saviour. At p. 39 of the said MS. volume, speaking of the people of Lynn, the writer says, “John de Grey, bishop of Norwich, was their great friend and benefactor: in 1207 he gave king John a palfrey, in order to have Duplicates of the Charter which he had obtained for his town of Lynn, it being owing to this bishop that Lynn ever had a charter, as the original one of king John now in the custody of that corporation testifies: the whole, or chief liberties of that town being before that time in the bishop.” [De Grey confirmed the royal charter against his own successors.] St. Nicholas and St. James. Skivins, Skivini, or Scabini, were the custodes, guardians, governors, or stewards. Mr. Day’s MS. volume, 48, and Parkin, 148. A sextary was an ancient measure, said to be a pint and half, but it appears here, from the price &c. to be much more, and was four gallons. Four Gallons of Wine sold then for 10d. The word obliterated was probably serta, a coronet [or chaplet.] The skivins were four in number, as appears from a deed of Thomas bp. of Ely in the 25th of Henry VI. Simon Pigot, Richard Cosyn, Thomas Benet, and William Pilton, then called therein, custodes sive scabins, &c. They served, as I take it, in all, two years, the seniors going off yearly, when two others were chosen &c. they had the charge &c. as appears, of the goods and effects of the guild.—Parkin. Ante palmatam. Hence we may perceive the old custom of shaking hands at an agreement or bargain. [Striking hands is still customary in some places in making bargains; the buyer holds his hand open, and the seller strikes it with open hand; whence they are said to have struck a bargain.] Psalm 116. It probably should be Dirge. 14th of September. Nativus servus—[This seems to do little credit to the feelings, or to the memory of these rich gild brethren: Why should any sober, industrious person, though of servile birth, or origin, be thus disdainfully precluded from partaking of the benefit of their institution, while he could advance the admission, or entrance money?] Same date. Quere if not Edward, 1. 1279. We have not these meetings any where explained: nor do we well know in what they were distinguished from those called generals. The remainder of the above article, being rather long, and what would take up too much room in the text, but too curious, perhaps, to be omitted, is thrown into this note, and is as follows.— “And that the said skivins are to take keyage of merchandizes lying on the key in manner and form following. viz. For every pipe (dolium) of wine lying on the kay beyond one day 1d. and no more for a week, and so for every week.—Also, for every pipe of Wad. [465a] lying on the kay beyond a day 1d. and no more for a week, and so for every week.—Also, for every fardwell called gybe [465b] of the weight of one pipe or above lying on the kay beyond a day 1d. and no more for a week, and so for every week—And in the same manner for any other goods or ware of the weight of one pipe of wine or more lying, &c—Of every ship bringing in goods, or carrying out, 4d. or less according to the discretion of the skivins—Also for three stones, called Slipstones, lying on the kay beyond a day, a farthing, and not more for a week, and so for every week.—Also, for two pieces of Lead [465c] lying on the kay above one day a farthing, and not more for a week, and so for every week—Also, for sand, chalk, clay, stone, tiles, and other things, of the weight of one load, lying on the kay above a day, an halfpenny, &c.—Also, for the load of one boat of sand, chalk, &c. lying, &c. a farthing.—Also, for any wares or goods not herein named, according to the custom the skivins have used.—Also, tor every millstone, lying above a day, an halfpenny, &c.—Also, for every last of Quernstones. [465d] lying on the kay above a day, one penny &c.—Also, for every last of pitch and brimstone lying one day, 1d. and so for every day.—Also, for every hawser tyed to the kay, one penny.—Also, The sd. [qu. said] day it is ordered that no bad persons, nor any spiritual [465e] person, should work upon the kay.”
Quere. A grant, pack, or bale of goods? gybe, from Gibbus. Duob. peciis plumbi, probably what are now called piggs. De Quernstonis, small grinding stones for mustard, malt &c. as I take it: Quern for corn by corruption. Spiritual: it is likely that some of the monks or fryars used to do sq. [These notes are Parkin’s.] This article may be considered as a rule for preserving good manners at the guild. The prohibition of coming there barefooted, is a plain indication, that it was common then, even for those of the better sort, to go about ordinarily without shoes and stockings. The case is very different now: and yet it may be questioned, if we live happier than they did. The former article contains directions for the conduct of the brethren and burgesses at Stirbich and other such fairs. The remainder of the account of this guild, in the said MS. Volume, consists of brief notices, or rather the names of its aldermen at different periods: [by Parkin.] Of which the following is the substance.— Richard Lambert occurs Alderm. 1272. 56. Henry 3. Robert de London alderm. occurs 15. Edward I. and 18. Edward I. Wm de Lyndesey was his deputy. Peter de Thrundeyn chos. ald. on Friday after the assumpt. of the Virg. M. 18. Ed. I. and occurs also in the 34. of the said king. Simon Fitz Simon occ. ald. 15. § Ed. 2. John de Morton then Mayor 3rd. time. Robt. de Derby, Q. if not ald. 3. Ed. 3. seems to occ. Jeff. Drew ald. occ. 27. and 31. Ed. 3. Tho. Bottesham occ. ald. 44. Ed. 3. and in 1379. Wm. Franceys ald. 14. Ed. 3. Hen. Betely occ. ald. tem. Rich. 2. Roger Galyon occ. Mayor and Ald. 13. Hen. 4. 25 July. John Brunham occ. ald. 7. Hen. 4. 5. and in 3. Tho. Hunt occ. ald. 20 June 1 Hen. 6. Hen. Thoresby occ. ald. 25. Hen. 6. and 21 Hen. 6. Walter Cony ald. 1464. above 14 years, dy’d 29 Sept. 1479.
Seche is here distinguished from Sechehythe. Mr. Day’s MS. volume, p. 59, &c. How happy it was for them to have betwixt them and God such a powerful mediator as saint Francis! I.e. a halfpenny. All this is very good. The meaning of that word seems difficult to make out. This shows that the mornspechs and generals were different sorts of meetings; but it seems not very clear wherein they were so.—Quere, if the former were not the religious, and the latter the convivial meetings. Ob. seems to be here a contraction of obolus, and signifies a half-penny. How very different from the present was that time when three fat sheep sold for eight shillings, and three fatted calves for only eight shilling and ten pence! The difference in a great measure may consist in the comparative value of money, or of the precious metals. They were then, perhaps, above 20 times more valuable, and less plentiful, than now. We are told that the Jewish Solomon made silver to be in Jerusalem as stone, and that it was nothing accounted of in his days: our own Solomon seems to be in the way to bring things to the same pass. But this is no sure indication of national prosperity—Solomon’s subjects, for all the vast influx of wealth, were grievously oppressed and unhappy, of which his unwise successor felt the sad and fatal effects.—The dissolution of monasteries, expulsion of the monks, and introduction of protestantism were long bewailed by many of our country men, as very serious evils, and the causes of the dearness of provisions, &c. Their sentiments and feelings they would often express in verse as well as prose: whence one of our old popular songs had in it these remarkable expressions— “I remember the time, before the monks went hence,
That a bushel of wheat sold for fourteen pence,
And forty eggs a penny—”
We are also told that about the time when those changes took place, beef sold at a half penny a pound, and mutton at three farthings, and that butchers then sold penny pieces of beef to the poor, which weighed 2lb. & half, and often 3lb. and moreover, that 14 such pieces were sold for shilling.—When the price advanced soon after, it is no wonder that many would impute it to the late religious changes, or previous ecclesiastical revolution. Ob. seems to be here a contraction of obolus, and signifies a half-penny. Our Gilds were somewhat like the navies of our good allies the Portuguese and Spaniards, where almost every ship bears the name of some saint or other: but it does not seem that they are at all the better for that. How many Gild Halls there were formerly at Lynn, besides those of St. George and the Trinity, it is now impossible to say: but we may pretty safely presume that there were several; one of them was probably that place in Purfleet Street which was a dissenting meeting house 40 or 50 years ago, and is now occupied as a school room: but we pretend not to guess to what Gild it belonged. Beauties of England, vol. xi, 245. See Parkin 126. We cannot find what church this was. Men were then in England conveyed with the land. Parkin as before. Parkin, 129. Eccl. History, 1. 447. Ed. 1774. “As the pontiff, (says Mosheim) allowed these four Mendicant orders the liberty of travelling wherever they thought proper, of conversing with persons of all ranks, of instructing the youth and the multitude wherever they went; and, as these monks exhibited, in their outward appearance and manner of life, more striking marks of gravity and holiness than were observable in the other monastic societies, they arose all at once to the very summit of fame, and were regarded with the utmost esteem and veneration throughout all the countries of Europe. The enthusiastic attachment to these sanctimonious beggars went so far, that, as we learn from the most authentic records, several cities were divided, or cantoned out, into four parts, with a view to these four orders; the first part was assigned to the Dominicans; the second to the Franciscans; the third to the Carmelites; and the fourth to the Augustinians. The people were unwilling to receive the sacraments from any other hands than those of the Mendicants, to whose churches they crowded to perform their devotion, while living, and were extremely desirous to deposite there also their remains after death; all which occasioned grievous complaints among the ordinary priests, to whom the care of souls was committed, and who considered themselves as the spiritual guides of the multitude.” [These Medicants were evidently the Methodists and Evangelical Clergy of those days, and might, for aught we know, merit the popularity which they had acquired as much to the full as their successors of the present day.] “Nor did the influence and credit of the Mendicants end here; for we find that they were employed, not only in spiritual matters, but also in temporal and political affairs of the greatest consequence, in composing the differences of princes, concluding treaties of peace, concerting alliances, presiding in cabinet councils, governing courts, levying taxes, and other occupations, not only remote from, but absolutely inconsistent with, the monastic character and profession.” Mosh. E. H. iii. 53. See Mosheim E. H. ii. 412, &c.—Let us not think of reproaching the papists for the absurdities of their Carmelites:—Our own protestant order of free-masons can any day match them in the ridiculous extravagance of their pretensions to high antiquity, or empty and pompous boasts of a very remote and dignified origin. Nor were the Carmelites perhaps in any view less respectable than the said protestant order. Beaut. of Engl. vol. xi. Parkin 151. The very extraordinary zeal and enthusiasm exhibited by these missionary labourers, which amount to a proof of their sincerity, must have eminently fitted them for such hazardous services, and desperate undertakings as those above described. Between those adventures of the Franciscans and some that occur in the early history of that truly respectable protestant religious order, or party, commonly called Quakers, there appears a very strong and striking resemblance. See Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist. iii. 56. Also Priestley’s ii. 233, &c. whence the above account is chiefly extracted. There were then probably several images of the virgin in this town, all much resorted to; but that in her chapel on the mount, and this, might be the chief of them. In France they were called Jacobins, from having obtained the house of St. James, at Paris, for their principal church, or convent; the identical place, it is supposed, which gave the very same name in our time to a certain order of politicians, who used to hold their meetings there, and who seem to have too much resembled their former and stinted namesakes in the violence and ferociousness of their tempers and proceedings. Dominic now proposed to unite the two orders, but Francis thought it would be better to keep separate, but in perfect harmony; in which he was probably right, as they would so be likely to act with the greater energy.—For some ages these two orders are said to have governed, with an almost absolute and universal sway, both state and church, filled the most eminent posts ecclesiastical and civil, taught in the universities and churches with an authority, before which all opposition was silent, and maintained the pretended majesty and prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs against kings, princes, bishops, and heretics, with incredible ardor and equal success. In short, they were before the reformation what the Jesuits have been since, and what many, who wear the mask of religion, are at this very day, even in protestant states.—Much as Francis and Dominic might wish their two orders to harmonize and powerfully cooperate, it seems they did not always do so. There were occasionally some disagreements and disputes between them: one of which is said to have happened in 1243. The Dominicans insisted “that they wore a more decent dress:” to which the Franciscans replied, “We have for the love of God embraced a more austere and humble life, and are consequently more holy.” “Yes” (rejoined the others) “it is true that you go barefooted, ill dressed, and girded with a rope; but you are not forbidden, as we are, to eat flesh meat, even in public, and to make good cheer.”—It is to be feared that there have been before now, even between our own protestant sects, in this enlightened country, disputes about points no less unimportant and frivolous. Another point, of equal moment with the former, upon which these two rival orders disagreed, and which occasioned the most bitter contention between them, was what is called the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin, or whether she was, or was not born in original sin. The Dominicans took the affirmative, and the Franciscans the negative side in this curious controversy. It was carried on with the utmost rancour, for ages, and the most scandalous means were sometimes resorted to, by the respective combatants, in order to obtain an advantage over their opponents. The religious, or rather the papal world was long divided between those two silly opinions, and what is worse, it was kept in a state of continual animosity, each side looking upon the other with perfect hatred. So usefully and commendably did these holy friars employ their time and their talents, and such benefactors were they to mankind! It is even said that he died with great marks of piety: if so, it is to be hoped that one of those marks was that of repentance, or deep contrition for his many unworthy deeds; for it is certain that he had been, in no small degree, a violent man, and a man of blood. He was the father even of the horrid inquisition, an exciter of murderous crusades against pretended heretics, and a prime abettor of the shocking barbarities exercised on the hapless Albigenses.—If he really repented of these execrable misdeeds, he must have made a more hopeful exit than the renowned reformer of Geneva, the premeditated murderer of Servetus appears to have done. There is still what may be called a convent in Clough Lane, and even a convent of preaching brethren, but of a very different sort from the former, and whose labours, it is hoped, have been of very material and extensive benefit to a large portion of the community. Mosheim as before, vol. 3. Priestley’s Gen. Hist. Christian Church, vol. iv. See Priestley as before. Priestley, 2. and 4. Beauties of England, vol. xi. Parkin, 152. Very few, perhaps, if any, could be named of our religious orders, or christian sects but what have done some good in the world, and as few, probably, that have not also done harm. In estimating the character of a religious order, sect, or party, we are apt, as it is very natural, to set the one against the other: in doing which it too often becomes a matter of doubt, which of the two, the good or the harm, preponderates, or exceeds in quantity. When that happens, which is much less seldom than one could wish, it is a sad painful case. In our own country, at this time, the diversity of religious sects and parties is very great. Some of them are vastly popular, and others otherwise. Much do we daily hear of the exemplary zeal, and the laudable, persevering, and successful exertions of those who assume the name of orthodox and evangelical, both in the establishment and out of it. These reports seem generally well founded. Much good, no doubt, has been done: and we may venture to add, much harm also. The great error of these zealous religionists lies in their spirit, or rather in their not knowing what manner of spirit they are of, which is evidently not the spirit of Christ. All who cannot pronounce their Shibboleth, they teach their converts to view with an evil eye: and all who go about to do good in the name of Christ, they are sure to forbid or revile, and so render all their benevolent endeavours useless, as far as lies in them, if they follow them not, or are not of their party. They may perhaps plead apostolical example, but it is not countenanced, but expressly condemned by Christ, who enjoins a very different sort of conduct. Until they therefore think proper to comply with that injunction of his, they will have no reason to boast of the excellence, or evangelicalness of their spirit. [see Mark 9.39. Luke 9. 50.] All religious sects and parties, would do well to consider, that the spirit they are of, is what always forms the most important and decisive part of their character.—More of this when we come to the present religious state of Lynn. See Mackerell, 194.—and Parkin, 146. Mr. King’s MS.—also Mackerell, 195. For the whole year—Mawdlyn, on the Cawsey between Lynn and Gaywood. | s. | d. | | Imprimis, Of Mr. Thoresby, for Sayer’s Marsh | xx. | 0. | | Item, Of Nich. Newgate of Holkham, for 5 acres of meadow in the same town, for a year | ii. | 6. | | Item, Of Wm. Clarke of Wotten, for one acre of pasture nigh Holme’s dale in Gaywood: pay by the year | 0. | i. | | Item, Of Winter and Goodwin, of Rouncton, for 11 acres pasture in Sechie; who pay by the year | x. | 0. | | Item, Of Robt. Jerviss, for a ffish bale, lying in the north marsh; who payeth by the year | x. | 0. | | Item, Of Sir Nicholas L’estrange knt. for two sheep courses and other lands, lying in West Lexham, East Lexham, and Dunham; who payeth by the year | xxiii. | iiij. | | Item, Of Thomas Brown of Lynn, for a meadow lying in Gaywood; who payeth every half year, xs. | xx. | 0. | | Item, Of Philip Bailie, for 4 acres of meadow, lying on the west side of Mawdlin, and pays by the half year, xxs. [qu. xiis.] | xxiiij. | 0. | | Item, Of Robt. Hobbs, now in the tenure of Mr. Graves, for a meadow lying in Gaywood, paying quarterly, vs. | xx. | 0. | | Item, Of Thomas Miller, of Lynn, for a meadow lying on the side of the high way, who payeth quarterly iis. vid. | x. | 0. | | Item, In the compass of Congham, 7 roods of Hebbe land, lying in Congham: pay by the year one bushel of malt. | mod. brasii. | | Item, Of Mr. Fr Bastard, for a close lying without Gannock gate, payeth every half year xvis. viijd. | xxxiii. | iiij. | | Item, Of Robt. Jarvis of Lynn, for a meadow next the Lord’s close in Gaywood, paying by the year | xii. | iiij. | The following statement from a paper published by Parkin, and written, as he took it, in the reign of Elizabeth, may be here subjoined, as it may cast some further light on the state of the possessions of this Hospital at that period— “Robert Wylson master of this house, married Isabel, late wife of Thomas Hesket late master—hath six acres joining to the said house now in their hands, which is all that they have in occupation in their own hands.—Also Mr. Thorisbye occupies one marsh lying in Geywode and Myntlyn, the old rent thereof was 20s. per annum, at least, and he is to have of the house for rents belonging to the manor of Geywode 42s. 3d. per annum.—Mr. Spence occupies one close lying in Gannock, which is called 10 acres, but in truth is 14 acres at the least, and he pays but 33s. and 4d. per annum.—Park of Holme holdeth 11 acres in Sechyth, and pays but 33s. 4d. per annum, well worth 4l. 13s. 4d. per annum.—Also Mr. Strange hath a fold course and lands in Lexham, which wont to pay to the said house 23s. per annum, and by the space of 80 years hath [remained] unpaid, and by the report of them that know it, it is well worth 4l. per annum.—Other lands in Congham and Creake Abbey, the value whereof is not yet made.—Also Wrothes of Gaywode holdeth one pigthtle worth 6s. per annum, and pays nothing.—Item, one close or pigthle lying in Geywode by South Wotton, hath been let for 8s. per annum, but now none will give above 3s. or 2s. 3d. per annum.—Item, One rede dole in Geywode containing 8 acres, the old rent is 8s.—Item, Mr. Pell occupieth 3 acres by the house; the old rent was 10s. and now 20s.—Item, Thomas Gybson of Lynne occupies one close of 3 acres by the house; the old lent was 20s. now 40s.—Item, He occupies . . . acres lying by Maudelyn Bank, and pays 24s. per annum, and it is worth 50s.—Item, two acres by Dersingham Lane, worth 20s. per annum, the old rent 10s.—Item, In Geywode fen 3 acres, the old rent 6s. now 15s. per annum. Roger Lauson has an acre and a half, old rent 10s. now 26s. 8d. per annum.—Six acres lying by Salters Load; the old rent 10s. now 20s. per annum.—Item, A whole piece there, and pays 4s. 6d. per annum.—Item, 5 acres in Narford, old rent 9d. now 3s.—Item, 5 acres in Hockold, let for 2s. per annum, worth 5s.”—[See Parkin 148.]
We cannot learn when this change look place. A sisterhood only, consisting of a master, &c. has a somewhat of an Hibernian sound. Mr. King’s MS. volume. Parkin, 145. It is taken from Mr. King’s MS. volume almost verbatim, though not always in the exact order in which it there stands. There are not properly two courts: the space between the portal and the proper court, consists of two rows of little gardens divided by the walk, or entrance into the said court. At the time referred to above, that is, about 1720, or 1724, the allowances to the pensioners residing in the said house, were as follows— | l. | s. | d. | | To the Master of the Hospital, per week | 0. | 4 | 6. | | To eleven poor widows per week, at 2s. 6d. each | 1. | 7. | 6. | | To the Master yearly, one Chalder and half of coals | 1. | 10. | 0. | | To eleven widows yearly, one Chalder of coals each | 11. | 0. | 0. | | For 15 Sheaves of Sedges to the Master for kindling | 0. | 2. | 6. | | For 10 Sheaves to each of the Sisters (in all 110) | 0. | 18. | 4. | | Total. | £96. | 14. | 10. | Besides repairs and other contingencies. [See Mr. King’s MS. and Mackerell.] From the above period to the present time, the weekly allowance to the master and sisters has been gradually advancing, but not in proportion to the advance in the price of the necessaries of life; at least not so during the present reign, and especially this latter part of it. For the last fifty years the weekly allowance of the sisters, has been from 3s. 6d. of 4s. to 5s. till the commencement of the present year [1810] when it was advanced from 5s. to 7s. and the master’s allowance from 7s. to 10s.—This pleasing change in the situation of these pensioners has been ascribed to the laudable and humane exertions of the present acting governor and treasurer, Edmund Rolfe Elsden Esq., who is supposed to have acquitted himself, in this situation, more respectably and commendably than any of his predecessors, for the last fifty years at least. Besides advancing the weekly allowance of the pensioners, he has also put the hospital itself and premises in a state of thorough repair, at the expence of 400l. or more. All this he has been enabled to accomplish by advancing the rent of the lands according to their present value: and it is expected that he will be able soon to make an additional augmentation to the weekly allowance and comforts of the poor pensioners, whose concerns he so laudably superintends. Till he was appointed to this situation their condition was very miserable, and every year getting worse and worse, with little or no hope of amendment. In short, Alderman Elsden, in the character of acting governor and treasurer of our Magdalen Hospital, has deserved well, not only of the pensioners of that home, but also of the public at large. His successors it is hoped will not fail to profit by his praiseworthy examples and it is to be wished that the managers of all similar charities would make a point of acting in like manner. Very different, indeed, by all accounts, has been the conduct of too many, if not of most of those entrusted with the superintendence and management of our charitable institutions throughout the kingdom, by which they have proved themselves utterly unworthy of the confidence reposed in them, and rendered their very names and memories detestable in the eyes of all honest men. Mackerell, 194, &c. The builder or founder, probably, of the old parsonage house there, which has the name still over the door: in which case, that house must have stood between 3 and 400 years. Parkin 164, 165. The author of the Norfolk Tour, speaking of the Red Mount, gives the following account of the said king’s visit to this place— “When Edw. IV. and his brother, the duke of Gloster, fled before the great earl of Warwick, on passing the Washes in Lincolnshire, at an improper time, they lost their baggage and money; and arriving at Lynn, October 2. 1470, [other accounts say 1469] lodged one night in this building, which the historian erroneously calls a castle.” [But the historian was, perhaps, more correct than his corrector.]
But though the said chapel is confessedly an ecclesiastical structure, there might be once about it erections of a military, or castellated character, which would account for its obtaining the name of a castle. Beauties of England, vol. xi. p. 294. “What led to the great celebrity which this place obtained for centuries, was the widow lady of Ricoldie Faverches founding, about 1061, a small chapel in honour of the virgin Mary, similar to the Sancta Casa, at Nazareth. Her son confirmed the endowments, made an additional foundation of a Priory for Augustine canons, and erected a conventual church. At the dissolution, the annual revenues of the monastery were valued, according to Speed, at 446l. 14s. 4d. That its wealth should have been immensely great, is not surprising, when the fame of the image of our Lady of Walsingham is taken into the account; for it was as much frequented, if not more, than the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury. Foreigners of all nations came thither on pilgrimage; many kings and queens of England also paid their devoirs to it; so that the number and quality of her devotees appeared to equal those of the Lady of Loretto, in Italy.—The celebrated Erasmus represents it as a place of such transcendent splendor as would lead one to suppose it the seat of the gods. The monks had contrived to persuade many, that the galaxy in the heavens was a miraculous indication of the way to this place: hence that was called Walsingham Way.”—See Beaut. Engl. xi. 313. Having again touched on the subject of the Gilds, the author begs leave here to correct an inaccuracy or error that escaped him in mentioning St. Ethelred’s Gild at page 439. It now appears to him that this fraternity took its name from a female personage, named St. Etheldreda; and he has, since the above page was printed off, observed the following notice of it in Parkin (134.)—“John Alcock, bishop of Ely, June 3, 1490, granted 40 days pardon, or indulgence, to all the brethren and sisters of the guild of St. Etheldreda, in St. Nicholas’s chapel of Lynn, at the altar of St. Etheldreda the most holy virgin, there founded, and to all who should hear mass at the said altar, and to all who said quinquies before the said altar, the Lord’s prayer and the Salutation quinquies. Reg. Alc. Ep. El.”—So great, in the said bishop’s time, was the encouragement to enter into St. Etheldreda’s Gild, and to hear mass at her altar, or say quinquies before it! Some have thought that the bishop’s town house stood by the Fort, and that the said stones might belong to that edifice, which must be a mistake, as it appears, from old records, that that house stood by St. Nicholas’s chapel to the west, which must be about where Dr. Redferne or Mr. T. Allen’s house now stands.—That the bishop had a house here in the time of Henry III. appears, according to Parkin, from Plita Corona apd. Lenn, 41 of that reign. “This same house seems to be alluded to afterwards, in Plita Assis. Norw. 4. Hen. IV. when it was found, that John Wentworth, mayor of Lenne Episcopi, and the commonalty, had unjustly disseized Henry, bishop of Norwich, of his free tenement here, 100 acres of land, and 20 acres of pasture, he being seized of it in right of his church,” &c. From this it would appear, that Wentworth was not on good terms with the said bishop, which may account for his competitor, Pettipas, advising his friends to seek his lordship’s interference; and it appears from his Letters, that the bishop was favourable to him and, hostile to Wentworth.—Parkin 155.—also Mr. K’s MS. Parkin 141. Parkin, 152. Ib. 165. Parkin, 125. The author is sometimes ready to suspect that the two anchorages, mentioned in some of the foregoing pages, were in fact no other than the lodges or retreats of some anchorets, though he has there given the word a different explanation. (see p. 507.) Parkin, 142. Beaut. of England, xi. 23. Parkin, 140. See p. 453. Parkin, 140. Parkin, as before. “Be it known unto all men by these presents, that we John Salisbury, dean of the cathedral church of the holy undividable trinity of Norwich, and chapter of the same church, have remised, released, and clearly for ever, for us and our successors, quit claim, and do by these presents remise, release, and quit claim to the mayor of the burgh of Lynn Regis, and to the burgesses of the same; and also to Robert Gervise and John Towers, all manner of quarrels, trespasses, variances, controversies, debates, and demands, which we have, and ought to have, for the Lead, Glass, Bells, Iron, Brass, Laten, Timber and Stones, of the Chapel of St. James in King’s Lynn aforesaid, for all and every other cause and causes whatsoever, concerning the same Chapel. In witness whereof to these presents, We the said Dean and Chapter have set our chapter seal this 8th day of January, in the 8th year of the reign of Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. Registrator. Sealed and delivered, to the use of the Mayor and Burgesses of King’s Lynn, and Robert Jervis and John Towers, in the presence of John Debney of Norwich, David Coytmor, Alexander Auger, and Richard Lasher.” [Mackerell, 217.] In 1560, five or six years anterior to the date of the above deed, as we learn from Mackerell, “several gentlemen came to Lynn, and would have taken the state of St. James’s church, by order of the Councils Letters, but were opposed and resisted by the corporation.” But if they actually came by the authority of the privy council, as the above seems to imply, it must be rather odd that the corporation should venture to oppose and resist them: but so it is said, see Mackerell 227.—The same writer says, p. 177, that in 1567 the pinnacle of St. James’s chapel, (by which we may suppose he meant the spire of it,) “was taken down, and the steeple built flat.” So that the tower appears to have been left for some time in its original state, after the chief part of the chapel had been pulled down. Mackerell, 222. Ib. 178. By the above Act, if we are not mistaken, or about the time when it took place, there was also appropriated, as a further adoption to the revenue and maintenance of the said house, four pence per chaldron on all coals imported here by strangers; which is said to amount yearly, one year with another, to 200l. and upwards. [Mackerell, 178.] Mackerell, 178. Grisenthwaite’s Remarks. The reader will perceive that this is not perfectly correct; but so it stands in Mr. Grisenthwaite’s Pamphlet. The incorrectness, however, is trivial, and cannot affect the main subject. It may be supposed to lie among the separate articles, rather than in the casting up; but it cannot be rectified without a sight of the original account. This statement also is somewhat inaccurate, but not so as to affect the main subject. The sum total may be presumed to be strictly correct, whatever slight errors may have crept among the separate articles, which might be easily rectified by a sight of the original documents. See Grisenthwaite’s Remarks, p. 21, and the last Account of Receipts and Disbursements published by the Corporation of Guardians. They were between fire and six score last year, and are supposed to be more now. This is said to have already occasioned to our Lynn house-owners a loss of above 1000l. a year: of course, they have no great reason to exult in the goodness of the times, or to boast of the salutary or beneficial effects of the new poor and paving laws. Lynn, unquestionably, owes much of its present declension to the new poor and paving laws, which have so greatly added to those burdens which were already become almost unbearable: they therefore ought not to have been brought forward at such a time; especially as they were disapproved by a large proportion of the inhabitants. Though their bad effects are visible to the most superficial observer, yet that avails nothing: we are too self-sufficient to be taught by experience, or to let the remembrance of past errors correct our future conduct. The present sudden advance, or augmentation of the water-rent, at the rate of fifty per cent, may serve to illustrate this. Under our present circumstances, this measure must appear exceedingly inconsiderate, unfeeling, and illtimed. It would not have been disreputable in the managers of this concern to pay the inhabitants the compliment of explaining to them the reason of this measure: but, perhaps, they might think that the inhabitants had no light to know the reason, nor yet the reasonableness of their exactions. Private householders are to be charged higher than shopkeepers: this also seems to want explanation. Were we possessed of the whole secret, it would probably appear that abuses exist in the management of our waterworks not very dissimilar to those of our work-house. Grisenthwaite’s Remarks, page 40. Sixty Stone a week, or more, as it is positively reported. Grisenthwaite’s Remarks, p. 41. Account of Receipts and Disbursements of 1809, published by the Corporation of Guardians. G.’s Remarks, p. 33. One would hardly have expected that the cost of cheese alone, in a poor-house, would have been more than one fourth of that of both bread and four. Account of Receipts and Disbursements, as before. If any thing has been mistated here, the writer will thank any one that will apprize him of it; and he will take care to have it rectified. Let no one suppose, from what has been above said or suggested that the present writer would wish our poor to be neglected, or treated unfeelingly. Nothing on earth can be further from his thoughts. Let them, by all means, be sufficiently attended to, and duly provided for: but he sees no reason why they should live better than the poor in all other English work-houses, or even better than what many of those that contribute towards their support can afford to do; which yet seems to be actually the case at Lynn, of late years. Much tender attention, undoubtedly, is due, not only to those of the poor who are entitled to parochial relief, but also to those of them on whom a contribution beyond their power is levied towards that relief. Of these there is said to be now among us no small number. Grisenthwaite’s Remarks p. 24. Its connection with the history of St. James’s Chapel and Hospital was the sole reason of its being adverted to, or brought forward in this part of the work. In the article of Meat, for instance, the reduction is said to be from 60 stone, or more, to less than 30. The expectation of the adoption of a thorough economical system, for our Workhouse, has considerably lowered, with some people, since the recent appointment of a new collector of poor rates; when a person was appointed with a salary of 130l. a year, although another candidate, of equally unexceptionable character offered, as it is said, to execute the office for 50l. less. This, indeed, does not seem to be a good omen; yet we hope it does not augur, or absolutely indicate that things will still go on after the old sort, so as to admit of such vile and infamous proceedings as those of the flour-merchants, mentioned by Mr. Grisenthwaite, or that the expenditure of the next and succeeding years will equal, or nearly equal, that of the last and preceding ones.—No longer, it is to be hoped, are we to hear of “every thing for the use of the House being procured of whom and in such quantities as the governor and master think proper, at the full current market prices—or, that groceries are taken, in small quantities, at the common retail rates—or, that clothing provided for the house costs upwards of 30 per Cent. more them it might fairly be afforded at—or, that our female paupers, on holidays, are to be seen associated, in the vilest ale-houses, with the very dregs of society, manifesting by their lewdness of expression, immodest demeanour, and depraved sentiment, an entire dereliction of every virtuous principle.” This last circumstance must have actually reduced our poor-house to a wh—house! a character which, sorely it ought no longer to retain; otherwise a great part of our enormous poor rates will be most infamously misapplied.—It is presumed it will also be very desirable that our new collector should not tenaciously imitate every part of the conduct of his predecessor; and especially that of harassing the poorer householders, for default of prompt or speedy payment, by indiscriminately issuing summonses, at the rate of 2s. 4d. a piece, and by three and four score at a time. Such a process must bear very hard upon those luckless people, whose poverty or inability constitutes perhaps, the whole of their delinquency. To exact, therefore, an additional 2s. 4d. from each of them, must have been, to say the least of it, an unchristian and inhuman deed.—N.B. The Collector above mentioned, with a salary of 130l. a year, is a new officer, as is also the Registrar, with a salary of 50l. a year. These twin-brothers are the legitimate offspring of the new poor act. To the Registrar is supposed to belong, to chronicle small beer, &c. and write summonses: if so, as the defaulters are charged 2s. 4d. for each summons, are they not, in fact, paid for twice over? Were it, indeed, ascertainable, that it was Nicholas who taught England and Europe the use of the Compass, Lynn would have great reason to be proud of him. But the fact is doubtful, if not more than doubtful, as the same honour has been confidently ascribed to Flavio Gioia, a celebrated mathematician of Amalfi, in Naples, who flourished about 1300, which was somewhat earlier than the other, and who marked the north-point in the Compass by a flower de lis, in compliment to the then Neapolitan royal family, which was a branch of that of France. Still our townsman might have a share, and that perhaps not small, if not in the discovery itself, yet, at least, in its improvement, or the application of it to the purposes of navigation. The Chinese are said to have been acquainted with magnetism and the use of the compass long before all other nations. The Astrolabe was an instrument formerly in much request, and still very well spoken of. There were different sorts of instruments that bore that name. The above was one of those called sea-astrolabes, a description of which may be seen in the works of Chaucer, and also in the CyclopÆdias. Bale, however, classes him among the Carmelites; but it seems to be generally agreed that he was mistaken, and that Nicholas certainly belonged to the Franciscans, as was said above. Mackerell imputes Bale’s placing him among the Carmelites to his partiality to them, having himself been of that fraternity. Which may probably indicate, that he had been educated at Oxford, as that university was the great nest, or fountain-head of Lollardism, which seems not to have been much, if at all countenanced at Cambridge.—Abp. Arundel with his commissioners visited Cambridge in 1401, not long, it seems, after the trial and burning of Sautre. . . . One, and perhaps the chief object of their visit was, to enquire, Whether there were among its members “any suspected of Lollardism, or any other heretical pravity.” One solitary Lollard was found out, whose name was Peter Harford, who was ordered to abjure Wickliff’s opinions in full congregation. (See Mo. Mag. for Oct. 1803, p. 225.) Let it not be supposed that the vile prison holes, or places of torment, above spoken of, and described, were used only by the votaries of popery, or the roman catholics. Even the member and prelates of the protestant church of England appear also to have made use of them before now; and that, too, at what some seem to deem the era of the utmost evangelical purity of that church—the reign of good queen Bess, as she has been often called. As to our pretended orthodox and evangelical sectaries, if they have not followed the above example literally, yet have they made, and still make no scruple of doing it, as we may say, metaphorically or figuratively, at least.—When any one is pronounced by their petty popes, prelates, priests, exorcists, or consistories, to be possessed with the demon of heterodoxy or heresy, he is immediately reviled, defamed, proscribed, and outlawed, at it were, by proclamation; or pilloried and gibbeted, in their periodical and other publications—in other words, they do all they can to set every body against him, and render him odious in the sight of all men, as one who has forfeited the esteem of his fellow citizens, and is no longer worthy of enjoying the common rights and comforts of society.—In short, they appear to use all their efforts and energies to have him effectually secured in a Little-Ease, of a most painful and dismal sort.—If our protestant, orthodox, and evangelical sects and parties do thus, who can wonder at the cruelties ascribed to the papists in former times? Instead of inveighing against the intolerant, persecuting, and antichristian spirit of popery, as these very people often do, they ought, surely, to consider how little that spirit differs from their own. While they inveigh or declaim against the injustice and cruelty of imprisoning, banishing, hanging, or burning people for their religion, and yet, at the same time, are in the constant practice of traducing, reviling, defaming, exhibiting as evil-doers, and treating in the most unkind and injurious manner, those whom they are pleased to brand with the name of heretics, or who differ from them, they discover the self same spirit with the very worst of persecutors, and may be compared to the ancient sect called Circonelliones, who would not use the sword, because Christ had forbidden it to Peter, but armed themselves with Clubs, which they called the clubs of Israel, with which they could break all the bones in a man’s skin.—See Jones’ Mem. of bishop Horne, 275. The act De HÆretico Comburendo, did not take place till sometime after; so that its terrors cannot be supposed to have frightened him to recantation.—We can think of nothing so likely to have produced that effect as some intolerably severe private sufferings which he had undergone during the above mentioned interval. That scrole related, it seems, to the recantation, of which, according to Fox, the following was the tenor or substance— “Imprimis, touching the first and second, [articles] where I said that I would adore rather a temporall prince, and the lively bodies of the saints, than the wooden crosse whereupon the Lord did hang, I do revoke and recant the same, as being therein deceived.—To this I say, that the article is false and erroneous, and by false information I held it; the which I renounce and ask forgiveness thereof, and say, that is a precious relique, and that I shall hold it while I live, and that I sweare here.—I know well that I erred wrongfully by false information: for I wot well, that a deacon or a priest is more bound to say his mattens and houres then to preach; for there he is bounden by right: wherefore I submit me, &c.—Touching that article, I know right well that I erred by false information. Wherefore I ask forgiveness.—As concerning vowes, I say that opinion is false and erroneous, and by false information I held it; for a man is holden to hold his vow, &c.—To the 7. article I say, that I did it by authority of priesthood, wherethrough I knowledge well that I have guilt and trespassed: wherefore I submit me to God and to holy church, and to you father, swearing that I shall never hold it more.—To the 8. (article) I say, that I held it by false and wrong information. But now I know well that it is heresie, and that bread, anon as the word of the sacrament is said, is no longer bread materiall, but that it is turned into very Christ’s body; and that I sweare here.”
Two more articles were then retracted by him, and pronounced to be false and erroneous, &c. but it does not appear what they were, (see Fox, 1. 674.)—This recantation, throughout, exhibits evident symptoms of a man so overcome by his fears, or his sufferings, as to be ready to say or do any that his unfeeling persecutors should prescribe or dictate to him.—He appeared much more fearless and intrepid, afterwards, when he was taken up the last time, tried before the arch-bishop and convocation, condemned and committed to the flames. Fox A. and M. 1. 673. The Londoners were then distinguished for their partiality to the Lollards; which may, in some measure, account for the facility with which Sawtre appears to have obtained the appointment or situation of minister of St. Osith.—see Fox, 670. The celebrated Sir William Jones is well known to have been one of our most earnest and warm friends and advocates of reform. The memorable Dr. Johnson used to call him, the most enlightened of the sons of men. Fox A. and M. 671, 672. One circumstance, mentioned as having occurred in the course of this examination, seems not a little difficult to account for. Fox says, that Arundel enquired of Sawtre, “Whether he had abjured the foresaid heresies and errors objected against him before the bishop of Norwich, or not; or else had revoked and renounced the said or such like conclusions or articles, or not?” and that the latter answered and affirmed that he had not. [p. 672.] Also four days after, when the fore-cited process of the bishop of Norwich was read to him before the convocation, and it was urged that he had then abjured, among other errors, the heresy, that in the sacrament of the altar, after the consecration made by the priest, there still remained material bread, “Whereunto the said William, answered, smiling, or in mocking wise, and denying that he knew of the premisses.” [Ib. p. 674.] In all this there is evidently some mystery, which one knows not how to unravel, except on the supposition, that there was some material mistake, or designed misrepresentation in the statement which bishop Spencer sent to the convocation of his process against Sawtre, and of the tenor of the latter’s retraction, which might, in his opinion, justify his said denial. He might well answer deridingly, for such interrogations were fit only to excite contempt and derision. See Fox 673, who gives the following as a copy of the said sentence— “In the Name of God, Amen. We Thomas by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of England, and Legate of the See Apostolicall, by the authority of God almighty, and blessed Saint Peter and Paul, and of holy church, and by our own authority, sitting for tribunall or chiefe judge, having God alone before our eyes, by the counsell and consent of the whole clergie, our fellow bretheren and suffragans, assistants to us in this present councell provinciall, by this our sentence definitive do pronounce, decree, and declare by these presents, thee William Sautre, otherwise colled Chawtrey, parish priest pretensed, personally appearing before us, in and upon the crime of heresie, judicially and lawfully convict, as an heretike, and as an heretike be punished.”
See Fox, p. 674. where we find a copy of this second sentence, or sentence of degradation, in the following words . . . “In the Name of God, Amen. Wee Thomas by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, Legate of the See Apostolicall, and metropolitan of all England, doe find and declare, that thou William Sautre, otherwise called Chautris, priest, by us with the counsell and assent of all and singular our fellow brethren and whole clergy, by this our sentence definitive declared in writing, hast beene for heresie convict and condemned, and art (being againe fallen into heresie) to be deposed and degraded by these presents.”
But its absurdity seems of an opposite cast to that of one our late parliaments, which undertook to establish the popish doctrine of the indelibility of the priestly, or clerical character, than which neither the above process, nor even transubstantiation itself, can be more absurd or ridiculous. That such a doctrine should really be recognised, adopted, and established by the British Senate, now in the 19th century, might have occasioned no small astonishment, had not the same august body, within the same period, done so many other things equally strange, marvellous, and disreputable. Should we become inquisitive, and presume to ask, What is this invisible, mysterious, indelible something, called character; the episcopal, priestly, or clerical character? some will tell us, that it is a spiritual power, others a habit or disposition, others a spiritual figure, others a sensible metaphorical quality, others a real relation, others a fabric of the mind: by all which, little more, perhaps, can be made out, or comprehended, than that the advocates or supporters of the doctrine are much at variance about this character. But however they may differ in their ideas and definitions of the character itself, they are, it seems, in perfect agreement as to its indelibility; being all firmly persuaded, that though a bishop, priest, or deacon, turn heretic; or schismatic, deist or atheist, he still retains the character; and though not a christian man, he is still a christian bishop, priest, or deacon: though he be degraded and excommunicated, he is in respect to the character still the same. Though he be cut off from the church, he is still a minister in the church. In such a situation, to perform any of the sacred functions would be in him a deadly sin, but these would be equally valid as before. Thus he may not be within the pale of the church himself, and yet be in the church as a minister of Jesus Christ. He may openly and solemnly blaspheme God, and abjure the faith of Christ; he may apostatize to Judaism, to Mahometism, to Paganism, he still retains the character. He may even become a priest of Jupiter, or a priest of Baal, and still continue a priest of Jesus Christ. The character say the Schoolmen, is not cancelled even in the damned, but remains with the wicked to their disgrace and greater confusion; so that in hell they are the ministers of Jesus Christ, and messengers of the new covenant!! [see the late Dr. Campbell’s Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, for a more full and striking view of this subject.] That our legislature, in sanctioning the said doctrine, did really mean to go the whole length the Schoolmen did, or adopt all their ideas concerning it, may, perhaps, admit of some doubt: but after agreeing with them in the main point, it might be thought hardly worth their while to hesitate about the smaller matters. Be this as it may, the convocation over which archbishop Arundel presided, in the process against Sawtre, seem to have been entirely of a different opinion, both from she Schoolmen and our said late parliament, on this notable question of clerical indelibility. The sentence printed in italics is given in Latin by Fox. If there be any one thing more detestable than the rest among the proceedings of Arundel and his inquisitorial associates, against Sawtre, it is their affecting to feel for him, or commiserate his case and recommend him to the favour of the secular power, at the very time when they were delivering him up as a sheep to the slaughter (or to the butcher) or as a victim for immediate immolation. They felt no pity for him, and knew that the magistrate would shew him no favour.—The judges of the Inquisition also are said always to express much tenderness and goodwill towards those they condemn to the flames.—Our protestant and pretended evangelical sects, likewise, are often heard to use the language of kindness and pity towards those whom they have pronounced to be heretics, at the same time they are doing all they can to render them odious in the eyes of all men, and, deprive them of the kind offices and good opinion of all their fellow-citizens. Yes, devilishly so. Fox 675. The Errata has been applied to this eBook.—DP. |
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