that the responsibility for their state rested upon her immediate prede- cessors. At Newport Pagnel [1] the vicarage was vacant, and the church destitute of services ; no one could be found to serve the cure on account of its poverty. In a few places people were put to penance for various offences against order : at Wendover and Stowe for refusing to join in processions, at Stoke Poges for not coming to church, and at Great Marlow a butcher for keeping his shop open on Sundays ; cases of immorality were also reported and punished. Two of the clergy were reprimanded : the rector of Saunderton for non-residence, the vicar of Great Stewkley for giving the Blessed Sacrament to some of his parish- ioners who were unshriven, and for refusing to hear the confessions of others who came to him ; the former was ordered to reside from the next Michaelmas, the latter was imprisoned for a while and then made public satisfaction for his fault. [2]
The accession of Elizabeth brought changes yet again. The lately re-erected roods and images had to come down ; the stone altars were once more exchanged for wooden tables ; there were more new books to buy, none of those used either in the reign of Edward or of Mary exactly serving the necessities of the new regime. The archdeacon of Bucks [3] seems to have been the only priest connected with this county who was deprived in 1559.
It is not easy to discover the popular feeling with regard to religion in any particular county during the early years of Elizabeth's reign ; we only know the expressed statements of a few notable persons here and there ; how far they were spokesmen for larger circles can only be inferred from evidence that comes in laterrecusant lists, visitations of churches, events of the next century. It is a matter of history that during the second half of the sixteenth century there were three lines of action open to those in England who were in earnest about matters of religion. In the minds of some the only hope of saving the Catholic faith from the attacks of heretics was to hold fast the ideal of a visibly united Christendom under the primacy of the pope, who seemed to them indeed the rock on which the Church was built, the one point immoveable in a world of change. To another section there seemed a better hope in the principles set forth in the Book of Common Prayer : namely, the ideal of an independent national church, with a right to reform and govern itself, so long as it remained faithful to Apostolic tradition, and kept the Apostolic succession un-
- ↑ Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii. 399.
- ↑ Ibid. 393-400.
- ↑ Named R. Porter (Dr. Gee, The Elizabethan Clergy, 262). The numbers ejected under Mary (if there were any) cannot be recovered for Lincoln diocese, as the registers are missing. Cole (Add. MS. 5840, f. 38) says that John Gale of Edlesborough (instituted 1550) was deprived in 1554 and his place taken by William Downham, formerly canon of Ashridge ; but does not name his authority (or rather the authority of Browne Willis, whose note he was reproducing). It may be noted that William Downham of Ashridge was Rector of Dachworth, Herts, in 1552, and married, so that it seems unlikely that he would be preferred by Mary to another living : while the inventory of Edlesborough in 1552, noticed above, does not suggest that the incumbent was one who would object to the Marian reaction. There may, however, have been circumstances unrecorded which would explain away both these difficulties.
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