pulpit and reading desk were similarly furnished ; the oaken kneeling desks at the two ends of the altar, as well as the Bible and two prayer books which lay upon it, were also covered with red velvet. In Lent a ' suit of violet cloth ' was substituted for the ' crimson furniture.' A handsome silver almsdish and flagon, engraved with the sacred monogram and emblems of the Passion, were also among the gifts of the Willis family.[1]
It is probable that in very few churches was anything more ornate than this attempted. Cole gives this description with very evident pride and satisfaction, and adds, after commenting upon his patron's generosity, ' May he live to see the communion table decked with an embroidered covering, and the pulpit with a cushion and cloth of the same kind ! ' as if that would leave nothing further to be desired. He does not seem to have even dreamed of such things as crosses, candle- sticks or flower vases, although he gladly ' patched up ' an old crucifix in the glass of the eastern window. Moreover, the returns of Bishops Wake and Gibson show that four, or at the outside six, celebrations in the year were all that could be attained at Bletchley during the first part of the eighteenth century. It seems indeed that the High Church- men of that period belonged to a type which is now extinct. There is really no party within the Church of to-day which can fairly claim to represent them. They justified the Reformation, while yet they despised the vandalism which it often produced [2] ; they hated Dissenters as no Churchman of to-day would think it proper to do ; they were sincere lovers of the English Church, and yet they seemed content with so small a share in Church privileges. They had lost, too, all the old bitterness against Rome — it is indeed a little startling to hear Cole speak of the 'pretended Powder plot' [3] of 1605, and of ' Foxe's Book of Martyrs, as it is called ' [4]— and yet they were in no way attracted by her modern methods.
The parish church of Gayhurst was rebuilt in 1728 at the expense of a certain Mr. Wright, patron at that time of the living [5] ; he was doubtless a man of real generosity, though not a Churchman of the same type as Browne Willis.[6] The old chapel of St. Giles at Stony Stratford was also rebuilt in 1757.[7] There was destructive work done too during
- ↑ Add. MS. 5821, ff. 164, 198-200. The crimson velvet coverings for the altar, pulpit and desk were the gift of Dr. Martin Benson (Rector 1728-35), and the kneeling stools of Cole himself.
- ↑ Cole, speaking in one place about the loss of some of the brasses from the tomb of an abbess of Elstow, supposes that one of them contained an inscription ' which the squeamish stomachs of former ages would not digest, and so reaved the brasses of such Popish stuff away to sell it in a good Protestant method ' ! It is the tone which he and Willis always take with regard to such acts. Add. MS. 5830, f. 140d.
- ↑ Ibid. 5839, f. 82d.
- ↑ Ibid. 5840, f. I5d. From this entry, from the inventory of Bledlow 1785, and other allusions, it would seem that Foxe's Book of Martyrs was sometimes read aloud in church in place of a sermon as late as the end of the eighteenth century.
- ↑ Add. MS. 5839, f. 85d.
- ↑ He regretted the demolition of the tower of Filgrave Church on the ground that it made a ' very good object ' from his parlour window. Ibid. f. 79d.
- ↑ Ibid. f. 192.
