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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY So far as can be discovered, only the incumbents of Aston Flamville, Houghton-on-the-Hill, Aylestone, and Lutterworth, and a schoolmaster of Leicester were deprived for final refusal of conformity to the Elizabethan settlement. 140 There are some returns still existing for the year 1562, which show that though the clergy of this archdeaconry were in the main conformable, they could not at once rise up to the increasing demand for sermons. Out of 129 parish priests, who are nearly all described as resident, and moderately learned, only fifteen were able to preach. 141 At about the same time there were twelve benefices which had been vacant from three to five years. 143 In 1564 a fresh list of churches and chapels was made out ; 143 from which it may be gathered that fifty of the chapels existing in 1344 were disused or decayed. It is quite likely that most of these ceased to be served, owing to change in population or defective endowment, about the end of the fourteenth century but there were a few quite recent losses, such as the Chapel of St. Nicholas, Mountsorrel, 144 and the church of St. Peter, Leicester. 145 It was no doubt the lack of preachers amongst the parochial clergy that made the appointment of lecturers at this time a matter of such importance. In 1567 the mayor and corporation of Leicester decided to appoint a lecturer for their town, by the advice of Henry earl of Huntingdon, whose influence was steadily in favour of Reformation principles. 148 He was to preach from 7 to 8 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, and a member of every household in Leicester was to come and hear him under pain of fine. The lecturer, being appointed by the corporation, had to preach the doctrines they desired ; and what they desired we may gather from the fact that in 1586 when the post was vacant they begged the earl of Huntingdon to use his influence to secure the services of Travers, the well-known opponent of Hooker a man, as they were credibly informed, 'of singular goodness and approved learning.' 117 Travers, however, was not appointed ; it may be because the mayor and corporation did not offer him sufficient inducement, for in 1589 Sir Francis Walsingham wrote to rebuke them for their niggardliness towards the new lecturer, Thomas Sacheverell. 148 The town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch was throughout this reign a centre of Puritan influence. Anthony Gilby was vicar there from 1566 to 1583, and was strong in his refusal to conform to the requirements of the bishops. His work entitled ' A view of Anti-Christ, his laws and ceremonies in our English Church unreformed,' containing fourteen parallels between the pope of Rome and the pope of Lambeth, shows sufficiently the line of his oppo- sition. 149 But though the tendencies of many of the leading clergy and laity . 14 Gee, Elizabethan Clergy. 141 Frere, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. 107. See also Nichols, Leic. ii, 298, and elsewhere. Only nine out of the 1 29 mentioned above were married. 141 S.P. Dom. Eliz. xii, 108. '"Nichols, Lew. i, Ixxxv, from Harl. MS. 618. 144 This chapel had all things necessary for divine service in 1552. It was pulled down by the parishioners without any licence from the vicar of Rothley soon after 1569. Nichols, Leic. iii, 987. 145 United with All Saints in 1590. The deed is printed in full, Nichols, Leic. i, 550. The bells had been sold and timber taken down in 1563. Ibid. 328. 146 Hist. MS5. Com. Rep. viii (i), 427. 147 Ibid. 431. 148 Ibid. 432. Sacheverell was a notable preacher at this time, and gave the lecture at Leicester for many years, being also confrater of Wigston's Hospital. 149 Frere, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. 175. He showed ' an hundred points of popery' which still deformed the English Reformation. 373