ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Leicestershire family with the Roman Church." 1 Sir Henry died, still a recusant, while his sons were but children ; and they were brought up by their mother in her own faith. Both of them, as it seems, offered to the service of the Anglican Church all the devotion and piety which had marked their ancestors for many generations. 833 The young Sir Charles did not live long enough to distinguish himself in any special way, 233 but his brother Robert, who died a prisoner in the Tower in 1656, still under thirty years of age, 23 * is best remembered by the inscription placed a little later in the church of Staunton Harold : In the yeare 1653, when all thinges sacred were throughout the Nation either demolisht or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley Barronet founded this Church ; whose singular praise it is to have done the best things in the worst times and to have hoped them in the most calamitous. 835 He enriched the church which he rebuilt with beautiful and costly plate, 236 and in his will left not only money to be distributed among those who had lost their estates in the king's service, but a special provision to the orthodox and distressed clergy, for whom, while he lived, he had made his house a place of refuge. The history of religious thought in Leicestershire at this period would be incomplete without some notice of the career of George Fox, who was born at Fenny Drayton in this county in 1624. Besides the record of his own experience, his ^Journal furnishes us with some valuable evidence as to the spiritual possibilities of the new regime. The abolition of the bishops and the Prayer Book had relieved some men of what they deemed to be lifeless ceremonies : but the Presbyterian system had a rigidity of its own, and did not tend to produce a spiritual awakening. Those who had felt that the discipline of the High Commission and the formality of the Church services hindered them from a nearer and freer walk with God, were quite as much tried by the dry and argumentative discourses of the ' godly and painful ministers ' appointed by Parliament, and by the iron chains of predestination with which they were fain to bind men's souls. To believe this we need not go for support to the writings of the dispossessed clergy : the clearest evidence of it is found in the lives of men like John Bunyan and George Fox. It is of importance to remember that neither of these men in their early seekings after God ever saw the Church as we see it, ever heard the more gracious side of the Church's teachings as we hear it day by day. It was their mis- fortune to come under the influence of the Church only after their own B1 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. (i), 228.
- " See the will of Sir Ralf Shirley, buried at Garendon Abbey just before the Dissolution ; Nichols,
Leie. iii, 710. He left money for four poor men to be lodged at the abbey for ninety-nine years ; and for a chantry and free school in Melbourne, Derby, as well as at Loughborough.
- The silver-gilt chalice and cover, of 40 ounces weight and dated 1 640, is probably his gift to Staunton
Harold Church. Trollope, Cb. Plate ofLeic. i, 1 1. 134 He is said to have been a prisoner several times before. Nichols, Leu. iii, 714. 134 Ibid. The church was not finished till 1663 ; but he had left money in his will that the work might be completed according to his original design. The inscription on the tower, ' Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet, founder of this church, A.D. 1653, on whose soul God have mercy,' was probably the one he chose for himself; the other may be the work of Gilbert Sheldon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, whom he made one of his executors. It seemed more necessary to print it here, as the original has ceased to be accessible to the general public ; the church is now merely the private chapel of Lord Ferrers. 336 Trollope, CA. Plate of Leic. i, 1 1 . A chalice and cover, a paten, two flagons, an almsdish, and two candlesticks, all in silver-gilt, bear the date 1654. I 3 8 5 49
