ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY had been rector there for nearly forty years. 1 During all this time he had been visited by each successive Bishop of Lincoln, and no fault found with him 2 ; the archdeacon's courts had been often held in his church ; he had been visited by Laud's commissioner, Sir Nathaniel Brent 3 ; and now in his old age he was deprived of his rectory as being ' at heart a popish recusant ' — the very words of the accusation displaying the ignorance of the accuser. A pension of £10 a year was indeed given to him by a noble parishioner ; but he ran the risk of losing it by his determined refusal to leave the rectory house, whence he was at last ejected by a fresh order of Parliament. 4 The case of Giles Thorne of St. Mary's is also noteworthy. He was arrested as he came out of the pulpit by a party of Lord St. John's troops, 5 and carried to the Fleet prison, on the petition of justices of the peace and inhabitants of Bedford. He was accused of being ' turbulent and profane ' and causing divisions and factions in the town ; but the true cause of enmity against him was probably found in the fact that he had ' prosecuted in the High Commission Court those who desired to abstain from profanation.' 6 On the strength of this petition, and the annexed affidavit of one witness that he had in the pulpit used ' blas- phemous words' (i.e. had preached in favour of confession), he was im- prisoned for more than five years, without any trial, 7 only being released once for six weeks in 1646, after repeated petitions, 8 to go and see his sick wife and to try to make some provision for himself and his family. Returning to prison when he found his friends had become too poor to help him, he sent up yet another petition for release or relief of some kind, and was finally discharged on 23 August 1647. 9 What he did for a living until the Restoration is not known ; but his wife had been allowed a pension from his two rectories from November 1646, limited in October 1 647 to one-fifth from St. Mary's only. 10 The rector of Houghton Conquest, Dr. Edward Marten, was also imprisoned five years ; but as he was master of Queen's College, Cam- bridge, and had two other rectories besides, he does not reckon with the 1 He was parson in 1604 (Parish Register). 2 William Barlow came three times in 161 2 ; George Montaigne once. John Williams held his visitation for the whole county there, August 1635 ; all stayed at the rectory house. (From entries at the back of the parish register, kindly noted by the present rector of Ampthill, who says also that Reeve's registers are well kept and in good order.) 3 S. P. Dom. Chas. I. cclxxiv. 1 2 ; and on parish register.
- Hist. MSS. Com. v. 19, 30 Apr. 1642.
6 Walker, Siifirings of the Clergy, p. 44. Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 4;. 7 Walker says he was tried and acquitted, and that there was a petition sent in by his parishioners on his behalf; but from his last petition it is clear that he was never tried at all. 8 One in 1642 and two in 1643, for bail or a speedy trial ; one in 1644, and one in 1646, to go and see his wife who was sick ; two in 1647, for release or relief (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 53, 87, 155, 179, ■93). 9 Ibid. 179, 193. 10 Add. MS. 15670, f. 230 ; and 15671, f. 104. A certificate was signed by churchwardens of the parish and others in 1642, declaring that Thorne had ' engrossed the rectory of St. Cuthbert's over the head of the incumbent ' ; but the proceedings of the committee do not corroborate this. His wife was first granted one-fifth from both benefices, and then given her choice as to which she would retain ; nowhere is it implied that her husband's claim to St. Cuthbert's was not as good as to St. Mary's. 339
