defaced' the chapel of Caversham; others disappeared at the dissolution of the monasteries where they were kept ; but the general order for the removal of all images whatsoever was not issued till the second year of King Edward the Sixth.[1]
The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 is another landmark in the history of the Church. Most of the changes it records in Buckinghamshire since 1291 (e.g. the loss and gain of a few parish churches and chapels) have been noticed as they occurred.[2] The stipends of the lesser clergy were still very small for the most part ; more than sixty benefices were of less than £10 value, more than fifty were between £10 and £15 ; while the average stipend of a curate or chantry priest seems to have been £5 or £6
It does not appear that there was any special disturbance in this county on account of the Supremacy Act or the fall of the monasteries. In February 1538 one Thomas Bright of Boarstall was executed for high treason at Aylesbury for words spoken against the king [3] ; and in the same year a priest, Sir John Man of Westbury, was accused of ' knavish sayings ' and ' lewd living ' [4] ; both these cases may be connected with the troubles of the time, but they are not matters of much consequence. So also in this county, at Bockmore near Medmenham, dangerous words were spoken by Lord Montague and his chaplain, John Colyns, about the dissolution of the monasteries and the king's conduct generally ; but they were said privately and could have made no stir in theneigb)- bourhood, though they were thought sufficient evidence to support a charge of verbal treason. The vicar of Medmenham, to whom Colyns entrusted some of his papers, with instructions to burn them if he were apprehended, may not even have known what was in the coffer, and his sympathy with the cause of the Pole family was not enough to bring him under suspicion. [5]
One more case of heresy, not mentioned by Foxe, was brought before the bishop in the parish church of Little Missenden in Novem- ber 1535 a tailor called Ralph Clerk, who denied the Real Presence. He was accused of having spoken profane and heretical words after a sermon in which the bishop had been setting forth reasons to prove the ordinary doctrine of the Church as to the Blessed Sacrament [6] ; and this
- ↑ Gairdner, History of the English Church, iv. 108.
- ↑ The chapel of Owlswick in Princes Risborough, mentioned in the inventories of 1552 (Exch. Q. R. Church Goods 1/14), and still in use in 1629 (S.P., Dom. Chas. I. ccvi. i), is not mentioned in the Valor (though it must have been in existence in 1534), and the date of its erection has not yet been traced. ' A chapel builded by Mr. Bulstrode ' is also mentioned as part of the property of Wyrardisbury church in 1552, in the inventory then taken ; this also is not named in the Valor. Perhaps it is the same as the ' Hedgerley Bulstrode Chapel ' named in the Visitation of 1637 (S.P., Dom. Chas. I. ccclxix. 59).
- ↑ L. and P. Henry VIII. xiii. (i) 306, 333, 358.
- ↑ Ibid. 194.
- ↑ Ibid. xiii. (2) 771, 830, 875, 979. It would appear that one of the Cheyneys of Chesham Bois was at this time unfavourable to the new learning, as one of his tenants wrote to complain to Cromwell that he had been evicted for reading the New Testament and other books set forth by the king's authority. Ibid, (i) 253. The complaint was not noticed, and may of course have been without proper foundation.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Longland, 199. His talk recalls that of many of Foxe's martyrs. The bishop had said ' Pray for me, and I will pray for you.' Clerk said to a friend standing by, ' The devil
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