was drawn up for uniting some of the smaller benefices, where it was in any way possible for an incumbent to serve two. [1] It was noticed at the same time that Colnbrook, a market town and much frequented, ought to have a separate endowment ; and Fenny Stratford (where it may be remembered there was once a gild chapel) ought to have a church built. [2] These good intentions deserve to be recorded, though their authors had not much time to carry them into effect. During the Civil War this county was continually traversed by troops, chiefly belonging to the Parliament : there was a Royalist garrison for some time at Boar- stall ; Parliamentary forces were stationed at Newport Pagnel and at Aylesbury ; and some small engagements actually took place around these centres. The church at Great Marlow was at one time fortified and occupied by soldiers.[3] Other churches suffered more or less from the violence of the fanatical soldiery : the parish register of Maids Moreton, for instance, records how the ' reverend and religious rector ' died in March 1643, 'almost heartbroken with the insolence of the rebels against the Church and the king,' having seen the windows of his church broken, the cross cut off the steeple, and the ' costly desk in the form of a spread eagle gilt, on which he used to lay Bishop Jewel's works, doomed to perish as an abominable idol.'[4] A letter of a soldier stationed at Aylesbury describes how he and his companions broke into the church there, defaced the stained glass windows, and burned the altar rails. [5] It is also asserted that they were guilty of similar outrages at Lillingstone Dayrell, Grandborough, Winslow, Hogshaw, East Claydon, and Addington [6] ; and it may have been at this time that the effigy of a priest in Woughton Church was * designedly mutilated, for fear ignorent popish Christians should fall down and worship it,' and monuments defaced in other places also.[7] Such excesses were of course common enough at this period. A story is also given by Walker from the Mercurius Rusticus of 1646, of the rough handling of the aged rector of Tyringham, arrested on suspicion by a troop of soldiers near Stony Stratford, and carried to the gaol at Aylesbury. It is said that they robbed him of everything he had, even to his boots and cap, but when they ordered him to take off his cassock, he, ' being not sudden in obeying the command nor over hasty to untie his girdle to disrobe himself of the distinctive garment of his profession,' was accused
- ↑ The scheme is too lengthy to transcribe here : it is summarized in Augmentations of Livings, vol. 1001.
- ↑ Ibid. There is an order given for the repair of the chancel of Wyrardisbury dated 31 Jan. 1655 (ibid. vol. 972, f. 18) ; and there may have been others, though on the whole there must have been much more damage than repair done during this period.
- ↑ The Churchwardens' accounts quoted in Records of Bucks, vi. 156, contain an item in 1642' Paid for throwing in the bulwarks about the Church and in Duck Lane and for cleaning out the church when the soldiers lay in it.'
- ↑ Ibid. vi. 432.
- ↑ R. Gibbs, History of Aylesbury, 20, from the letter of one Nehemiah Wharton.
- ↑ Ibid. 21. The church of Hogshaw seems to have been still in use at the Survey of 1650, but it was probably very far gone in decay. By the time of Browne Willis, at about 1730, there was not a trace of it left.
- ↑ Noted by Cole, Add. MS. 5839, f. 223d, and 5840, f. 91d.
329
