that I know of, of that mind in Moreton,' and he certifies ' all whom it may concern, and that on the word of a priest' that all those entered in his register were ' duly and orderly baptized,' and all couples solemnly wedded in the church, and that according to the orders of the Church of England.[1] The rector of Amersham had to speak of a very different experience. ' General Fleetwood lived at the Vache, and Russell on the opposite hill, and Mrs. Cromwell, Oliver's wife, and her daughters at Woodrow High House, where afterwards lived Captain James Thomson ; so the whole country was kept in awe and became exceeding zealous and very fanatical ; nor is the poison yet eradicated.'[2] It had, indeed, been injected long before the coming of these magnates.
Twenty-four [3] of the ministers of religion placed by Parliament in charge of parishes in this county were ejected in 1662, either in favour of the old incumbents or because they refused to accept the episcopal form of Church government : this number nearly equals those displaced during the twenty years preceding. A few stayed on in the neighbour- hood where they had ministered, and were supported by private congre- gations. William Dyer, who had been at Cholesbury, did good service in London at the time of the plague by preaching in one of the deserted churches there : Nathanael Vincent, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had served the cure of Langley Marish, preached in the streets of London after the fire (to thousands, Calamy declares) and was several times imprisoned in the Gatehouse and the Marshalsea under the Five Mile and Conventicle Act ; George Fownes, a graduate of Cambridge, after leaving High Wycombe was imprisoned two years and a half at Gloucester for the same offences.[4] Four of those who remained at places near the scene of their former ministrations received licenses to preach and hold religious meetings under the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. These licenses, as might be expected, are numerous in Buck- inghamshire. There were twenty-seven in all, Presbyterians applying for them in most cases, as well as a few Congregationalists and one Con- venticle of Anabaptists. At High Wycombe four different licenses were granted, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Anabaptists being all represented ; at Aylesbury two different places were licensed for meet- ings, both being Presbyterian, and at Newport Pagnel two also, both Congregational.[5] The Quakers, although so numerous in the county, did not apply at all, not thinking it lawful to ask permission from man to worship God.[6]
It is generally acknowledged that much was done at the Restora-
- ↑ Records of Bucks, vi. 433-4.
- ↑ From the parish register of Amersham, quoted ibid. ii. 159.
- ↑ Calamy reckons also Thomas Valentine of Chalfont St. Giles, who was suspended a short time before the Civil War, and John Luff of Aylesbury, who returned there as soon as the old incumbent died, and cannot fairly be reckoned among the victims of the Restoration. Nonconformists' Memorial of 1775. i- 234-7
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ For all the particulars, see Cal. of State Papers Chas. II. 1672-3.
- ↑ W. H. Summers, Memories of Jordans, 160. Many of the troubles of the Quakers came upon them for similar causes, refusing to find bail for themselves, etc.
