The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 19
In the month of January 1643-4, Oliver, as Governor of Ely, is present for some time in that City; lodges, we suppose, with his own family there; doing military and other work of government:—makes a transient appearance in the Cathedral one day; memorable to the Reverend Mr. Hitch and us.
The case was this. Parliament, which, ever since the first meeting of it, had shown a marked disaffection to Surplices at Allhallowtide and ‘monuments of Superstition and Idolatry,’ and passed Order after Order to put them down,—has in August last come to a decisive Act on the subject, and specifically explained that go they must and shall.[1] Act of Parliament which, like the previous Orders of Parliament, could only have gradual partial execution, according to the humour of the locality; and gave rise to scenes. By the Parliament’s directions, the Priest, Churchwardens, and proper officers were to do it, with all decency: failing the proper officers, improper officers, military men passing through the place, these and suchlike, backed by a Puritan populace and a Puritan soldiery, had to do it;—-not always in the softest manner. As many a Querela, Peter Heylin’s (lying Peter’s) History, and Persecutio Undecima, still testifies with angry tears. You cannot pull the shirt off a man, the skin off a man, in a way that will please him!—Our Assembly of Divines, sitting earnestly deliberative ever since June last,[2] will direct us what Form of Worship we are to adopt,—some form, it is to be hoped, not grown dramaturgic to us, but still awfully symbolic for us. Meanwhile let all Churches, especially all Cathedrals, be stript of whatever the general soul so much as suspects to be stage-property and prayer by machinery,—a thing we very justly hold in terror and horror, and dare not live beside!—
Ely Cathedral, it appears, had still been overlooked,—Ely, much troubled with scandalous ministers, as well as with disaffected trainbands—and Mr. Hitch, under the very eyes of Oliver, persists in his Choir-service there. Here accordingly is an official Note, copies of which still sleep in some repositories.
“TO THE REVEREND MR. HITCH, AT ELY: THESE”
Mr. Hitch,—Lest the soldiers should in any tumultuary or disorderly way attempt the reformation of the Cathedral Church, I require you to forbear altogether your Choir-service, so unedifying and offensive:—and this as you shall answer it, if any disorder should arise thereupon.
I advise you to catechise, and read and expound the Scripture to the people; not doubting but the Parliament, with the advice of the Assembly of Divines, will direct you farther. I desire your Sermons “too,” where usually they have been,—but more frequent. Your loving friend, OLIVER CROMWELL.[3]
Mr. Hitch paid no attention; persisted in his Choir-service:—whereupon enter the Governor of Ely with soldiers, ‘with a rabble at his heels,’ say the old Querelas. With a rabble at his heels, with his hat on, he walks up to the Choir; says audibly: ‘I am a man under Authority; and am commanded to dismiss this Assembly,’—then draws back a little, that the Assembly may dismiss with decency. Mr. Hitch has paused for a moment; but seeing Oliver draw back, he starts again: ‘As it was in the beginning’—!—‘Leave off your fooling, and come down, Sir,’[4] said Oliver, in a voice still audible to this Editor; which Mr. Hitch did now instantaneously give ear to. And so, ‘with his whole congregation,’ files out, and vanishes from the field of History.
Friday, 19th January. The Scots enter England by Berwick, 21,000 strong: on Wednesday they left Dunbar ‘up to the knees in snow’; such a heart of forwardness was in them.[5] Old Lesley, now Earl of Leven, was their General, as before; a Committee of Parliamenteers went with him. They soon drove-in Newcastle’s ‘Papist Army’ within narrower quarters; in May, got Manchester with Cromwell and Fairfax brought across the Humber to join them, and besieged Newcastle himself in York. Which, before long, will bring us to Marston Moor, and Letter Twenty-first.
In this same month of January, 22d day of it, directly after Hitch’s business, Colonel Cromwell, now more properly Lieutenant-General Cromwell, Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the Association, transiently appeared in his place in Parliament; complaining much of my Lord Willoughby, as of a backward General, with strangely dissolute people about him, a great sorrow to Lincolnshire;[6]—and craving that my Lord Manchester might be appointed there instead · which, as we see, was done; with good result.
- ↑ 28th August 1643 (Scobell, i. 53; Commons Journals, iii. 220): 2d November 1642 (Commons Journals, and Hushands, ii. 119): 31st August 1641): 23d January 1641 (Commons Journals, in diebus).
- ↑ Bill for convocation of them, read a third time, 6th January 1642-3 (Commons Journals, ii, 916); Act itself, with the Names, 13th June 1643 (Scobell, i. 42-4).
- ↑ Gentleman’s Magazine (London, 1788), lviii. 225: copied ‘from an old Copy, by a Country Rector,’ who has had some difficulty in reading the name of Hitch, and knows nothing farther about him or it.
- ↑ Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy (London, 1714), Part ii. p. 23.
- ↑ Rushworth, v. 603-6.
- ↑ D’Ewes MSS. vol. iv. f. 280 b.