XIII.

Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the letters mis- CHAP. sives of the Lords of the Queen's Majesty's most honourable Privy Council in that behalf directed, bearing date Anno 1568. the 9th of July, ann. Dom. 1563.

Robert.

Imprimis, The diocese of Canterbury extendeth to a MSS. Hon. part of the county of Kent only, and to none other shire or county.

Item, There is in the same diocese only one Archdeacon, by the name of Archdeacon of Canterbury: who is at this present Edmond Geste, Bishop of Rochester, the Queen's Majesty's Almoner.

Item, The diocese is divided into eleven deaneries, [which are by and by expressed.]

There is no part of the diocese exempt from the Archbishop; but the said Archbishop hath the sole and plenary jurisdiction ordinary throughout all the said diocese.

Harley,

Armig.

Item, The number of churches and chapels of every 130 deanery aforesaid, with the states and qualities thereof, are here under written.

In the deanery of Canterbury,

The parish church of Fordwiche. The town of Fordwiche is served by a Parson. Households 24.

The parish church of Sturry. The town of Sturry is served by a Vicar. Households 42.

The parish church of St. Paul, in the city of Canterbury, is served by a Vicar. Households 80. And so the certifi cate proceeds, enumerating the parishes in the deanery: and at the foot is set down the sum of the churches and chapels within this deanery, viz. 16. And the sum of the households, viz. 493.

In the deanery of Bridge, after the parishes are all specified, then follows the sum total of the churches and chapels of this deanery, viz. 34, households 1135.

In the deanery of Charing, parish churches and chapels 24, households 2286.

In the deanery of Sutton, churches and chapels 26, households 1474.

BOOK
II.

Anno 1563.

Bristol and
Ely visited.

Becon collated to

Back

church.

The Curate

gate.

In the deanery of Syttingborn, churches and chapels 26, households 783.

In the deanery of Ospringe, churches and chapels 25, households 933.

In the deanery of Limpne, churches and chapels 36, households 1094.

In the deanery of Westbeere, churches and chapels 15. households 737.

In the deanery of Sandwich, churches and chapels 27, households 591.

In the deanery of Dover, sum of the churches and chapels 20, households 551.

Sum total of all the churches and chapels of the diocese of Canterbury as before expressed, 276. And of all the households before particularly expressed, 10,948.

The Archbishop still continued his metropolitical visitation. For besides a commission to Cottrel, LL. D. dated May 23, for visiting Bristol, the day of August 1563, he gave out a commission to Thomas Yale, LL. D. John Pory, D. D. and Edward Leeds, M. A. to visit the city and diocese of Ely.

The 10th day of the same month he admitted a famous man, both for his sufferings under King Henry VIII. and Queen Mary, and also for his many useful writings, to be Minister of St. Dionys Back church, London, viz. Thomas Becon; who was also one of the Prebendaries of the church of Canterbury.

The ignorance of the ordinary sort of Clergymen, Curates, of Cripple- and such like, is commonly said to be great about these times. For notwithstanding all the pains that was used to deliver the Church of that blindness that enveloped the Priests in the late Popish times, it would not yet be dispelled. For an instance of this, I bring in here the Curate of Cripplegate, one Tempest, a well-meaning man; who having upon some occasion (perhaps the metropolitical visitation) been before Peerson the Archbishop's Chaplain, was asked by him some questions: and among the rest, what was the meaning of the word function. Which hard word he

could not well tell what to make of: for which it seems he CHAP. XIII. was reprehended. But soon after, to vindicate himself, and to make his excuse by the pretence of a surprise, he wrote Anno 1563. a right learned letter, which may be read in the Appendix. Numb. XX.

CHAP. XIV.

The Archbishop at Canterbury. His pious motion. An Office of Prayer and Fasting appointed for the plague and other judgments. The Archbishop's concern therein. The state of the church of Durham. Whittingham Dean there; his letter concerning it. An Office of Thanksgiving.

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bishop at

bury.

In the latter end of the month of July I find our Arch-The Archbishop at his house at Bekesbourn, near Canterbury, a place Bekesof retirement, healthfully and pleasantly seated, which he bourne. took a great deal of delight in. Here he piously considering how the nation was at this time afflicted universally by war, and the pestilence broken out at London, and a famine at Canterbury, the people wanting necessary provisions, as was reported to him; he thought good to call upon the Appoints fasting and Mayor of Canterbury, and his Commonalty, to meet him on prayer at Friday at the cathedral church: where he did himself ex- Canterhort them to prayer: and then appointed Friday for the future to be set apart for prayer and preaching in the cathedral, and Mondays and Wednesdays in the parish churches: prescribing for this occasion a form of prayer, muchwhat the same with that that had been before appointed by authority in the Guises' time, a few words only in the same being altered. For you must know, that about the year 1559 or 1560, the nation was in great fears and apprehensions of Queen Elizabeth's safety, upon the malice of the Duke of Guise and his brother, who ruled all France in those times and being uncles to the Queen of Scots, laboured to reduce Scotland under France, and to wound England on that side. And, having a peculiar hatred to Queen

:

BOOK Elizabeth for the sake of her religion, "bent themselves II. "with might and main," as Camden writes, " to work her Anno 1563. " destruction, relying upon the promises of some English Camd. Eliz. ❝ that were averse to the Protestant religion." Upon these

ad ann.

1560.

But not in

the rest of

jealousies a form of prayer had been drawn up, probably by our Archbishop, and ordered to be used in the kingdom for her Majesty's safety, and the good estate of the nation, and of the religion professed therein.

These prayers, after the Archbishop had accommodated the diocese; them to the present occasion, he prescribed now to be used and why. in Canterbury. This he did, not enjoining the like to the rest of his diocese, nor to the rest of his province, for want of sufficient warrant from the Prince or Council, lest he might otherwise run into some transgression of the laws. But he writ to the Secretary, that he marvelled he had no advertisements from above, enjoining him to take order for so pious a purpose, in a time that so much required it. And lest it might be objected to him and the rest of the Bishops, that they by their vocation should have had special regard of such matters, he answered, "That they were holden "within certain limits by statutes, and so might stand in "doubt, how it would be taken, if they should of them"selves have given order herein." This was the cause that he thought it prudent not to charge the rest of his diocese with injunctions for fasting and prayer, but left them to their own liberty to follow them in the city for common prayer, if they would. But withal the Archbishop desired a warrant from the Council for the same; that he might direct his precepts, as he thought it very necessary, to exercise the said public prayers.

A public form of prayer and

dered.

The Archbishop having made this good motion, Cecil, the Queen's Secretary, immediately acquainted the Queen fasting or- therewith, and recommended the devising a form of solemn prayer and fasting, unto Grindal, Bishop of London, chiefly for the judgment of the plague then lying upon the nation, brought over from Newhaven in France, when the English surrendered it. This very matter that careful and pious Bishop had already thought on, and made some progress in

XIV.

before the Secretary's letter came to him for that purpose; CHAP. having sent to the Dean of St. Paul's, Alexander Nowel, to pen an homily meet for the time; which the said Dean ac- Anno 1563. cordingly did. But that Bishop meant it at first but for his own cure, to use his own expression, meaning, I suppose, thereby his cathedral, or the city of London, or at most his 132 diocese. But since the Secretary had admonished him to prepare a form of prayer to be used more generally, he proceeded further by the help of the said Dean. And having Prepared by the Bishop finished it, he sent the Secretary a copy of it; advising him, of London. after he had perused it, to send it speedily by one of Jug the printer's men to the Archbishop. Accordingly the Secretary having reviewed it, and adding somewhat in divers places thereof by his own hand, without delay despatched it to Canterbury; desiring the Archbishop's last review thereof, and so to remit it to be printed. And withal procuring, according to the Archbishop's request, the Queen's letters to the Archbishop, to authorize him to publish a public form of prayer and fasting to be observed through the nation, he sent those letters also.

For this the Archbishop thanked him, and keeping the Revised and corrected by copy by him about a week, altered some parts thereof, not the Archin substance and principal meaning, but in the circumstances; bishop. and that for this reason. "Because, as he said, he saw "offence grew by new innovations; and he therefore doubt❝ed, whether it were best to change the established form " of prayer appointed already by law, in this alteration of prayer for a time, as that formular [of Bishop Grindal's] "would infer, which directed all the service to be said in the

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body of the church. Which being once in this particular ❝ order devised, he judged they abolished all chancels. And "therefore the Litany, with the new Psalms and Collects, " he judged might be said, as Litany is already ordered, in "the midst of the people." But the other parts, containing a second service, he approved to be celebrated in the chancel. "In short, the Archbishop said, he had no otherwise "altered the book, but to make it draw, as nigh as could "be, to the public book and orders used. And whereas the