Page images
PDF
EPUB

killing seven horses. On the 8th inst. at night we had a party of great men lay in Warminster, about 60 men and about 90 horses, they having about 30 led-horses, with arms and money. The next day at night came in a regiment of the King's commanded by Major General Worden. The 11th, came in the Queen's regiment of horse and stayed till the 14th; when were expected two regiments more, one of horse the other dragoons, and the next day, 200 foot. But the 17th inst. in the evening they had an express to call them away, and marched all night to Sarum. Then were the people in hopes they would not come again; but the 17th of the same November came in a regiment of horse and dragoons, two troops of the King's guard and two troops of others. The 18th came in more a regiment of horse, and in all three regiments of foot, one of 21 companies of Dunbarton's. The 23rd at night, near about ten, there was a false alarm, when, their guards being out of order, the horse ran away towards the Prince of Orange. Some thought 600 might go away that night. The next day the remainder of the army marched.1 The people of Warminster suffered much by this army of the King's, in eating and spoiling their hay and corn. From Warminster the 29th day of November 1688 the foot marched to the Devizes, the horse to Marlborough. Divers of the foot captains and officers stayed at Stoke a village six miles from Warminster; and, so deserted, it was late e'er the foot got to Devizes. In the morning, about four, they were ordered to march; but they, finding their officers gone (that is, those of Colonel Kirke's and those of Trelawney's) mutinied when they should have marched; and many of them drew away towards the Prince of Orange; some straggled to their homes."

Further recital of the Wansey manuscript, describing the Prince's triumphant march through South Wilts and the subsequent events attending King James's abdication, would be out of place here. We therefore turn to a more domestic

scene.

BISHOP KEN RETIRES TO POULSHOT.

While William at the head of his Dutch guards was advancing through the Western Counties, an eminent person,

1 Towards Devizes? This was in consequence of an order sent from Salisbury by the King or his General Lord Feversham, who, alarmed at the repeated desertions taking place at the advanced post of Warminster, directed Colonel Kirke to fall back upon Devizes; but that

officer who was watching his opportunity, delayed for awhile on some frivolous excuse to execute the order; and though the infantry did at last march, very few of the officers, as Mr. Wansey's MS. shews, seem to have reached the town.

who has already come under our notice, was taking shelter in the neighbourhood of Devizes. This was Thomas Ken the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who, naturally unwilling to see his sleek Flanders coach-horses enlisted into the invader's cavalry, carried them all into Wiltshire and retired to Poulshot rectory, the residence of his nephew the Rev. Isaak Walton, (son, by Ken's sister, of Isaak Walton the angler.) Although Ken was one of the Six Bishops who had withstood King James's prosecution in the memorable trial of 1688, he was still a friend to that monarch, and he died a non-juror. His sentiments on this head are sufficiently declared in the following letters written from his temporary retreat.

"To his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"24 November 1688.

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE. Before I could return any answer to the letter with which your Grace was pleased to favour me, I received intelligence that the Dutch were just coming to Wells; upon which I immediately left the town, and in obedience to his Majesty's general commands, took all my coach-horses with me and as many of my saddlehorses as I well could, and took shelter in a private village in Wiltshire, intending if his Majesty had come into my country to have waited on him and paid him my duty. But this morning we are told his Majesty is gone back [from Salisbury] to London: so that I only wait till the Dutch shall have passed my diocese, and then resolve to return thither again, that being my proper station. I would not have left the diocese in this juncture, but that the Dutch had seized horses within ten miles of Wells before I went and your Grace knows that I, having been a servant to the Princess, and well acquainted with many of the Dutch,' I could not have stayed without giving some occasion of suspicion, which I thought it most advisable to avoid, resolving. to continue in a firm loyalty

to the King. . . . And I beseech your Grace to lay my most humble duty at his Majesty's feet and to acquaint him with the reason of my retiring, that I may not be misunderstood. My very good lord; Your Grace's very affectionate servant and brother.

"THOMAS, BATH AND WELLS."

"GOOD MRS. GREGGE. If you hear any thing from my friends, direct your letter, not to me but to Mr. Isaak Walton, Rector of Poulshot, to be left at the Post-house in Devizes; for to his house I am now going for

'He had in early life been chaplain to the Princess of Orange in Holland.

[ocr errors]

some time, partly for my health, partly to avoid that cloud under which I lie, and chiefly from my brethren as having done all that is proper for me to do, to assert my character; the doing of which has created me many enemies, as I expected it would. My brother Gis, I hear, out of harm's way in Wales at the present, but I have heard nothing from him. My best respects to my good mother and to dear Miss, who I doubt not behaves herself with all decency and piety and humility, as becomes not only the daughter of a Bishop but a Bishop in affliction. Dr. Kidder is now said to be my successor, or rather supplanter. He is a person of whom I have no knowledge. Your very affectionate friend

"THOMAS, BATH AND WELLS."

Ken spent the remainder of his life principally at Longleat in a circle of affectionate friends, comprising, among others, Thomas Thynne first Viscount Weymouth; his lordship's son Henry and his two grand daughters, Mary, and Frances the future Lady Hartford of Marlborough castle; Elizabeth Singer the daughter of a dissenting minister of Frome, but better known as Mrs. Rowe; and Mr. Harbin the domestic chaplain and a sturdy non-juror. After the accession of Queen Anne, the Bishop was repeatedly urged to attempt the recovery of his lost diocese, his successor, Kidder, being equally ready to favour the plan by accepting a translation for himself. But Ken's growing infirmities combined with his scruples of conscience to deter him from a return to public life he was moreover in the enjoyment of a pension from the Queen. In November 1703 a fearful hurricane of wind, known as the "Great Storm" swept over the Island. Daniel De Foe in his striking account of the visitation estimates the damage done to property at four millions. Ken who during that dreadful night was sleeping at his nephew's house on Poulshot Green, relates the following incident in a letter to Mrs. Hannah Lloyd. "The house being searched the following day, the workmen found that the beam which supported the roof over my head was shaken out to that degree that it had but half an inch to hold, so that it was a wonder it could hold together." Within a few days the

intelligence reached him that part of his old residence, the Episcopal palace of Bath and Wells, had fallen a prey to the elements, and that Kidder and his wife were both buried in the ruins. What rendered the catastrophe at Wells the more striking was the fact that though the spectators of the calamity were just then augmented in number by the occurrence of a fair in that city, yet Kidder and his wife were the only sufferers.1

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES.

Among the political narratives which have occupied the few preceding pages, one subject has hitherto been almost ignored,―viz., the religious life of the community as outwardly affected by the changes in the Government, from the days of Cromwell down to the period of King William's Toleration. This cycle may now therefore be briefly reviewed in sequence. The points to be noticed are, the ejectment of parish incumbents, the origin of nonconformity, and the persecution of the people called Quakers; the geographical circle embraced being, as far as may be, confined to the Hundred of Potterne and Cannings.

1 At Salisbury, nearly all the trees in the Close fell flat. The register of Collingbourn Ducis has the following memorandum. "Saturday 27 November 1703. At two in the morning arose a terrible tempest. Few places in England suffered more than the parsonage here. One long barn blown down; all the rest of the barns, outhouses, stables, and ricks, unthatched; and the dwelling house uncovered. The lead on the chancel was shrivelled up like a scroll, and the tower and the body of the church much damnified." The account closes by saying that providentially, "both man and beast escaped all manner of hurt in these

parts." The writer is William Sherwin, rector, who further notifies on 27 November 1704 that his own repairs will amount to £170. This register also records the remarkable fact that the winter of 1702-3 that is to say, the winter preceding the Great Storm, had been so mild that fever prevailed at Collingbourn during the following summer. And on the 1st of April 1705 the following weather memorandum occurs. "The rivulet rising at Burbage and passing through the Collingbourns sometimes as far as Salisbury did not run last winter, the previous year having been dry." Collectanea Top. et Gen.

ROWDE. The vicar in 1646 presented by Sir Edward Baynton in 1628 was Timothy Richards a Presbyterian, who appears to have removed in 1660 (at the Restoration) to the church of Bromham.

BROMHAM. Robert Richards the incumbent in 1646 was also a Presbyterian.1

This village was the birth-place of a Church dignitary who fell a sacrifice to the Irish Catholic Rebels in 1641, just before the War in England; viz. George Webb Bishop of Limerick. He was, first, vicar of Steeple Ashton, then rector of St. Peter and St. Paul at Bath. At Court, where he was one of King Charles's chaplains, he was regarded as the best preacher, his style being elegant and pure. He published sermons and school-books; also a translation of the two first Comedies of Terence. His portrait, engraved by Thomas Slater, prefaces his "Practice of Quietness." When the Irish Rebellion broke out, he fell a victim to gaol fever in the castle of Limerick, where the Catholics had shut him up.

Bromham moreover witnessed the birth and death of the Rev. William Hughes M.A. of New Inn Hall Oxford, vicar of Marlborough St. Mary during the Commonwealth. After being silenced by the Act of Uniformity, he for awhile kept a school at Marlborough, but the operation of the "Five mile Act" drove him at last to the seclusion of his native village, where he ended his days in 1687. Of his children, John married Jane daughter of Isaac Burgess, Esq. Sheriff of the county in 1658, and became eminent as a man of letters, being associated with Addison and Sir Richard Steele in the publication of the Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian, and himself the writer of poems and a tragedy called "The Siege of Damascus."

Another native of Bromham who went out in 1662 was Nathaniel Webb the rector of Yatesbury. Having an estate

1 1646 is mentioned because it was the period of a Presbyterian manifesto, which defined 78 of the Wiltshire incumbents as of that persuasion.

« PreviousContinue »