Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/274

 266 SOCIAL STATUS OF THE CLERGY April On the position of domestic chaplains, the object of Macaulay's special attack, some light is thrown by an entry in one of the Long Burton register books. The widow of the Honourable Henry Thynne, a daughter of Sir George Strode, knight, was possessed of her father's estate. . .. and kept a domestic chaplain constantly at Leweston. These domestic chaplains, for three several successions of them, were vicars of Burton and Holnest, being presented thereto by the proprietor of Leweston, the patron of the vicarage. . . and all of them had their board at Leweston without any expense of washing, horse-hire, coals, candles, &c., and with the privilege of entertaining also at the expense of the house all their visiting friends, with everything which cellar and pantry afforded. In this respectable station lived Mr. Martin [1696-1713], Mr. Chafy [1713-18], and Mr. Wilkinson [1718-25]. Mr. Martin, during his incumbency, was a married man, and his wife usually came to church with Mrs. Thynne, and sat in the pew of Leweston constantly with her. There were indeed unworthy chaplains, who accommodated themselves to drunken and illiterate squires. Such a one is described in a pamphlet of 1737 : 1 a clergyman in the house, who had quite laid aside his sacerdotal character, but acted in several lay capacities, valet de chambre, butler, game keeper, pot-companion, butt and buffoon, who never said Prayers, or so much as said Grace, whilst I was in it, ... a dirty wretch who seemed to live in defiance of virtue, decency, good manners and clean linnen, [who] was in a measure the first minister and director of the family ; and always mention'd with the familiar appellation of Honest Harry, a merry, good natured fellow as ever broke bread. Whenever a clergyman of higher character found himself in a parish where the squire was of this type, he had no alterna- tive to social isolation. The true causes which militated against the clergy in the second half of the seventeenth century would thus appear to be four in number. First was the deliberate desire of many country gentlemen to keep the parish clergy in a state of subservient poverty. Second was the antagonism caused by the restoration of church revenues to their legitimate owners, to the loss of those who had purchased them during the interregnum. Third was jealousy against the clergy who, though poor, had received a university education as good as that of the squire, and were sometimes placed in the commission of the peace ; and fourth, the unwillingness of the parish priest to join in the dissipated carousals of the day. 2 Such an attitude produced a standing prejudice ; but when the parochial incumbent was sufficiently furnished with private or official means, no consideration of rank or birth stood in the way of social intercourse or intermarriage. C. H. MAYO. 1 A Short Account of the English Clergy. * See Short Account, pp. 26 ff.