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Rh while the vicar of High Wycombe, a notable puritan, openly proclaimed that they were ' lazy, unconscionable, ambitious ministers ' who would not preach twice on a Sunday. The habit of wandering from church to church for the sake of hearing sermons was alluded to in a letter of Dr. Farmery to Archbishop Laud as common in this county.

As might be expected, the king's unfortunate ' Book of Sports ' gave great offence in Buckinghamshire, and a large number of incum- bents refused to read it from the pulpit : three were even suspended for so doing, the most notable of these being Thomas Valentine of Chalfont St. Giles, afterwards a member of the Assembly of Divines.' Some who did read it expressed their disapproval of it in other ways, as, for instance, by concluding with a prayer ' We beseech Thee, Good Lord, stand up and defend Thy sabbaths from profanation ' and the like. The gentry insisted on holding musters in the churchyards (John Hampden and Sir Edmund Verney, who afterwards took opposite sides in the national quarrel, were both notable offenders in this respect) ; and if the clergy appealed against this, their patrons would ' storm like so many termagants. Elections of parish officers were often held in the churches with much brabbling and jangling.' 8 There was also a growing contempt for holy days, and terrible irreverence in church at divine service ; not only did the majority refuse to bow at the holy name, but they usually sat through the whole service and sermon (some- times with their hats on throughout), or even lay full length along their pews. It is easy to see how acts of this kind, proceeding in the case of some from conscientious scruples, would be imitated by many who neither cared for God nor regarded man. A justice of the peace, one of the very few who sympathized with the Laudian revival, remarked to