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 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY way to satisfy their displeasure rather than to order him to perpetual imprisonment, even to death, and that by want and famine.' ''' Dr. Layfield, vicar of AUhallows Barking, was expelled from his living in 1643,^°^ i" spite of the fact that the vestry and churchwardens of the parish, acting without his knowledge, presented a certificate to Parliament on his behalf, denying in uncompromising terms every accusation against him, and speaking of him with the utmost affection and respect.'" In some cases the wives and children of the ejected clergy suffered severely. Mr. Ecoppe, rector of St. Pancras Soper Lane, was driven out of his rectory and forced to flee from London, leaving his wife and children homeless and penniless. They were relieved for a time by the collectors for the poor, and were subsequently persuaded to leave the parish ; but it seems that the mother died, and a year later ' William Ecoppe, the infant of Mr. Ecoppe, being brought home to the parish, was put back again to its grandmother,' to whom the churchwardens promised is. bd. a week for its keep.'^* The children were still dependent on charity in 1650."^ In September 1641 the Commons passed an order making it lawful for the parishioners of any parish to set up a lecture and to elect and maintain at their own charges an orthodox minister, to whom the parson was expected to yield the pulpit without demur on certain occasions ; '^^ this measure greatly increased the difficulties of the parochial clergy.'" Parliament in the same year passed fresh and severe laws against popish recusants,'"* and in 1643 the cross in Cheapside was demolished at the request of the citizens 'in regard of the idolatrous and superstitious figures thereabout set and fixed,' '^^ and the ' Book of Sports ' was publicly burnt.'"" Paul's Cross was also destroyed in this year.'" St. Paul's, Westminster, and Lambeth were robbed of their copes'" and 'all such matters as were justly offensive to godly men.''"' The members of Parliament on their way to hear a sermon in Christ Church Newgate in January 1643—4 passed in Cheap- side a huge bonfire consisting of crucifixes, pictures, and other ' popish relics.''" In May the committee for abolishing superstitious monuments removed and sold all the copes, vestments, and surplices they could find at Whitehall.'"^ These iconoclastic proceedings naturally led to great confusion, ' every man taking liberty to do what was right in his own eyes,''" and Parliament was obliged to turn its attention to the question of setting up some form of Church government. The Covenant, signed in September 1 643 by the Commons and the Assembly, was in February 1643—4 ordered to be sub- scribed by every person over eighteen years of age. The parochial records «' Lords' Joun. ix, 1 1 7. '" Ibid, v, 287. '" AUhallows Barking Vest. Min. l64l(?). Dr Layfield was restored to his parish in 1662. "* Vest. Min. 1643-5. '" Ibid. 1650. '« Commons' Journ. ii, 283. '" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, App. 103 ; Commons' Joufn. ii, 294, 464, 485, 543, 595, 632, 774, 794, 807, &c. ; Par. Rec. gen. '*' S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccclxxxv, 83. "' Corp. Rec Letter Bk. QQ, fol. 72^ ; Journ. xl, fol. 583 ; Commons' Journ. iii, 45. In I 581 the figures round the cross had been objected to, and had been secretly removed ; but others had apparently been set up in their place. Maitland, Hist, of Lond. i, 266. Cf. Chamberlain Letters (Camd. Soc), 102. ''" Maitland, op. cit. i, 371 ; Besant, Lond. in time of Stuarts, 14. "' Wheatley, Lond. Past and Pres. iii, 62. ^" Commons' Journ. iii, 1 10. '" Ibid. 341, 368. '" Corp. Rec. "Journ xl, fol. 84^-86 ; Perfect Diurnal, no. 26, p. 265. '" Commons' Journ. iii, 503 ^" Lords' Journ. vii, 2^3.