Page:VCH London 1.djvu/427

 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY remained with their people throughout that terrible time. Of non-beneficed clergy, Mr. Vincent, who had been ejected from St. Mary Magdalen's Milk Street in 1 662, also stayed in the City ; *** and Mr. Waker, a minister who was serving at St. Katharine Coleman, but was not rector there,**^ and an unnamed preacher at St. George's Southwark,*'* died on duty. It is evident from entries in the parish books, especially the registers, that services were held, and the sick and dying cared for by clergymen in many parishes ; *" and these books also preserve the names of a few gallant laymen, churchwardens and others, who devoted themselves, at the risk and sometimes at the cost of their lives, to the service of their fellow-parishioners.*** Archbishop Sheldon remained at Lambeth and worked hard, both in keeping up the spiritual provision urgently needed, and in collecting and distributing money for the relief of the sufferers, thus saving many lives.**' There is evidence also that the Non- conforming ministers as a body did a noble work.*"" The first Wednesday of every month was appointed to be kept as a solemn fast and day of humilia- tion whilst the plague should last.*" Part VI — From 1666 to 1907 The Fire which swept across the City of London from 2 to 4 September 1666 destroyed or partly consumed eighty-nine out of ninety-seven existing churches and their parishes.^ Such devastation called for extraordinary remedies, and on 4 October Charles II informed the lord mayor and corpora- tion that Dr. Christopher Wren and two others would make a survey of the ruins;'* on 6 March 1667 Wren received the royal warrant to rebuild the City.' The parish was the unit of social life, and London parishes were notoriously small ; the City authorities probably felt that a reduction in the number would simplify local administration, and Wren wished to build few but magnificent churches. Together they accordingly drafted a Bill destroy- ing the existing parochial system, and reallotting the City among thirty-nine new parishes, the delimitation of which was to be in the hands of the lord mayor and aldermen, acting with the consent of the Archbishop of Canter- bury and the Bishop of London. Each of these new parishes was to have a church, the patronage of which was also to be vested in the corporation.* These proposals, which ignored the rights of patrons, impropriators, and ecclesiastical courts, were abandoned in the Act which became law in 1667.* This provided for the rebuilding of thirty-nine churches, the choice of which was to rest with the archbishop, the bishop, and the lord mayor, and in March 1667 the archbishop and bishop proposed a list to the lord mayor, •" Calamy, loc. cit. «" Chwdns.' Accts. 1665. "' Rendle, Old Southwark, 78-9. "' e.g. St. Saviour's Southwark ; St. Bartholomew the Great ; St. Mary Abchurch, &c. "^ Christ Church Newgate Vest. Min. 1666 ; St. Margaret New Fish Street Vest. Min. 1666 ; St. Benet Paul's Wharf Vest. Min. 1665. '" Hutton, Hist, of Engl. Ch. 1625-1714, p. 200 ; Lamb. Lib. MSS. Rec. vol. vi, no. 12. "' Corp. Rec. Journ. xlvi, fol. 79 ; Pepys, Diary, 12 July, 2 Aug. 1665, 6 June 1666. For details relating to this visitation see St. Stephen Walbrook Accts. 1665 ; St. Botolph Aldersgate Accts. 1665 ; St. Martin Orgar Accts. 1665, &c. ' Welch, Hist, of the Monument, 79. ' Sharpe, Lond. and the Kingdom, ii, 428. • Wren, Parentalia, 263. * Bodl. Lib. Tanner MS. 142, fol. 118, 120. 339
 * Calamy, loc. cit.
 * Stat. 19 Chas. II, cap. 3.