Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/328

306 June 29th, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne, resigned to Miles Peyrson.

1594, William White appears to have been vicar to this time. Of this person there is nothing remarkable, but that he hath made a regular entry twice in the register of Selborne of the funeral of Thomas Cowper, bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried at Selborne; yet this learned prelate, who died 1594, was buried at Winchester, in the cathedral, near the episcopal throne.*

1595, Richard Bough ton, vicar.

1596, William Inkforbye, vicar.

May 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar.

June 1631, Ralph Austine, vicar.

July 1632, John Longworth. This unfortunate gentleman, living in the time of Cromwell’s usurpation, was deprived of his preferment for many years, probably because he would not take the league and covenant; for I observe that his father-in-law, the Reverend Jethro Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next parish, enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy period. Longworth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little tenement about one hundred and fifty yards from the church, where he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic. During those dismal times it was not uncommon for the deposed clergy to take up a medical character as was the case in particular, I know, with the Reverend Mr. Yalden, rector of Compton, near Guildford, in the county of Surrey. Vicar Longworth used frequently to mention to his sons, who told it to my relations, that, the Sunday after his deprivation, his puritanical successor stepped into the pulpit with no small petulance and exultation: and began his sermon from Psalm xx. 8, “They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright.” This person lived to be restored in 1660, and continued vicar for eighteen years; but was so impoverished by his misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house and premises in a very abject and dilapidated state.

July 1678. Richard Byfield, who left eighty pounds by will, the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor children; but


 * See “Godwin de Præsulibus,” Folio Cant. 1743, p. 239