CHAPTER XIX THE CHURCH IN WALES, 1625-1715 istics of the four Welsh Character dioceses. THE four Welsh dioceses, rightly though they are regarded as forming part of the Church as it has been organised for centuries south of the Tweed, and closely though they are linked to the life of the sees adjacent to them, are yet distinguished from the English sees by racial characteristics, geographical position, and national history. In the seventeenth century this distinction was especially marked, and it has therefore seemed best to treat of the history of the Church in Wales, during the period covered by this book, in a chapter by itself. seventeenth During the period of Reformation the Church in Wales had undergone a process practically amounting to disendowment, owing to the confiscation of the property of Difficulties of the monastic houses, upon which the parishes had the Church cause largely to depend for spiritual ministrations. in the early In the diocese of St. David's, for example, the century. (1) Dissent. whole of the tithes enjoyed by the monasteries passed away from the Church, and the loss was one which it was impossible to meet. Yet the Reformers had pushed their work among the Welsh people, and Church and State alike had shown much eagerness for the translation of the Bible and of the revised formularies and offices of the English Church into the Welsh language. In 1620 Dr. Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, with the assistance of several Welsh scholars, brought out a revised translation of the whole Bible in accordance with the authorised version of 1611. Protestant dissent at first made but small progress in Wales. John Parry did his utmost to introduce Puritan principles, but with little or no success. It was not till 1639 that the first chapel was opened in Wales for Protestant dissenters. On the other hand, in North Wales especially, there was long-continued attachment to the Roman obedience. The diocese of St. Asaph was early the resort of pilgrims to the holy well of St. Winifred, and this continued throughout the whole reign of Charles I. In 1632 Bishop John Owen reported that "there hath been this summer more than ordinary concourse of people, and more bold and open practice of superstition,” and reminded the Government "that at that well a great part of the powder plot was hatched.” A year later he complained that "the number and boldness of some Romish recusants increaseth much in many places"; and in 1636 attention was especially called to the undisguised pilgrimage of Elizabeth, Viscountess Falkland, the mother of the famous Lucius, whereupon Charles ordered her imprisonment. The south of Wales had also given shelter to many Roman emissaries. Dom Leander, Laud's old chamber-fellow, was himself a Welshman, and brought back the Benedictines to his native land. The Jesuit mission had been active, and the presentation of recusants was not infrequent at quarter sessions. With Romanism there grew also, but less actively, dissent. In 1636 it was observed that some preached "against the keeping of all holy days, with divers others as fond or profane opinions," and were threatened with the High Commission in consequence. In the diocese of Llandaff, where in 1633 the Bishop certified that he had not one nonconformist or schismatical minister in his diocese, and that there were but two lecturers, and they licensed preachers, there were in 1636 two notable dissentients, Wroth and Erbury, both of them "in the High Commission for their schismatical proceedings." Wroth was an Anabaptist, and it was he who first formed an independent congregation and opened a conventicle. The growth of dissent, Romanist and Protestant, was due in a large measure to the unfortunate policy of the English State. The courts of the marches exercised juris(2) Negligent diction that was alike arbitrary and unfortunate. Much good, thought Archbishop Laud in 1636, might be done in Bangor and the other dioceses, "in a rule. XIX BISHOPS IN CHARLES I'S TIME 351 church way," if it were not "overborne by the proceedings" of those courts, which interfered with his metropolitical jurisdiction. The appointments to the impoverished sees were generally only of a temporary nature. Men like Wren, Man waring, and Laud himself were sent to Wales, and were intended to regard their sees as stepping-stones, even more than as training grounds, for what were considered to be more important positions. The unhappy system of translation was seen at its worst in Wales, and that notably because it was so frequently coupled with non-residence. Laud himself, who held, for his age, so high a view of the obligations of the episcopal office, affords a conspicuous example of their neglect. Elected Bishop of St. David's on October 10, 1621, it was not until the following July that he first entered his distant and in many parts almost inaccessible diocese. On July 22, 1622, he was present in his cathedral church, and effectually visited the chapter. He visited the diocese also, but the whole proceedings took hardly more than a month. It was not till the year of Charles I.'s accession that he paid a second visit. He had meanwhile built a private chapel for his house at Abergwili, near Carmarthen, and on Sunday, August 28, 1625, the eve of the Decollation of St. John Baptist, as he noted in his diary with affectionate regard for his old college, he dedicated it to its sacred use, giving "rich furniture and costly utensils, and whatsoever else was necessary or convenient for the service of God." This beautiful chapel, a characteristic record of the great archbishop's connection with the Welsh Church, was destroyed by fire in 1903. In 1626 Laud was translated to Bath and Wells. He seems to have done little for his Welsh diocese save by careful watching it from without and by charitable benefactions. Theophilus Feild, who was translated from Llandaff (to which he had been consecrated in 1619) to St. David's in 1627, and from St. David's to Hereford in 1635, suffered, he was persistent in declaring, from the poverty of each see that he held. He owed his earlier promotion to Buckingham, and to him he wrote, very soon after he became Bishop of St. David's, "desiring by his means to be translated to another bishopric, either Ely or Wells." For reasons he gave "his poverty, his wife, and six children." While Llandaff and St. David's thus suffered, and were most frequently held by Englishmen, it appears that Bangor was less unfortunate; and it was also from the Reformation till the accession of George I., when Benjamin Hoadly was appointed, always ruled by Welshmen as bishops. The absence of fit persons of native birth, and not merely the indifference of the English sovereign, seems to have been the cause of this neglect of national claims. As an example it may be noted of Laud that when he was Bishop of St. David's he held only two ordinations; at another ember season there appeared before him only one person, and he was "found to be unfit, upon examination," and was sent away with an exhortation." The loss of the monastic schools had involved, indeed, a loss of systematic religious instruction. In 1636 it was found that "catechising was quite out of use" in the diocese of Bangor. There need be no wonder that opinions, when the time of militant Puritanism came, were not found to be firmly grounded on Holy Scripture or the order of the Church. (3) Low morality. It is not surprising that under these conditions morality was not high. Rhŷs Prichard, a strong Puritan but a conformist, and one whom Laud promoted, has left a terrible picture in his Canwyll y Cymry of the condition of South Wales at this period. Ignorance and vice are represented as dominant everywhere; drunkenness as common, even amongst the clergy, and with it the smoking of tobacco; and the strict observance of Sunday as practically unknown. Education was far behind that of England, and the bi-lingual difficulty was acutely felt. It was said by a writer in 1651 that he had never seen more than five books printed in Welsh. It was some years before the vernacular translation of the Bible was at all widely spread. It was on such soil that Puritanism, largely of English introduction, spread, slowly at first, but at last with power and enthusiasm. In South Wales the awakening came through William Wroth, vicar of Llanvaches, near Newport, reported as a schismatic in 1635, the founder of the Independent Church of Llanvaches in 1639. His work, and that of William Erbury and Walter Cradock, received an immense impetus through the political effects of the Civil War. XIX PURITAN RULE IN WALES 353 Throughout the war Wales was predominantly Royalist. The Parliament won its way only by fierce fighting and through frequent defeat. Disaster culminated in Results of Wales. 1648 in the destruction of Fleming's troops and the the war in revolt of South Wales. Before long the work of conversion, at once political and religious, was taken seriously in hand. In 1641 a Committee of the House of Commons had made provision for preaching in Wales. The committees. for sequestration set to work to expel the parochial clergy who did not conform to the new rule; notice, it is said, was publicly given that the only way to propagate the Gospel in Wales was to "sequester all ministers without any exception." Before long, in Baxter's words, Harrison was sent to "put down all the parish ministers in Wales." The work was largely carried out through the enthusiasm, the bitter persistency and the proselytising zeal of Vavasor Powell. It was not effected without the keenest strife between the sects, or without political conspiracies, which led in 1651 to the execution of a vehement preacher, Christopher Love of Cardiff, for But it had the strong arm of Cromwell behind it, and the instrument was a singularly drastic and effective piece of legislation. treason. Act for Pro By the Act passed in 1649 "for the better propagation and preaching of the Gospel in Wales" a committee of seventytwo persons was appointed, which had full power to receive charges against all ecclesiastics, and on the pagation of oaths of two witnesses to eject the accused from Gospel in Wales, 1649. their benefices or preferments. It was their duty also to replace those ejected, granting certificates to those who should be presented as fit by a committee of twenty-five ministers, among whom were Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and Independents. The result was in many cases the absence of any spiritual ministration at all. The inhabitants of Guilsfield, near Welshpool, made petition to the approvers in 1652 that owing to the sequestration of their vicar for delinquency "they had been without communion, without baptism, visiting the sick, or form of a church, the church door being commonly shut on the Lord's Day, as particularly on Easter Day last and the Sunday following; that the service of God was much decayed and religion scandalised, and that their |