tical to have made or countenanced any understanding by which Bentley would accept the revenues of the church of Hartlebury for a time and in due course allow them to be made over to young James.1 "The If it is not possible to trace to Stillingfleet any changes in the structure of the castle or in the amenities of the grounds, it is of more consequence to remember some of the utterances which were composed in the house and which by their learning and thoroughness marked an epoch in the studies with which they dealt. His primary visitation, begun at Worcester, September 11, 1690, was the occasion of a momentous charge " on the Duties and Rights of the Parochial Clergy." He took his time in publishing it, and the preface is dated "Hartlebury C. Apr. 23, 1698." It breathes a spirit of confidence in the sure basis of Christian belief and a certainty that the Church's duty lay in showing that confidence. Being of God and Providence" rest on a General Consent." "If any secretly be of another Mind, they think it not for their Reputation to own it." But But "the main Pretence now is against Revealed Religion." a Some who heard the charge must have lived to read the advertisement (May 1736) to the first edition of the "Analogy of Religion," and to realise how it was come "to be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. Stillingfleet, like Butler, had his practical side. He told the Worcestershire clergy that he should esteem it "the best Circumstance of my present Condition, if [God] please to make me an Instrument of doing good among you.' He told them that it should be their aim to cultivate plain, useful, and practical way of Preaching among [their people] as is most likely to do good upon them (which certainly ought to be the just Measure of Preaching "). He had laboured sufficiently over the language of his "2 a 1 Bentley's biographer is frank on the subject." The rectory of Hartlebury, the place of the episcopal residence, was given to him to hold until his old pupil James Stillingfleet should be in full orders" (J. H. Monk, Life of Bentley, 55). a Works (ut sup.), iii. 613–673. charge in the study at the castle to be entitled to discuss with them the merits of various methods of exhortation. I do not mean therefore a loose and careless way of Talking in the Pulpit, which will neither profit you, nor those that hear you. He that once gets an ill Habit of speaking extempore, will be tempted to continue it by the Easiness of it to himself, and the Plausibleness of it to less judicious People. There is on the other side, a Closeness and Strength of Reasoning, which is too elaborate for common Understandings; and there is an affected Fineness of Expression, which by no means becomes the Pulpit; but it seems to be like stroaking the Consciences of People by Feathers dipt in Oil. And there is a way of putting Scripture-phrases together without the Sense of them, which those are the most apt to admire who understand them least. Nor was he less explicit as to the need that the parson's life must be conformed to his teaching. For one thing, the need arose straight out of the tendencies of the time. We live in an Age, wherein the Contempt of the Clergy is too notorious not to be observed. . . . And we give too much occasion for such suspicions of us, if we do not heartily concern ourselves for the Honour and Interest of true Religion in the World, whatever we may suffer, as to our Reputation, for the sake of it. The People... do not pretend to fineness of thoughts, and subtilty of reasoning, but they are shrewd Judges whether Men mean what they say, or not; and they do not love to be imposed upon by such a sort of Sophistry, as if they could think that they can have such a Regard to their Souls, who shew so little to their own.1 It is hard to say whether Stillingfleet was resident either here or in Worcester sufficiently to have a personal knowledge of his clergy and their people; but a profound scholar capable of appealing so directly to both sections did certainly occupy the study at the castle to some purpose. It would be interesting to know how much of his great and famous library he brought with him on his visits to the castle; to go no further, these charges, which were here prepared for the press, involved the consultation of hundreds of books. After his death the 1 A Visitation, October 27, 1696; Works (ut sup.), iii. 661. N whole collection was acquired at great expense by Narcissus Marsh, archbishop of Armagh, in order to equip the library which he established in Dublin. In 1698 Stillingfleet had a seizure at Hartlebury. His last sickness, which was accompanied by " long and intense pains,"1 came upon him at his London house, where he died on the afternoon of Monday, March 27, 1699.2 1 Works (ut sup.), i. 45. 2 Register, f. 67: “apud Aedes suas in vico vocato Park Street infra Civitatem Westmonasteriensem." CHAPTER IX LEARNED DAYS AT THE CASTLE "learned years ; It would seem more natural to say but, if the truth must be told, the bishops of Worcester after the Restoration, even the best of them, made for London in the fall of the year and there abode till the days began to lengthen out at the end of the following February. William Lloyd, the erudite bishop with whom we are now concerned, would have spoken of Hartlebury castle as his home. He might well have phrased his affection for it in the words of Thomas de Cobham nearly four centuries earlier: "domus nostra communis de Hertelebury "1; Lloyd got near to this description, when his "acta" were recorded as taking place "in domo solitae habitacionis reverendi in Christo patris et domini domini Willelmi Lloyd . . . vulgo vocata Hartlebury Castle "2; it is more cumbersome, but it comes to the same thing. Yet, whereas Cobham rode to London, when he was obliged to do so, at whatever time of the year either king or primate might call, Bishop Lloyd's habit was to go the same way in the autumn of each year. Once in town, his course differed a little from his remote predecessor's, who stopped his horse just short of Temple Bar. Lloyd at one time resided in Whitehall, and later in Brewer Street, which leads from Regent Street towards Golden Square. Fifty years later the Worcester house was in Spring Garden."4 But it appears to be an exaggeration to say of Lloyd that " he never spent more than half the year in his diocese, and was usually absent for eight 1 Register, Thomas de Cobham, f. 616b. 2 D. Robertson, Diary of Francis Evans (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 30. 3 Ibid. pp. viii f., 38. 4 E. H. Pearce, Sion College, p. 196, n. 1. months out of the twelve." 1 The calculation is based on Francis Evans's Diary, which deals with part of the year 1699, covers the years 1700-1705, and breaks off at the beginning of November 1706. By way of stating the worst, we may give the facts as there recorded. In 1700 Lloyd entered the diocese on April 30th and left it on his way to Whitehall on November 8th 2; in 1701 he entered it on June 25th, and left it on November 10th 3; in 1702 his period of residence was from May 15th to October 12th ; in 1703 from May 8th to October 1st 5 ; in 1704 the diocese came off badly, for he was there only from May 19th to August 11th ; nor was there a marked improvement in 1705, when the dates were April 24th and August 15th; but in 1706 his sojourn among his people extended from April 9th to November 6th, which was certainly more than half the year. The little bundle of letters with which we shall be presently concerned happens to carry the story on for three or four years further; but, being letters and not a diary, they are not as precise in their evidence. We can see that in 1707 the Bishop was at Hartlebury by May 10th and remained till after the September ordination; we can gather that in 1708 he was there by February and was still there in the middle of October; and that in 1709 the period was about the same. Our evidence breaks off at the beginning of 1710; but it is noticeable that the bishop was in his "common house" by January 16th. Now it is easy, on these figures, to make suggestions that the bishop took his responsibilities lightly-Robertson's phrase is that " Lloyd had a great deal of leisure -but he was in fact one of the most laborious of men. Let it be admitted that in 1705 his stay in the county was limited to something under four months, and that 3 Ibid. 44, 56. 1 Robertson, op. cit., p. vii. 2 Ibid. 18, 38. 4 Ibid. 69, 75. 5 Ibid. 79, 85. Ibid. 109, 118. We can get confirmation of this from Hearne (Collectanea, Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 3), who wrote on Sunday, August 19, 1705: On Friday last, Dr. Lloyd, Bp. of Worcester, return'd from the Country to Oxford, where he designs to stay till the Sitting of the Parliament, with intent to prosecute his Expositions upon Daniel, whereof there are already about 13 sheets printed, the whole being to be 30. He says that he must finish this work before he can proceed with his Chronology, whereof 30 sheets were printed several years ago." |