A HISTORY OF NORFOLK But now he hath order'd that there shall be a sermon every morning, and catechising in the afternoon in every church. . . . At Yarmouth, where there was great division heretofore for many years, their Lecturer' being censur'd in the High Commission Court two years since, went into New England, since which time there hath been no lecture and very much peace in the town, and all ecclesiasticall Orders well observ'd. But in Norwich, one Mr. Bridge, rather than he would conform, hath left his lectures, and two cures, and is gone into Holland. (A note in the margin by King Charles is added here : ' Let him go, we are well berid of him.') The lecturers in the country generally observe no church orders at all ; and yet the Bishop hath carried it with Temper, and upon their promise, and his Hopes of Conformity, he hath inhibited but three in Norfolk. . . . For Recusants, whereas formerly there were wont to be but two or three presented, his Lordship hath caused above 40 to be indicted in Norwich at the last sessions. . . . His lordship's care hath been such as that though there are above 1,500 clergymen in that Diocese and many Disorders, yet there are not thirty excommunicated or suspended, whereof some are for contumacy and will not yet submit ; some for obstinate denial to publish your Majesty's declaration ; and some in contemning all the orders and Rites of the Church, and intruding themselves, without license from the ordinary, for many years together. Last of all, he found that one half of the churches in his Diocese had not a Clerk able to read and to answer the minister in divine service ; by which means the People were wholly disused from joining with the Priest, and in many places from so much as saying 'Amen.' But concerning this his Lordship hath strictly enjoined a Reformation. Among the accusations against him are : that he employed his power to restrain powerful preaching ; that in 1636 at Norwich he ordered chancels to be raised three or four steps ; the communion table to be set at the east end, and a rail to be set about the table, and punished some, among them Daniel Weyman, for going within it ; that he altered all pews so as to face east in the same year ; ordered part of the communion service to be read at the communion table ; used bowings and adorations to the altar ; enjoined all persons to receive the sacrament kneeling at the rail, which caused many good people for fear of idolatry, to avoid, who were yet excommunicated ; * that there should be no sermons on the Lord's Day in the afternoons, or week- days, without licence, and no catechizing but the questions and answers in the Common Prayer ; that ' the more to confirm the people in profaning the Lord's Day' he enjoined the ministers to read publicly in the churches a book allowing sports on it, for not doing which several were suspended by him,* and some deprived ; * that ' the more to alienate the people's hearts from hearing sermons he, in the said year, commanded all ministers to preach in their hood and surplice, a thing not used before in the diocese ; and caused prayers to be omitted in the church of Knatshall two Lord's Days for want of a surplice ; ' that during his being bishop of Norwich, which was about two years and four months, he caused fifty godly ministers ° to be excommunicated, suspended, or deprived, for not reading the service at the communion table, for not reading the Book of Sports, for using conceiv'd prayers, and for not complying with some other illegal innovations, to the ruin of their families, ' See ante p. 282. ' B. M. Pamphlets, E. 168 (24). John Slyming, Samuel Duncan, Peter Fisher, Thomas Newton, Edward Bedwell, Edmund Day, John Frowar. ' Ibid. Master William Leigh, Master Richard Proud, Master Jonathan Barr, Mr. Matthew Brownrigg, Mr. Mott, and divers others. ' Ibid. Mr. Powell, Mr. Richard Raymond, Mr. Jeremy Borrowes, and some otherwise troubled. ' Ibid. Among these : Masters William Powell, John Carter, Robert Peck, William Bridge, William Greene, Mott, Richard Raymond, Thomas Scot, Greenhill, Nicholas Beard, Hudson, Robert Kent, Jeremy Burrow, Thomas Allen, &c. 286
