CHAPTER VII
There
having been many and long contests between the Church of Norwich and the Town
of Yarmouth about the rights of the Rectory, which is appropriated to the said
Church, the naming of the Curate, the repairing of the Chancel and some other
particulars. The Dean brought all these matters to a full composure with them,
by letting them a lease of the said Rectory whereby the Rent is reserved to the
said Church, the Herbage, Lactuage. offerings and surplice fees to the Curate
and all other dues of the said Rectory are granted to the said Town of
Yarmouth. As to the Curate it is agreed that the Town shall have the
recommendation of him on all vacancys and the Church the approbation and the
nomination of him to the Bishops and in lieu of this and other grants of the
said Lease the said Town do discharge them of the repair of the Chancell and a
composition of £10 per annum in lieu of a customary breakfast, formerly given
to all the fishermen of Yarmouth on the morning next after Christmas Day, upon
which agreement it is hoped a foundation is laid for a lasting peace between
the two corporations.
About
this time great application was made to the Dean in the behalf of some popish
Gentry who would gladly be permitted to dwell in the Close, but he would never
consent hereto. The Dean and chapter having formerly found great inconvenience
from having such neighbours in the Close, have for many years past, in all the
leases of the houses in the Close, inserted a clause binding the tenants under
the penalty of forfeiture not to admit any recusant to dwell or surjourn in any
of the said houses, this they would have the Dean dispense with for the sake of
the persons in whose behalf it was desired but the Dean would not suffer
himself to be prevailed on by any solicitations in this matter, especially
since he had sufficient reason to suspect that the chief aim of this
solicitation was to introduce a Popish Priest into the Close through the popish
familys that were desirous to settle there which the Dean would never endure.
This very much angered that party so that not long after the Duke of Norfolk
coming to Norwich, and bringing his mother and mother-in-law with him, these
ladies expressed themselves in . very bitter terms against the Dean on this
act, which confirmed him in his suspicions that they had other designs by
desiring to come into the Close than barely to have a dwelling there, otherwise
the disappointment could not have deserved so great a resentment.
The maintenance
of the Parochial Clergy of Norwich depending mostly upon arbitrary
contributions gathered from door to door in every parish, it was in the year
1706 endeavoured to bring it to a fixed certainty by Act of Parliament, in
order whereto a Petition from the City being necessary the Mayor, Aldermen and
Common Council were solicited to make the said Petition, and while this was in
agitation for the furthering the success hereof, Dr. Prideaux published an
award made by King Charles the First and passed under his broad seal for the
settling of 2 shillings of the pound out of the rents of all ground, buildings
and edifices within the said City of Norwich for the said Parochial Clergy, to
which he annexed a discourse for the Vindicating of the legality and justice
and reasonableness of the said award, wherein he especially treats of the
nature and legality of personal Tythes and the manner of paying them in the
City of London and although the end for which he first published this treatise
was not then obtained, yet hoping it might some time hereafter operate thereto,
he caused it again to be reprinted among his Ecclesiastical Tracts An 1716.
About
this time the right which the minor Canons and other ministers and officers of the
Cathedral Church of Norwich claimed of giving their votes in the election of
Parliament men for the County ot Norwich as freeholders of the said County by
virtue of the houses which they hold with their places in the said Church
within the precincts of the same being much called in question and argued
against, Dr. Prideaux in order to direct the consciences of those who were
under his care and government thought it his duty to get for them the best
information that could be had for which purpose he obtained the opinion of
several eminent Lawyers, especially of Sir J.Holt who was Lord Chief Justice of
England concerning this matter, who all agreeing that by the Charter of
Incorporation being made as one person they could have but one freehold in all
that they were possessed of within the said City and Country by virtue of the
said Charter, and consequently could have but one vote among them all, and that
this freehold and the right of giving this vote was solely in the Dean and
Chapter to whom the said Charter was granted and that as to the houses which
the said minor Canons and other ministers and Officers of the said Church held
by virtue of their places, they have only the use of them by virtue of their
local status of the Church under the said Dean and Chapter to whom the freehold
of them did wholly belong. The Dean called the said minor Canons and the other
ministers and officers of the said Church together, and communicated this
opinion unto them. But they being greedy of having this right of voting to
belong to them by virtue of the houses which they said they held during life
persisted in their claim of it. Whereon the Dean, having drawn up a State of
the case procured it to be laid before the said Summers with a request for his
Opinion, thereon hoping this from so great a man would carry that authority
therewith as finally to determine the case and make all to acquiesce therein.
And the Opinion which he was pleased to give on this case as written from his
mouth by Mr. Martin then his Chaplain and one of the Prebendarys of the said
Church was as followeth.
That he
thinks the whole revenues of the Church are vested in the Body Corporate and
therefore it seems hard to conceive how the several members who compose that
Corporation should have a distinct personal right of voting. And he said that
therefore particularly upon Friday the 2nd of May 1624, which was in the 21st
year of King James the First it was determined in the House of Commons that the
several members of such Corporations had not a right of voting upon account of
what the Corporation was seised of. But he said that there hath been a great
alteration in the determinations of the House of Commons since that time. And
that the same day before mentioned there were two other Resolutions made which have
since beenjudged there quite otherwise. That since the contests about elections
have been so great, the House of Commons have generally seemed to affect to
increase the number of electors, that he looked upon the questions proposed to
be a matter of very great consequence as concerning not only all the Cathedrals
of the new foundations, but very many other corporate bodies and he was
apprehensive that the stirring sucha doubt would be ill taken by many and might
occasion a great deal of clamour and perhaps great inconveniences. And
therefore as a friend his advice was rather to let things remain quiet, and
leave every particular person to act in this matter as he shall think fit
himself. He added further that he believed that as things had been of late carried
in the House of Commons, it would be found difficult to prevail which Lawyers
to give Opinions in such a manner as would be of any great use to the
Enquirers. And that nothing but his personal respects to the Dean and his
confidence that no wrong use would be made of what he had said would have
engaged him to have spoken so largely about this matter.
Sir
Nathan Wright who had been Lord Keeper of the broad seal after the Lord Somers
having a son at that time one of the prebendarys of the Church of Norwich, the
Dean prevailed with him to lay the case before his father, and produced his
Opinion upon it, who very freely and fully gave it that no member of the Church
by virtue of his house or any other part of the Revenues of the Church annexed
to his place in the same could have a right of voting as a freeholder in any
election but that the freehold of the whole was vested in the Corporate body,
and that therefore as there could be but one freehold in all of it, there could
be no more than the right of one vote for the same. And this Mr. Wright
declared before all the ministers and officers of the Church then met together
in the Chapter House to be his father's opinion who had the reputation of being
one of the best Common Lawyers in the Kingdom.
None being
admitted in the election of Parliament men to vote as a freeholder without
taking the freeholders Oath, whereby he swears that he is so, the Dean's chief
concern in all this matter was to keep those who were under his care and
government from being perjured. And therefore from al these opinions being
fully convinced that no member of the Church by reason of his house or any
other part of its revenues which by virtue of his place he stands possessed of
in it, can claim to be a freeholder, or with a safe conscience swear that he is
so in any election, he thought it his duty to advise them accordingly hereto.
And therefore on the approach of the next election after, having called
together the minor Canons and the other ministers and officers of the Church, he
communicated to them the Opinion above mentioned, and thereon earnestly advised
them to act accordingly hereto and not make themselves guilty of the great sin
of perjury in swearing themselves freeholders where they were not so. That were
it only a moot case he thought they could not safely swear to it, much less
when there were such opinions against it. But the ultimate decision of this
matter belonging to the House of Commons and their Committee of Elections he
would not run the danger of embarassing himself with them by meddling . any
further with it he had procured for them the best information and advice of Law
that could be had in this case, and had faithfully communicated it to them, and
in doing thus much having discharged his conscience he would therefore leave it
to them to look to theirs, and meddle no further with it, only he could not but
add that if they continued still to give their votes as formerly, some time or
other the election would bear upon them and then the validity of those votes would
be called in question and if Judgement should go against them and any of them
should thereby become convicted of perjury, they might assure themselves that
in case this happened in his time he would not suffer any of them with the blot
of so foul a guilt upon them to continue members of the Church where he is Dean
and whoever should succeed him he believed would be of the same mind.
In the
year 1707, the Bishopric of Ely falling void by the death of Bishop Patrick,
Dr. Moor was translated thither from Norwich and Dr. Trimwell one of the
prebendarys of Norwich was made Bishop of that See in his stead. From the
translation of Bishop Moor to the naming of his successor for Norwich near an
half year having intervened, Dr. Prideaux during this vacancy had several
letters sent him to excite and encourage him to put in for the Bishopric, but
he could by no means be prevailed on so to do, neither did he think it for his
interest to accept of it should it be offered to him. His Deanry and
Archdeaconry of Suffolk, without reckoning his poor Vicarage of Trowse, one
year with another brought him in £400 per annum which would better support him
in the station he was then in than four times that sum could in the Bishopric
of Norwich, especially since the coming into that Bishopric what in first
fruits, not in fees and not in providing an Equipage furnishing the Palace and
removing to it cannot cost less than two thousand pounds, which must be all
again saved out of the revenues of the Bishopric and if the Bishop die in the
mean interim his family must suffer by it. There are instances where Bishops
dying too soon after their promotion have left their familys in that poverty as
to need charity for their necessary subsistence. This was the case of Bishop
Womock, and this was the case of Bishop Grove, and this would have been the
case of Archbishop Tillotson, but that his widow after his death was helped by
a pension from the Crown, and the booksellers giving her £2000 for those
sermons of his which were first published after his death. Dr. Prideaux was
indeed in no danger of leaving any behind him in this distress, by reason of a
Temporal estate of his own of several hundreds per annum which would
sufficiently secure him from this, how soon soever he might happen to die, however
he was loath to run the hazard of damaging his inheritance and leaving it
diminished for the sake of a gilded pill, such the major part of the Bishoprics
of England truly are, they glitter in the outer show, but leave bitterness in
your mouth when taken down. It doth not cost the Gentleman of the Law above £50
to be placed and settled in the highest Stations of their profession, whereas
if a poor clergyman be called to a Bishopric he is eaten up with first fruits
and fees before he can be settled in it. He was of Opinion that when the
Parliament discharged all small livings not exceeding £50 per annum of all
tenths and first fruits, they had done much better if they had at the same time
also discharged all poor Bishoprics of the same payments that is all not
exceeding a thousand pounds per annum, there being as cogent reasons for the
one as for the other, considering the attendance of Parliament and other
expensive ways of living that are annexed to their office, and it was in his
opinion to be further wished that instead of the mock election of Bishops by
longe d'elire and the operose way of sueing out so many instruments and going
through so many offices and there paying so many fees for them in order to that
full settlement, in the promotions, Bishops were made here in the same manner
as they are in Ireland by the King's letters patents to present them to the
Benefice as in the case of all other Ecclesiastical Benefices in the King's
gift and his mandate to the Archbishop to consecrate Institute and Install
them. This would save a great deal of trouble and charge and deliver Deans and
Chapters from the great danger of a praemunire which they are liable to in all
such elections, if they do not within 20 days return elected the person whom in
his letters missive the King shall nominate unto them, these alterations would
make those promotions much more desirable than now they are.
But that
which made Dr. Prideaux most averse to the pursuing the proposal above
mentioned for the Bishopric of Norwich was that he was very easy in the Deanry
which he could not promise himself to be in a Bishopric, in the former he was
in a sphere where by reason of his long experience in the business of the
Cathedral Church, he could act to the full of its extent, which he saw reason
to fear he could not do in the other especially since now the attending the
Court of the Parliament and affairs of state, are made so much the business of
a Bishop which he knew himself to be wholly unacquainted with and desired to
continue so to be, and therefore instead of making any interest for himself on
this occasion, he engaged all that he had for Dr. Trimnell whom he knew to be
an honest good man, and well deserving of this promotion which the Diocese had
afterwards full experience of to their great satisfaction.
In the
year 1708 he purchased the Manner of Owby near Yarmouth which is to the value
of — per annum [ figure not given ], this with what he had before in the
Close in Norwich, Horning in Norfolk, Helmingham and Thornham in Suffolk, he
made up to the value of — per annum [ figure not given ] which was not
gotten out of the Church, for his Church preferments never maintained him till
he had the Deanry, but was his own and his wife's inheritance and the
improvements which his good management made of both. His own estate was in
Cornwall but this being at too great a distance to be well looked after, he
sould it and bought in Norfolk, that being the Country where providence had
placed him.