Kitabı oku: «The Church of Grasmere: A History», sayfa 5

Wallas was not long to enjoy unchallenged his position at Grasmere. The situation was being watched by one who only awaited opportunity for action. It was a time of unrest and seething thought; and in 1651 George Fox, after beholding his vision of blood – when he ran through the streets of Lichfield crying "Woe, woe" – had begun his wandering life as a preacher. The country was swayed to and fro by contending religious factions. The more sober and rational-minded among these, shocked by the confusion that prevailed, formed themselves into "Voluntary Associations," under which the acting church authorities of each district – whether Independent or Presbyterian – united for the purpose of settling (if this were possible) the vexed questions of the administration of the sacrament and the ordination of ministers. At once an Association was formed for Cumberland and Westmorland, where the success that attended George Fox's first missionary journey through the distracted counties in 1652-3, had brought consternation to all sections of the Puritan party, and under the leadership of Mr. Richard Gilpin it proceeded to action.¹¹⁸ Meetings for the settlement of church affairs were held every month at Carlisle, Penrith and Cockermouth, and in 1656 the counties put forth a joint manifesto, called "Articles of Association."

It was the existence of this body with its moderate and conciliatory policy, that doubtless enabled the new squire of Rydal to take the step he had for some time been preparing. Barely of age in 1654, and not yet in possession of the family estates, he nevertheless – while studying law in London – kept his eye on the condition of affairs in Grasmere and sought how he might – if not restore his kinsman Ambrose to the rectory – at least oust the intruder. An entry in his accounts of 1s. paid on May 24th "for ye Parrishioners of Gresmire their Caveat" shows that he had secured the support of part of the parish at least. Again on June 27th he paid 1s. 6d. "for a cop. of the Refferees names concerning Wallas." Without doubt he was preparing, even to the co-operation of Mr. Brathwaite of Ambleside Hall, for the swift stroke of ejection which was carried through on the eve of his own entrance to Rydal by his faithful servant John Banks. John communicated the result in the following letter: —¹¹⁹

Hounoured Sir,

I praise God I got saffe to Rydale wth the oxen on Saturday at night where I was fforced to staye all night it was so late I acquainted the P'ishors that you had sent them word to get a minister every Lord's daye till such tyme as you presented one, and that the might paye them out off the tythes, but none would meddle unless I would goe to the Church and appear wth them soe I was fforced either to neglect it or send to Mr. Turner off Amblesyd to procure him to goe to preach wch I did And he went to your Cousin Bratwhait to aske his advice and leave that he might goe, soe he came to Rydale and I went along wth him But Wallas seeing us cum almost at the Church went quite away to Langdale Chapple whether he intended to goe beffore or noe I knowe not But he lefft the Clarke to oppose us who would not suffer Mr. Turner to read in the usuall place soe I wished Mr. Turner to goe into the pulpit and officiate But the Clark begun to read a Chapter and I bid him giue over but he would not soe I shutt the booke soe Mr. Turner read a Chappter and sung a psalme and begune to preach and when the sermon was done I spoke to some of the P'ishoners to procure every Lords daye a minister & pay them off theire tithes.

Conyston this 11 Feb. 1655. Your obedient servant

John Bankes.

Good John, with the squire's authority at his back and the co-operation of the Ambleside curate (a Presbyterian no doubt), had successfully carried the situation through for that day, but his spirit quailed before it, as did that of the people. Under date February 18th he again wrote to his absent master: —

I should be glad to hear ffrom you iff you have heard anything ffrom Oxford or London concerninge the P'sonage of Grasmire, ffor wallas keepes the place still and saith he will doe it and that he is instructed by Mr. Archer to keepe it til such tyme as he present another, And he saith that he will cause Mr Turner to be put off his place ffor goeing that one daye to officiate there, Sir I desire that you will be pleased iff you heare anythinge to lett me knowe that I may encourage the P'ishoners ffor the are nowe more dismayed then the were beffore.

In a postscript he reverts to the subject: —

Sir it will not be amisse to remynd them aboue (probably meaning any grandee with whom young Daniel might come into contact during his honeymoon visits) concerning Grasmire ffor it is the Generall oppinion off all heare that Mr. Archer will doe you a preiudice in it iff he can.

Mr. Archer was of course disputing the right of the Rydal squire to nominate. But he and the Independents were yet to learn the indomitable nature of the will that now opposed theirs. The young squire, too wise to attempt the reinstating of his kinsman, and assuming the right to nominate, appointed one John Thompson to the rectory: and he won his way in spite of obstacles placed in it.

John Banks, then doing business in London, wrote in perplexity on October 23rd, saying that counsel's opinion was talked of in connection with the matter. Thompson, however, kept his post. He may have acted in tune with the Presbyterians for the time being, but at the Restoration he returned at once to the uses of the re-established Church of England. At the Quarter Sessions held at Kendal, September, 1660, William Willson of Langdale was charged with "disquietinge, abuseinge, & disturbinge John Tompson Clerk vicar of Gressmire in readinge ye booke of comon prayer or service of ye Church & in his collaton or preachinge at Langdale Chappell" on the 26th, "beinge ye lord's day" and the said Willson, refusing to submit or to swear the oath of allegiance, was committed to gaol, with the option of a fine of 100 marks.¹²⁰ Willson indeed was a Quaker or Friend, who abjured all oaths – a fact at first misunderstood, and which so frequently caused their committal on political grounds. He was one of George Fox's most fiery adherents, and a speaker among the little band that had sprung up in the parish during the anarchy; and in denouncing the clergy on their own ground (the "steeple-house") he did but imitate his master.

On the other hand John Wallas – who had apparently been appointed by his friends to another church – was charged before the Justices with not reading the Book of Common Prayer, as ordained by law. His next appearance at court, in 1663, was in connection with the plot against the king and government, lately discovered. He was suspected of being mixed up in it, and was committed to Appleby gaol for three months.

The young squire of Rydal, Daniel Fleming, had now a free hand in the congenial task of setting the church of Grasmere on the old footing. There was some delay or uncertainty, however, in the return of his cousin Ambrose to the rectory. The church register contains a note of money collected, August 25th, 1661, and this is signed by John Brathwaite, "Rector of Grasmere," by John Browk, "curate," and the churchwardens; and John Browk's signature as curate occurs again August 7th, 1663. But it is certain that Parson Ambrose soon made good his claim to the position of rector, and that John Brathwaite remained as his principal curate in charge. He was a man who had seemingly no mind for strife or commotion. He showed supineness in allowing the squire to conduct the dispute about the tithes which now arose; as well as later to oppose the scheme of the Ambleside folk to secure the privileges of baptism and burial for their chapel. On this occasion the excuse was made of his being then (1674) in residence as Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge.¹²¹ Perhaps he loved too well the cloistered ease of the University. He never attempted to reside at the rectory, and would seem to have arranged for bachelor quarters to be fitted up at the hall, where he might spend such time as he thought it necessary to devote to the parish. These entries occur in the great account book: —

Such peaceful hours of card-playing – restricted to the festival time of Christmas – were occasionally varied by polemical events; if so, we may interpret the scene at the Loughrigg inn: —

For the recovery of the tithes, the rector relied entirely on the legal knowledge and acute judgment of his relative; and the draft of the Bill presented in the Court of Exchequer, and now lying at Rydal Hall, is in the latter's handwriting. From this we learn that certain parishioners refused to pay tithes to the newly-instituted rector, and that their refusal was moreover of some years standing, as neither Wallas nor Thompson had been in a position to compel payment from the refractory. There are twenty-one names cited in the bill. Many of these were no doubt conscientious objectors, though some would be of that ever-present class, who seize any excuse for shirking an obligation. From the wording of the petition, that the objectors "pretended" John Ambrose never was parson of Grasmere, nor had been lawfully restored, it looks as if there had been some opposition to the squire's change of minister at the Restoration. Mr. Thomas Brathwaite had assisted him as we have seen in the removal of the Independent, but now the expulsion of the (probable) Presbyterian minister in favour of the Episcopalian roused the ire no doubt of the Presbyterian party, headed by the Ambleside Hall family. Robert Brathwaite, gentleman, was younger brother of Thomas, and had inherited from his father Gawen not only the property of High House, Hugill (where he generally resided) but the small "manor" of Baisbrowne in Langdale. It was on this estate that tithes were claimed from its owner, who heads the list of recalcitrant parishioners. Another prominent statesman among them was Christopher Nicholson, of Padmire, Grasmere, of whose religious persuasion we know nothing. A third was Francis Benson, freeholder; he, along with Mr. Brathwaite and Michael Benson, had served as an elder on the Presbyterian Classis, and had now become an ardent Quaker. These, with the rest, had – so the petition declared – combined to resist payment, and had persuaded others to do the like. Their position was certainly weakened by the fact that they had failed to pay these customary dues for its support, while they were satisfied with the ministry; yet the demand now made for fourteen years' arrears, may well have irritated them. The claim upon Mr. Robert Brathwaite's estate stands thus, when placed in the form of a table: —

The demand made upon each of the foremost defendants in the lawsuit was exactly the same, showing that the estimate of the tithes was a purely conventional one. It amounted then for each prosperous statesman to £3 14s. 10d. – a large sum compared with the commutation of the Rydal Hall tithe; and when this figure is multiplied by fourteen for arrears, a total of £52 7s. 8d. is reached, which was likely enough to arouse dismay and opposition. The case dragged on; and on October 20th, 1663, a commission sat at Ambleside, when witnesses were called on both sides. The smaller statesmen were no longer cited, while Robert Brathwaite, Christopher Nicholson, Francis Benson, and John Benson stood as the defendants.¹²² The verdict is not known; but payment of tithes once more became customary. The refusal of the Quakers to pay the church rate will be noticed hereafter.

The tithes seem often to have been let on lease, which saved the rector the trouble and annoyance of collection. Edward Benson of Loughrigg declared, in 1663, before the commission, that he and Miles Mackereth and John Brathwaite held a lease of them from Parson Ambrose for three years, which ended April 15th, 1665. About the year 1726 they were apparently farmed by the statesmen jointly. A paper exists¹²³ entitled "Grasmere Tyth Corn lett to the Inhabitants Anno 1726. Some wanting." It contains the names of 55 landholders, with the amount – varying from 1s. to 18s. – paid by each as an equivalent for the tithe of corn. The total is £18 6s.

This agrees with the statement of Miss Craik, who in 1752 was corresponding with Sir William Fleming on behalf of her incapable brother, the rector. While expressing her surprise that he should think of renting the tithes of corn, she tells him that Mr. Craik's collector had been persuaded to grant a three years' lease at £14 10s., which was too little. The salary of the collector, she adds, had been in a former year £5.

The growth of corn increased seemingly in this district as the eighteenth century went by, owing no doubt to its heightened price throughout the kingdom. The tithe of it accordingly went up in value, while wool, from the decay of the cloth trade, went down.

PART IV

THE FABRIC

THE FURNITURE

THE UPKEEP OF THE CHURCH

CLEANING AND REPAIRS

EXTRACTS FROM CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS

THE FABRIC

Grasmere Church, as it stands at present, is itself the sole guide we have to its age and the method of its building. No document exists, prior to the Restoration, that concerns the fabric. It was then apparently the same as it is now. As one steps within the portal, and sees through the gloom its strange double nave, the rude spaces broken through the thick intersecting wall, and the massive, split, misshapen timbers that support its roof, one wonders who were its planners and builders. Here surely in this strange and original structure we see a work conceived and carried out by the very men who worshipped within it. Sturdy, strong, and self-dependent, they would seem to have asked little or no aid either in money or skill, for the rearing and decoration of their church. Yet its builders, when they came to remodel, if not to rebuild their ancient place of worship, must have known edifices of statelier plan. There was Kendal, their great centre, with a church that must always have kept abreast of the time in architectural beauty, and which – from the earliest fifteenth century at least, showed the dressed columns of stone, the soaring arches, and chantried aisles which yet remain. St. Martin's of Windermere, too, in the next parish, possessed a duly proportioned nave, chancel, and aisle; and the columns – built though they were of undressed stone – rose to support a clerestory and the evenly-timbered roof. Hawkshead again (whither the dalesmen often repaired to market or fair) owned a church that was ruder than the others, indeed – since its huge cylindrical piers support circular arches, and the timber of its roof is rough-hewn – but had a well-proportioned plan for nave and aisles.

These places, it is true, had advantages over Grasmere. Kendal was in contact with the great world and with the heads of the church, who visited it regularly. It had, besides, access to freestone. Windermere, like Hawkshead, had to let the intractable slate of the neighbouring mountains suffice for the main structure: hence the great piers without capitals and the plaster finish of their interiors. But Windermere had an advantage in its nearness to Kendal; and Hawkshead in its association with the abbey of Furness, which was easily accessible from there. Grasmere, on the other hand, was probably ignorant of the beauties of the Abbey Church of St. Mary's at York, to which it was attached. The church was practically shut up within the remotest chamber of the mountains, and could only be reached by 17 miles of bad road from Kendal, over which no wheels could travel. But with no freestone near, with only the hard mountain slate to rive, or the boulders of the beck to gather; without traditional skill and with very little hard cash, our builders of Grasmere proceeded – when need came – to alter and enlarge their House of God by such simple methods as house and barn "raising" had made familiar to them. Thus we read the story of the structure as it stands at present, and see that the builders had clearly little help from the outer world. We see, too, that this structure was an alteration of an earlier one; which was not itself the first, for the first stone fane probably replaced a wooden one, either here or on Kirk How. It was doubtless of that simple oblong form, without chancel or tower, which was technically known as a chapel,¹²⁴ and of which specimens have remained among the mountains to this day. But an ecclesia parochia, possessed of daughter chapels, could not be permitted by the higher powers – whether of church or manor – to retain so lowly a form. The manorial lords may have interested themselves in its reconstruction, though there is no evidence of the fact. In any case, it is likely that the Abbey of St. Mary would take the necessary steps to bring it up to the requirements of its position, and of the worship to be conducted within its walls. The visiting brother would carry accounts of the remote little church to York; and a monk skilled in architecture could be brought over to plan a new building, and to direct its construction. The customary model for a small parochial church would be adopted, which allowed a chancel for priests officiating at the mass; then a nave without aisles for the worshippers, lighted by narrow windows – for before glazing was possible the opening had to be guarded from weather by wooden shutters – and to the west a tower, in which to hang the bells that should call the parishioners from far.

Such doubtless was the existing church in its first state, and of it there may remain the tower, the porch, the south wall, and one window. There are indications that before its enlargement it was more ornate then now. Freestone was used, though sparingly, to emphasize the chief architectural points. The opening into the tower, piercing four feet of solid wall, has a moulding of freestone (now battered away) to mark the spring of its slightly-pointed arch; while a string-moulding is discernible in the north wall of the nave, which may once have accentuated the window heads. The windows – if we may suppose the one left between porch and tower to be a relic of the original set¹²⁵– were simple openings finished by an "ogee" arch. The font may be as old as the window, if not older. Its mouldings, which originally followed the rim and divided the bowl into a hexagon, are almost obliterated; and though no doubt it suffered during the Commonwealth, when it was degraded from its sacred use, the damage may not be wholly due to that cause. The freestone used in the building was unfortunately friable, and must have suffered at every alteration – such as the piercing of the north wall by arches, and the building up of the tower-arch for a vestry. It could not be replaced by the remodellers; and they seem to have intentionally chipped and levelled it, and then freely whitewashed it over, with a general view to tidiness. They even went beyond this; for when the east wall was reconstructed in 1851, a stone carved with the likeness of a face was found built into it. This is now in the Kendal Museum. The piscina, too, now refixed (and, unfortunately, redressed), was found, covered with plaster, lower down in the same wall.

The worn, maltreated freestone might, if we knew its origin, tell something of the tale of the building. A well-squared yellow block, recently laid bare in the porch, is certainly not the red sandstone of Furness.

Now should the age of the fabric, decorated thus simply though judiciously, be questioned, it must be owned that there is nothing to indicate its being older than the fourteenth century. It is true that a western tower with no entrance from outside was a feature of many Saxon churches, but such towers continued to be built for parish churches until a late date. The rough masonry of the Grasmere tower is due to the material; and the massive boulders used in the foundation were no doubt gathered from the beck, whose proximity must have been highly convenient for builders who were poorly equipped for the quarrying of their slate rock. The "ogee" or trefoiled arch was a development of the Decorated style of architecture, which evolved the form from the elaborate traceries of its windows.¹²⁶ The Decorated style is roughly computated as lasting from the open to the close of the fourteenth century, and the period of its use coincides fairly with the time when our church fell under the influence of the monastery.

A church of primitive size would be sufficient for the folk of the three townships, while they lived in scattered homesteads and were all bent upon husbandry, with short intervals of warfare with the Scots. But it would become too small for a growing population that throve in times of peace upon the wool trade.¹²⁷ With walk-mills in the valleys, and families growing rich as clothiers, some extension of the church would be necessary; and this extension seems to have been started in a fashion strangely simple. Leaving the walls of the edifice intact with its roof, a space almost equal – for it is but one yard narrower – was marked off on the northern side, enclosed by walls and roofed over. The intervening wall could not be removed, because the builders were incapable of spanning the double space by a single roof. It was therefore left to sustain the timbers of the two roofs, and through its thickness (over three feet) spaces were broken in the form of simple arches. Thus – though one is called an aisle – two naves were practically formed, separated by the pierced wall. The date of this enlargement is uncertain. If we place it in the era of the prosperity of the townships from the cloth trade, it could have been done no earlier than the reign of Henry the Seventh, and no later than the early days of Elizabeth; while a supposition that it was not taken in hand until the dissolution of the monastery had thrown the men of the three townships on their resources is strengthened by the character of the work.

How long the enlarged church remained under a double roof cannot be said. Trouble would be sure to come from the long, deep valley, where snow would lodge and drip slowly inside. Clearly there was urgent need for action and radical alteration when the powerful Mr. John Benson, of Baisbrowne, made his will in 1562. A clause of this runs: "Also I giue and bequeath towardes the Reparacions of the church of gresmyre XXs so that the Roofe be taken down and maide oop againe."

But how to construct a single roof over the double space? This insoluble problem (to them) was met by the village genius in a singular manner. The arched midwall was not abolished. It was carried higher by means of a second tier of arches whose columns rest strangely on the crowns of the lower. These upper openings permit the principal timbers to rest in their old position, while the higher timbers are supported by the abruptly ending wall. Thus a single pitched roof outside is attained, sustained by a double framework within. The result is unique, and remains as a monument of the courage, resource, and devotion to their church of our mountain dalesmen.

[Since this chapter was written the stone face – p. 104 – has been returned by Kendal to Grasmere. – Ed.]