The Commons' Church
By CANON CHARLES SMYTH
THE Parish Magazine of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in Canon Henson's time, bore proudly on its cover the quotation : — It is as it were a National Church for the use of the House of Commons.'—Journal of the House, 1735." The connection goes back to 1614. King James I, in his Speech from the Throne, expressed the hope that the new Parliament, which met in April of that year, would be a Parliament of Love. It has, in fact, gone down to history as the Addled Parliament. But the kingly phrase was taken up by certain of the puritan Members, who proposed a corporate Communion at the Abbey on Palm Sunday at 9 a.m. On second thoughts, however, they decided that the Abbey was too High Church ; and, so, "from fear of copes and wafer-cakes," the House resolved to communicate at the Parish Church instead on Sunday, April 17th, at 8.0. There was a full
' attendance, and the collection amounted to £37 5s. 8d.
The motive was not purely edifying. The Counter-Reformation had not yet spent its force, and the Gunpowder Plot was still a living memory ; therefore the corpoi ate Communion was expressly a Sacramental Test, "to free those that shall take it, from unjust Suspicion, and to keep the Trojan Horse qut of the House." Super- visors were appointed to whom the Members communicating were required to deliver cards, or "Tickets," giving their names and their constituencies. In the ensuing years these regulations were tightened up ; defaulters were reported by name, and were forbidden to come into the House until they had received the Communion in the presence of at least two of the supervisors appointed for the purpose. Thus it was hoped to detect recusants ; it was "a Touchstone to try their Faith." Logically enough, a Member returned to Parlia- ment for a second time was not required to receive the Communion again. (It is one of history's revenges that a device invented "for the Discovery of Papists amongst us" should, in another generation, be turned against the Protestant Dissenters.) In 1621 there was a brush with the Abbey. The House invited "Dr. Ussher, an Irishman" (afterwards Archbishop of Armagh), to preach at the service. The Dean and Prebendaries replied that this was an invasion of their jurisdiction, "and that, except One of them should preach, no other should ; and offer the College Church, with ordinary." The Members, vexed "in respect of these Crosses," appealed to the King. James sent for the Dean, and told him that Dr. Ussher was to preach ; and he sent for Dr. Ussher and told him that he "had charge of an unruly flock to look to next Sunday." He also suggested that Ussher might work into his sermon something about the need of voting money for the support of the Elector Palatine.
St. Margaret's was a focus of the religious troubles of the period. " The first Assault against the Church," writes Heylyn, "was made at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster on November 17th (1640): At what Time the Minister Officiating the Second Service at the Communion-Table, according to the ancient Custom, was un- expectedly interrupted by the naming and singing of a Psalm, to the great amazement of all sober and well-minded men." A day or two later two Members waited upon Bishop Williams, now re- instated in the Deanery of Westminster, to request that "the Elements might be consecrated upon a Communion-Table, standing in the Middle of the Church, according to the Rubrick ; and to have the Table removed from the Altar." The Dean readily agreed, adding that, though he would do greater service to the House of Commons than this, yet he would do as much as this for any parish in his diocese that might desire it. But such palliatives could avail no longer. On September 25th, 1643, in the chancel of St.
Margaret's, what remained of the two Houses of Parliament, together with the Assembly of Divines. and the Scottish Commis- sioners, subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant. The occasion was improved by the successive exhortations of three divines, each occupying the pulpit for "near upon an hour." Henceforward that pulpit was to be well supplied, particularly on Fast-Days, with "godly Preachers ": Marshall, Calamy, Reynolds, Lightfoot, Sterry, Cudworth, Owen, Baxter. (On March 30th, 1642, the Church- wardens' Accounts record the expenditure of Is. "for two pints of sack for the ministers that preached the fast-day.") There was, however, a regrettable incident in 1647, when the churchwardens
"were committed, for permitting ministers to preach upon Christmas- day and for adorning the church" with the traditional rosemary and bays (at a cost of Is. 6d.). They had to pay £3 for this defiance.
After the Restoration, preachers continued to be appointed to preach before the House on stated occasions, but in the eighteenth century the attendance seems to have fallen off. When Dr. Nowell, Regius Professor of Modern History and Public Orator in the University of Oxford, and Principal of St. Mary Hall, preached on January 30th, 1772, there were only four Members present besides the Speaker. Next day the House passed the customary vote of thanks, desiring him to print his discourse; but when they read it, they expunged that vote from their Journals. The Rt. Hon. Thomas Townshend, M.P., went so far as to suggest that the sermon should be burnt by the common hangman, a suggestion that materially increased its sales. It appears that the last time that a special preacher was appointed was on July 2nd, 1897, when Dean Farrar preached on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee.
It was Farrar who, as Rector of St. Margaret's from 1876 to 1895, resuscitated the connection with the House. In 1891 he was very fittingly appointed Chaplain to The Speaker, and held that office until his advancement to the Deanery of Canterbury. Since his time one Rector has become Speaker's Chaplain (Canon Carnegie, in 1916) and one Speakers Chaplain has become Rector (Dr. Don, the present Dean of Westminster, in 1941). Except in these three instances, covering an aggregate of thirty years, the two appointments have never been combined. But all Members of the House of Commons are ex officio parishioners, and St. Margaret's has a Parliamentary, instead of a parochial, electoral roll, and a Parliamentary, instead of a Parochial, Church Council. The office of churchwarden has sometimes been held by a Member ; it was so held by John Wilkes in 1759. The Speaker of the House still occupies a special pew, though this is no longer the capacious enclosure which housed Mr. Speaker Onslow at his devotions, as shown in the frontispiece of Thomas Wilson's The Ornaments of Churches Considered (1761). That, together with the galleries erected in 1644 and 1681 for the accommodation of Members and others connected with the House, was removed when the church was restored by Gilbert Scott in I6876. (This was the last of several occasions on which the House voted a monetary grant towards the repair or adornment of the fabric. It was parliamentary money that in 1759 purchased the beautiful east window which had formed part of the dowry of Katharine of Aragon ; it was parliamentary money that in 1754 cased the exterior of the church in Portland stone.)
In 1844 a Select Committee of the House reported unanimously in favour of the removal of St. Margaret's from its present site. "The incongruity of this Church in its style of architecture and its close proximity to Westminster Abbey have been frequently noticed and lamented." It might be possible to mitigate "this great archi- tectural anomaly" by judicious improvements ; "it might be enriched in design or rendered more pure in detail." But, even so, the effect could not be compared to that of an open space clear of any buildings in front of the Abbey and of the New Houses of Parliament when completed. Yet St. Margaret's still stands ; its bells still ring when Mr. Speaker assumes, or resumes, his laborious office ; pews are still reserved on Sundays for Honourable Members ; and on such national occasions as November 11th, 1918, and May 8th and August 15th, 1945, the unique distinction of this church—" It is, as it were, a National Church for the use of the House of Commons "—has been very signally displayed.
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