Cromwell and the Churches
THE motor-car has made it easier for us to see our own country and has fostered that love of the past which is instinctive in Englishmen. Quiet folk plan tours of the cathedrals or visit all the churches and other ancient monuments in a particular district. It is hardly surprising that many of them are impressed, not merely by the wealth that remains of mediaeval glories, but also by the plain evidence of the wealth that has been des- troyed. Yet it is matter for wonder, in view of the amount of public money spent on the teaching of history, that the chief responsibility for this destruction is popu• larly laid upon Cromwell.
There is no trustworthy evidence to show that Cromwell was an iconoclast. His whole career proves the opposite. He had a passion for law and order : he was not petty- minded. He did not approve of Laud and the High Church party, but he was no fanatic with a bitter hatred of the Establishment and all its works. His Presbyterian colleagues disliked him because he was tolerant, centuries in advance of his age. While they wanted to extirpate Episcopacy root and branch and force the Genevan"- Scottish system on the English people, Cromwell had no such desire but, like Milton, strongly disapproved of the " new Presbyter " as but the " old Priest writ large.'.' It was improbable, then, that Cromwell would be found ordering, or permitting where he could prevent, the despoilment of churches. In the well-known and often quoted incident of January, 1644, at Ely, he had ordered Canon Hitch to suspend the choir service " as unedifying and offensive," " lest the soldiers should in any tumid.- tuary or disorderly way attempt the reformation of the Cathedral church." Hitch very unwisely refused to obey the order, and thus compelled Cromwell to use force. But it is obvious that Cromwell feared a repetition of the disorder that had occurred a few weeks before at 'Peter- borough, where the new levies assembled from the Eastern Counties to support the siege of Crowland had done con- siderable damage to the cathedral. Had Cromwell been a wrecker, Ely would not have remained untouched, as it did. To blame him, as is usually done, for what hap- pened at Peterborough and forget his consideration for Ely is clearly unjust.
That churches, and especially cathedrals, suffered in the Civil War is true enough. The Presbyterians, who detested bishops, disliked cathedrals and thought them unnecessary. At some places the cloisters and palace were dismantled, as at Peterborough, or at Lincoln where the upper city had twice stood a siege. Lichfield Cathe- dral, unfortunately, was fortified by the Royalists, lost, retaken, and lost again, so that its partial destruction was inevitable. Yet, considering the length and bitterness of the conflict, the cathedrals did not suffer so much as might have been expected. The greatest of them, Can- terbury, York, old St. Paul's, were virtually untouched. The Rump Parliament in 1649 ordered a Committee to consider whether Ely Cathedral should be demolished and the materials sold for the benefit of the wounded soldiers ; but nothing came of the suggestion. Nor did the House agree to a monstrous demand from Great Yarmouth for the lead from the 'roof of Norwich Cathedral, and other materials, to build a workhouse. Evidently the Parlia- mentary leaders had no serious intention of harming the cathedrals, whatever a few hotheads might say.
As regards churches, 'the Westminster Assembly of English and Scottish Presbyterians began its labours in 1643 by urging Parliament to' abolish " all monuments of idolatry and superstition." Accordingly, Parliament passed an Ordinance, requiring the removal of all altars
and tables of stone, crucifixes, candlesticks, images and pictures of any one or more Persons of the Trinity, or of the Virgin and the Saints, and " superstitious inscrip- tions," to say nothing of surplices. It was under this Ordinance that the Suffolk fanatic Dowsing was em- powered by the Earl of Manchester, the Presbyterian leader of the Eastern Association, to go about breaking stained glass and altar ornaments. But it would be a mistake to assume that the outrages committed by Dowsing in Suffolk and Cambridge were common else- where. They were in truth exceptional and local ; Dowsing's vain-glorious narrative of his crimes shows that he suffered from acute religious mania. The Parlia- mentary Ordinance was more or less obeyed in some districts and ignored in others. The Westminster Assembly soon lost its early prestige. Parliament ceased to pay attention to the divines ; it had on hand more important matters than image-breaking.
When all is said, our Cathedrals and churches probably suffered infinitely less in the Civil War—whether from intentional defacement or from damage by fire or cannon- shot—than they did in the Reformation period. The mischief done in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI was colossal, and it was not only the monasteries proper that suffered. The new owners of tithes were slow to realize that it was their duty to maintain the parish churches, as the monastic tithe-owners had done. The early Stuart Bishops, like Bancroft and Laud, incurred no small part of their unpopularity by making the land- owners contribute to church repair. Laud was as much concerned to make the average church weatherproof and seemly as to give more colour and dignity to the service. His generation saw much rebuilding of churches every- where after a long period of neglect, and the movement was not wholly suspended during the Civil War, so far is it from the truth to suggest that the Parliamentarians, and especially Cromwell, were conscienceless vandals. But these popular legends die hard.
EDWARD G. HAWKE.
Previous page
