Klein The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-910723-68-5
Verlag: Merlin Unwin Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

A married vicar with a passion for a young single woman, a bitter publican, a Peeping Tom, a resentful church warden: our human frailties are still much as they always have been. Over three hundred years ago, the Reverend Robert Foulkes arrived as the new incumbent at the wealthy parish of Stanton Lacy, Shropshire. Charismatic, 'exceedingly followed and admired', he set off a chain of events which led to his hanging at Tyburn in 1679. What irrational impulse could have brought a man of the Church to such a squalid end? Historian Peter Klein has pieced together remarkable documentary evidence which shows a village seething with jealousies, covetousness and sexual intrigue. Their eloquent new vicar was the catalyst for the moving and powerful tragedy that followed. Awaiting execution, in Newgate gaol, Foulkes wrote his confessional pamphlet, An Alarme for Sinners, which was an immediate C17th best-seller. Today the ancient church of Stanton Lacy still stands and there inscribed on a wall plaque, along with other less notorious vicars, is the name of Reverend Robert Foulkes and the dates he served there. In this remarkable book, Peter Klein unfolds the full story of Robert Foulkes for the first time. From the scaffold, Foulkes addressed the crowd: 'You may in me see what sin is, and what it will end in.' A true story 'more real than any historical novel - more moving, more evocative, more human.' John Fowles

Peter Klein was born in Middlesex, and took an Honours degree in Medieval and Modern History at Birmingham University. For many years he lived at Ludlow in Shropshire, where he researched and wrote books and articles on the local history of the town and the surrounding area, and where he was a founding member of the local history group. Her now lives happily in rural Herefordshire, with his wife, Debby, and a geriatric cat. His passions include walking in the countryside, watching wild birds, and visiting medieval chuches. He is the proud father of three daughters, and grandfather to five grand-children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Klein, Peter

Leseproben

Foulkes’ Predecessors
‘Mr Clayton calls himself a doctor, yet he is a man of that behaviour, that I have seldom known his fellow, and if credit be given to his oath, every man that he beareth malice unto will be utterly undone.’ During the 17th-century the clergy were, as at any time, unique individuals of varying strengths and character. To put Robert Foulkes in perspective, therefore, it is certainly worthwhile comparing him with those that preceded him in office, if only to get some idea of the variety of men that a relatively remote parish such as this might attract. The vicars were increasingly university graduates; and they were almost invariably outsiders, although they were not alone in this. By the 17th-century the population was far from static, and it becomes clear during the later legal proceedings, as we shall see, that a number of Foulkes’ more influential parishioners, of yeoman stock, were from elsewhere in the county, moving from tenancy to tenancy. Some had only been in Stanton Lacy a matter of months, and one indeed arrived only six weeks before the events to be described took place. In 1634 John Whateley had passed away, having been vicar at Stanton Lacy since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, after an incumbency of 47 years. He was a man who, according to the parish register, had ‘lived religiously, preached painfully, and died comfortably’ there on the first of July. We know little else of him except that he had been ordained by the Bishop of Gloucester, and that he was well educated, perhaps at grammar school or university, but had no degree. He made a will just a month before he died, and amongst other bequests he left his son, William, fifty pounds in cash, together with the rest of his books that remained and were ‘not yet sent to him in London’.4 A total of forty shillings he left to the parish poor, who were to be divided into three groups of ten, chosen by his widow according to their need. Here, apparently, we have a vision of a thoroughly decent and well-respected man, who died peacefully and full of years among his own community. Onto this scene of apparent bucolic tranquillity arrived ‘Dr’ Ralph Clayton, possibly the Yorkshireman of that name who had matriculated from Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1605 at the age of 16. By September 1634, he now claimed to be a ‘Doctor of Sacred Theology’, but where this degree was obtained is a complete mystery, as there is no record of him having continued at any university; and there appears to have been some doubt even at the time. Yorkshire, particularly the West Riding, and the area around Hull, was renowned as a stronghold of puritanism, but whether this might have had any bearing on Clayton’s bizarre behaviour is open to speculation. Whatever, in July 1637 Sir John Bridgeman, Chief Justice of Chester and the presiding judge at Ludlow Castle, was writing to Westminster about a man whose activities, to say the least, had raised a few local eyebrows: ‘You wish to understand from me the condition of Dr.Clayton. I have perused a presentment upon oath whereby he is accused of, firstly, haunting alehouses, and once continuing in several alehouses in Ludlow from Thursday to Wednesday, neglecting to come to his church, or any other church, on the Sunday. Secondly, for tempting the chastity of divers women; and thirdly, for causing the bells to be rung at the bringing of beer into his house, making those who brought it drunk, and giving the ringers two shillings. I find also information depending against him before the Council in the Marches of Wales, for beating his sexton with a staff in the church on the 7th of March last’.5 By March 1638 Clayton’s ‘condition’ had not improved, and we find him imprisoned in Ludlow Castle, with moves clearly afoot to have him ejected from his living. In June legal counsel to Archbishop Laud found Clayton refusing to defend himself on the grounds that his incarceration made it impossible, and he wrote that ‘the doctor now lies in prison in Ludlow Castle, he has his liberty of drinking and rioting, and lives as it were in contempt of justice’.6 In January 1639 Arthur Winwood, chief porter and Clayton’s gaoler at the castle, and someone who also just happened to be one of the churchwardens at Stanton Lacy, was summoned to the Star Chamber in London after Clayton had accused him of uttering treasonable remarks. Winwood however carried a letter from Bridgeman’s successor, Sir Thomas Milward, that did not mince words: ‘Mr Clayton calls himself a doctor, yet he is a man of that behaviour, that I have seldom known his fellow, and if credit be given to his oath, every man that he beareth malice unto will be utterly undone. When I came first to Ludlow he was in the porter’s lodge for divers misdemeanours, and this last term he was fined again, and stands committed for the like offences. I beseech you to be informed of Clayton’s credit before you give any allowance of his oath.’7 Winwood was acquitted within the day, at a hearing held in the presence of the King; and a fortnight later he was granted permission to bring an action against Clayton in the same court.8 Of Ralph Clayton nothing more is heard, and here he seems to vanish into the dust of history. With benefit of hindsight, that Stanton Lacy should have had to endure two such men as Clayton and Foulkes, within the space of only forty-five years, would seem to suggest that the parish may have been somewhat ill-starred, but the vicar who was Clayton’s immediate successor was in contrast quite plainly a man of considerable qualities and stature. THOMAS ATKINSON, AND CIVIL WAR
‘… the most worthy pastor of this church; whose heart was the home of the brightest virtues side by side with knowledge; whose tongue was the polished expounder of a keener judgement; whose hand was the treasure house of the poor …’ After Clayton’s expulsion, greater care was evidently taken in choosing his replacement, and it was Thomas Atkinson, Master of Arts from Trinity College, Oxford, and recently inducted as rector of the wealthy living at nearby Wistanstow, who came to live at Stanton Lacy in May 1639. Patron to both these livings was John Lord Craven of Ryton, who died childless in about 1648, and who was succeeded by his elder brother William Lord Craven, to whom Atkinson became chaplain and possibly a close friend. Atkinson also became related to the Cravens through his second marriage in about 1645. William Craven inherited great wealth, and during his very long life was a career soldier and devoted Royalist supporter, but because of this he had to spend the period of the Commonwealth in exile abroad. As the storm clouds of the Civil War gathered, Atkinson wrote in the parish registers of his feelings about puritanism and the impending wind of change. Under cover of Latin, he wrote: ‘Pios multos est rem monstrosam. Scitote posteri, et erubescite’, (Much piety is a monstrous thing. Seek to know it, you who succeed us, and blush with shame). This dread of religious fundamentalism seems as pertinent today as it was three and a half centuries ago. In the summer of 1645, a Parliamentary force swept through the country to the north of Ludlow, and many royalists sought shelter within its walls. It is here that we apparently find Atkinson, or at least his family, when in January 1646 his son John, later a physician and one who figures in this story, was baptized in the parish church. Ludlow surrendered to Parliament in the following June, and for five years we lose track of Atkinson until 1651 when he appears to have returned to Stanton Lacy. The parish register, a number of pages almost blank, comments only upon the lack of entries ‘through distractions of the fearfull civill warre and the vicars enforced absence thereupon’. This is then followed by an agonised plea: ‘Da pacem domine lassati sumus’ (Give us peace, O Lord, for we are wearied). There is little doubt that during the period of the Civil War the community at Stanton Lacy was probably as riven in its loyalties as most others, for this was a time when even members of families were divided against one another. While most may have remained staunchly loyal to Lord Craven and the King, some will have sympathised with Parliament, or saw that they stood to gain if they collaborated with the winning side. There is little recorded, what with the parish register being suspended during Atkinson’s absence, but there is one curious document which, unusually, is in the form of a graffito in the parish church. On the jamb of the chancel arch on the south side, facing the altar, is a very curious monumental inscription, particularly rare in being cut directly into the church fabric itself. It speaks to us of a tragic event during August 1649, a few months after the trial and execution of Charles the First, and while Cromwell was away suppressing Royalist resistance in Ireland. It is improvised and crudely scratch-carved, abraded and illegible in places, but it commemorates a young man, Richard Heynes of Downton, who died on the 19th August 1649, in his 24th year. Heynes was certainly the local man whose baptism appears in the parish register on the 23rd April 1626. Whoever the writer...