The Church, and the Moral and Religious Aspects of the People of Madeley
We have previously given the names of some of the early rectors of the church, when the whole mind of the people here, as elsewhere, by education, if not conviction, was Roman Catholic. There was undoubtedly a pleasant kind of poetry about the older system of religion, which no man, from the peasant to the peer, thought of questioning, but which, from the cradle to the grave, governed and regulated, as far as its influences went, the thoughts and actions of all men. They were the high days of ecclesiastical power, when the Church could smite with excommunication and civil disability obnoxious families or individuals, and when monarchs could be cut off from the allegiance of their subjects, and made to appear as lepers among their brethren.
We know little of the moral or social condition of the inhabitants, or how far they were influenced by the rude discipline to which they were subject. Delusion, we know, by the traces it has left, then and for a long time after among the uneducated classes, formed the basis often of belief. It was a time when man, equally deceived by the imperfections of his senses and the illusions of self-love, long considered himself to be the centre of the movements of the stars, and his vanity was punished by the terrors to which they gave rise. It may not have had a corrupting tendency, and may even have been a beneficial fallacy, for it must have tended much to the accomplishment of any undertaking to believe that it was within the range of possibility. We can now view the planets as they circle, without supposing that they are impelled by intelligences who exercise either a benign or a hostile influence over our action. Ages of labour have removed the veil which concealed the true nature of the planets, and man now finds himself on the surface of one which he has reason to suppose is so small as to be scarcely perceptible in that great solar system which formerly appeared so mysterious. Then it was not so: astrologers and conjurors were looked up to as wielding even more terrific powers than the priest, and horoscopes, nativities, and the most ordinary events were traced to influences of the planets. Dust and cobwebs now cover the tombs of the authors of works on astrology; the staff on which they leaned is broken; their brazen instruments are green and cankered.
In an old book on this subject, disinterred among certain other contents of an old chest in the vestry of the church, entitled “Astrological Predictions for 1652,” we find, as was not unusual, awful prognostications concerning Church and State, and threatenings of troubles, violent distempers, and great slaughters. There appears to have been a court of astrologers, for we find a notice in a foot-note of “a learned sermon composed for the Society of Astrologers.” Predictions and assertions of interference with men’s actions and the most ordinary course of events not being read to advantage except in the language of their authors, we purpose giving an extract or two. Like relics, which seem to lose their venerable sanctity when removed from an old tomb to a museum, extracts in modern type lose the charm the well-thumbed old yellow work has as it is lifted from the old church chest, mellow and mouldy. It appears from the numerous notes and memorandums on the blank leaves to have been used by the clergyman as a sort of pocket-book, and some of the notes appear to be intended attestations of the predictions so earnestly given. Here are some of the predictions bearing chiefly upon passing events of the times, or such as were likely to arise:—
“England is subject to that Sign of the Zodiac, viz. Aries, wherein Mars at present is placed, & therefore we English, & in Engla. must expect some, or many of those misfortuns which he generally signifieth, and which even now we repeated: but the same sign pointeth out also many Cities & places in the upper Germany, so also in Austria and its Territories, the Eastern and Southeast parts of France and the Cities and Townes therein scituated, also the North East or more Easterly parts of Denmark, that or those parts of the Polonian Countries or Provinces which are bordering or adjacent unto the unruly Cossacks, and those Cities and Towns in the upper Silesia, which lye neer unto the Borders or Confines of the Turks Dominions, the Dukedom of Burgundy; the Swedish Nation and Souldiery are also more or lesse, and many of their Towns subject unto the Sign Aries, and therefore in all or most of these Countries by us nominated, there will be some violent distempers in the people, some slaughter of men, and casually by one accident or other much damage in many of their principal Cities or Sea-towns by Fire, War, inroads of Pyrates or souldiers, &c.”
“When Venus shall be Lady of the yeare and unfortunate, as now she is in the seventh house; Women will more than ordinary scold with their Husbands, and run twatling and scolding out of their houses: many Men will depart, or run, separate or divorce themselves from their Wives. This unnaturall Deportment of Women unto their Husbands and Men unto their Wives, is increased by the nearnesse of Venus unto Mars, and his positure in the seventh House, which signifieth Women, their loves and affections either unto their Husbands or others. In that House he is ‘Damnofus & malus, quia significat inimicitias & discordias magnas, & accident hominibus furta interfectiones & contentiones multæ & rixæ in illo anno maximeq in gent illius Climatis.’ Mars is very unfortunately placed in the seventh house, signifying there will be many controversies, Law-suits, Duels, much enmity, many Thefts by Sea & Land, much robbing of Houses; and these shall most apparantly manifest themselves in the Country, City or Towne subject unto the sign he is in, of which we have formerly treated.”
The eclipse of the sun, 29th March, 1652, 9-56 a.m., is announced with hieroglyphic figures, followed by these remarks:—
“We intended to write a particular Treatise concerning the effects of this Eclips, which is the greatest this Age hath beheld, and in that Booke to have delivered unto Posterity a Method whereby they might have judged what manner of Effects should have been signified by any Defect of either of the two Luminaries; but our time at this present being otherwise taken up, we are confined to a narrow scantling of Paper: we hope some well-wishers unto Astrology will perfect what we intended on that Subject, being desirous to see the Labours of other Men abroad, the whole burthen hereof being too heavy for one Anglicus.”
The idlest tales were believed and credited as facts, and men more cunning than the common herd thrived by magical and cabalistic spells they were supposed to cast upon evil spirits. The clergy dealt in exorcisms, and in surplice and stole performed the rites of the Church. They condemned witchcraft, however, as heresy; and as early as the reign of Henry VIII. a statute was passed which enacted that any person, after the day therein named, devising, practising, or exercising “any invocations, or conjurations of spirits, witchcrafts, enchantments, or sorceries, to the intent to get or find money or treasure, or to waste, consume, or destroy any person in his body, members, or goods, or to provoke any person to unlawful love, or for any other unlawful intent or purpose, or by occasion or colour of such things or any of them, or for despite of Christ, or lucre of money, dig up or pull down any cross, or crosses, or by such invocations or conjurations of spirits, witchcrafts, enchantments, or sorcery, or any of them, take upon them to tell or declare where goods stolen or lost shall be come—that then all and every person or persons offending as before is mentioned, shall be deemed, accepted, and adjudged a felon or felons, without benefit of clergy.” This act was carefully worded, inasmuch as it only extends to witchcraft or enchantment practised with a criminal or unlawful intent.
Men with very much less learning than the author quoted, lived by their wits, from their supposed knowledge of the stars, and from being able, as they professed, to consult the planets and to restore lost property. Men, and women too, would take long journeys to consult one who could “read the stars,” or “rule the planets.” From a conversation recorded by a close observer of men and manners in the beginning of the present century, for instance, we learn that one of these wise men who lived as far off as Oswestry was occasionally consulted by the inhabitants here. Of course it was easy with a little tact for the wife to worm out the main facts in one room whilst the husband listened and gathered them up for use in another. Tom Bowlegs having missed a five-pound note from his cupboard holds the following conversation with a friend, who tells him he cannot help thinking that the note has been mislaid, not stolen, and says:—
“The five-pound peaper is not stolen but lost, and thee’lt be sartin to find it.
No sich thing Yedart, replies Bowlegs; for I went to the wise-mons and he tow’d me all about it.
The wise-mon! what wise-mon?
Dick Spot that lives slip side Hodgistry the yed of aw the conjurors in Shropshire.
Aye, and what did he tell thee?
Well, thee shalt hear:
As a five-pound paper was a jell for a poor mon to lose, I determined to know all about it, so off I set for Dick Spot’s house. After knocking at the door it was opened by an owd woman, as ugly as the divil himself, with a face as black as the easter. At first seet I thought I was tean to, and was for bowting; but wishing to know all about the paper, I mustered aw my courage, and went in. Pray, said I, is the Wise-mon a-whoam. No, said she, but he will directly; sit down; I suppose you have lost something, and wants to know where it is. Yes, said I, you bin reet. What is it that you have lost? So I up and tow’d her, aw abowt it. Just as I had finished, in comes the wise-mon; and he (to my great surprise) said—follow me into this room; while I was scraping wi mi foot, dewking mi yed, and stroking my yarr down, amounting altogether to a nation fine beawe, he said—I was consulting the planets this morning and found that a £5 Shiffnal bank note had been stolen from under a sugar bason in your cupboard on Wednesday morning last, between the hours of nine and ten o’clock, by a tall mon, with a long visage marked by the small pox, gray eyes, and black beard. (Wonderful! said I, that is the very mon I suspect!) You will therefore, on your return home, make it known in his neighbourhood that if the bill is not returned in one week from this day, that he will lose one of his legs in a few weeks after. If this comes to his ears I have no doubt the bill will be returned immediately, but if he does not, he shall be marked as I have told you, and in that case the bill will be irrecoverable. I knew by the planets that you would be here at 12 o’clock to-day, and having overstaid my time at Hodgistry (here he wiped the sweat from his face). I ran all the way to be in time to meet you.”
The devil, or “divil,” seems to have been an important personage, often making bargains, in which he not unfrequently got worsted. There were too familiar imps or demons, according to John Heywood’s homely rhymes,—
“Such as we
Pugs and Hobgoblins call; their dwellings be
In corners of old houses least frequented,
Or beneath stacks of wood; and these convented
Make fearful noise in butteries and in dairies,
Robin Goodfellows some, some call them fairies.
In solitarie rooms these uproars keep,
And beat at doors to wake men from their sleep,
Seeming to force locks be they ne’re so strong
And keeping Christmasse gambols all night long.”
That merry wanderer, Puck, even as late as the present century, was common to our fields, where he seems to have had a partiality for simple countrymen, market-fresh, whom he led many a weary dance in fields out of which they could not find their way. He was occasionally domiciled in the kitchen, and was useful in sweeping up the hearth while housewives snored in bed. Farmhouses were favourite residences; but woe to the dairymaid who happened to offend them! Her milk was sure to turn sour. They haunted mines sometimes, and used the pick to help forward the midnight task, or became malignant and caused inundations of water, or let loose noxious vapours to destroy both mine and miners. On one occasion a miner named Bagley, who preferred being let down when all the rest had ascended the shaft, in order to have the assistance of an imp, was watched by another, who concealed himself for the purpose. But the imp, who was working whilst the man rested, discovered him and called upon his friend to bump him against the timber for his intrusion. On being caught a second time, the imp raised an alarm—“He peeps again, Bagley; bump him!” showing that the sprite or whatever he was could speak English. As a supposed proof of the truth of this, Bagley was called “Bump him, Bagley!” to his dying day.
An old inhabitant of Madeley who believed thoroughly in such things told us that he once looked through a hole into an old building on a moonlight night, and saw a score of spirits of this kind dancing right merrily! He also assured us that an old woman, whose name he gave us, but which we do not remember, was accounted a witch, and had the power to change herself into a hare; and that on one occasion she was hunted by the hounds, who ran her to her cottage, on the Brockton road, where she took the chimney, and was found sitting by the fire, her hands and feet bleeding from the run. 121
If the clergy of those days believed in evil eyes, witchcraft, and ghosts, it was to be expected that the people would do so, too. They stood alone on a mental as on a religious eminence. The knell of ecclesiastical authority had not then been rung; civil incapacity and inferiority was the tacit proscription of all outside the pale of the Church; and what we glean of morals and manners under the rigid system of godly discipline then prevailing is not much in its favour.
Madeley, towards the latter end of the past and beginning of the present century was favoured above many neighbouring parishes in its clergy. It had men who led tranquil, holy lives, and some who proclaimed the conscience of the individual to be the only judge in matters of the soul,—men who were, it is true, ill-rewarded for their pains, but who lived beneficent lives, and rendered disinterested service.
Such were John William de la Fletcher and Melville Horne, the latter of whom went out as a missionary, and established the colony of Sierra Leone; and others who succeeded them. Let us speak first, however, of the former.