Thrale history

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immediately began to make a careful record of all baptisms, marriages and burials. The oldest document at Sandridge is the first parish register, which records the baptisms from 1559, the marriages from 1593, and the burials from 1558. The earliest marriage entries appear to have been torn out. During the first six months of Elizabeth’s reign the use of the Latin Mass was retained but "to put an end to the disorders that had arisen from violent sermons on both sides, preaching was forbidden by proclamation which allowed the gospel and the Epistle and the Ten Commandments to be read in English but without any exposition".³

By the summer of 1559 the English Prayer Book was restored, in a revised form, and the aggressive clause in the Litany about the tyranny of the Pope was deleted. In the same year an outstanding event in church history came about with the consecration of Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury. The majority of English bishops derive their orders through this Archbishop. It was fifty-seven years later that the Roman Catholics, realising the importance of his consecration in establishing a continuity with the ancient Catholic Church, and in order to throw doubt on its validity, invented a story known as the Nag’s Head Fable, which is no longer believed by anyone. The Church of England continued to be in communion with the Catholic churches on the continent and with the Pope himself for over eleven years during the reign of Elizabeth. But in 1588 a new pope, Pius V, was elected, and it was he who in 1570 excommunicated our Queen, and all her subjects, clergy or laity, who remained loyal to her. He then proceeded to send missionaries to England to pervert English churchmen to the popish religion. Such was the origin of the Roman Catholic Church in England.

In 1598 a national order was sent out to keep the records of baptisms, marriages and burials in a parchment book. The vicar obtained such a book and copied out the available records for the previous forty years. The original papers were lost and thenceforth the entries were made straight into this book, which is still carefully preserved. On the fly leaves are some rough notes showing how the problem of poor relief was dealt with by the Church in the time of the vicar, William Westerman. The alms of the people were dropped through holes in the lid of the church chest which had three different locks and keys, so that it could only be opened in the presence of the vicar and both churchwardens. As Sandridge was then in the diocese of London, the famous William Laud was the Bishop from 1628 to 1633. From the latter year until his execution in 1645 he was Archbishop of Canterbury and he did his best to see that the churches were properly furnished. Thus, on St. Leonard’s day 1638 an inventory of church property containing twenty-eight articles was handed in at the Archdeacon’s Court, signed by the vicar and by the two churchwardens. This inventory shows that the altar was restored to its proper place at the east end and covered with a linen cloth.

The sanctuary was railed off as now and had a green carpet. There was a silver chalice with lid, a large pewter flagon and two pewter dishes. The font, which stood by a pillar near the north door, had a wooden lid, which was covered with green cloth. The pulpit was old and had to be replaced⁴ the following year, but in the meantime too was decked in green and had a green cushion and a cover above it. There was a bierfor burials and a surplice for the priest. None of the three bells in the lower were cracked, and all had adequate ropes; one of them bore the inscription: Sancta Maria ora pro nobis⁵ "Holy Mary pray for us". Over three hundred years have passed since this inventory was compiled, and there remain today only three of the articles there-listed, namely, the font, the register and one pewter dish.

The war between King and Parliament broke out in 1642. Three years later King Charles was decisively defeated at the battle of Naseby, the Archbishop of Canterbury was executed and Parliament controlled the church and proceeded to forbid the use of the Book of Common Prayer. They put in its place the Directory, which gave the outlines upon which Puritan meetings were to be conducted in all churches. A fine of £5, and £10 for the second offence, was imposed on all who were found using the prayer book, whether in church or at home. In Hertfordshire forty-seven parish priests were ejected from their posts. Sandridge caught a glimpse of the civil war, when 500 cavalierhorsemen passed through the village, fleeing from a defeat at Kingston-on-Thames, and hotly pursued.⁶

From 1685 onwards misfortune fell upon the parish, in that the fabric fell into worse and worse decay. Lord Churchill, Baron of Sandridge, repaired the chancel, but in 1693 the tower fell down and was demolished. The traditional date, 1688, for the fall of the tower is based on an inaccuracy of Nathaniel Salmon who, writing in 1728, said: "The steeple hath been down and lain in rubbish almost forty years, without any endeavour to repair it, to the great shame of the inhabitants".⁷ The churchwardens’ report in 1691 makes no mention of the disaster. There is no report for 1692, but in the following year they report: "At a Vestry held by the churchwardens and neighbours of Sandridge for surveying the steeple lately fallen down and totally demolished. The cost or charge of the reparations thereof is valued at seven hundred pounds by us, the surveyors".

Footnotes

1. H.O.Wakeman, History of the Church of England, p.288.↩︎
2. J.E.Cussans, Inventory of Furniture and Ornaments remaining in all the parish churches of Hertfordshire during the last six years of the reign Ed.VI, transcribed from the original Records, pp.26 and 27.↩︎
3. Proctor and Frere, History of the Book of Common Prayer, p.96.↩︎
4. Edward Steele who visited Sandridge in 1715. His notes about the Church are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, (Gough Herts MSS4).↩︎
5. A.Kingston, Herts. during the Civil War, p.83.↩︎
6. History of Herts., p.67.↩︎
7. The St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, in their TRANSACTIONS 1904, p.41.↩︎