Chapter I: Penal Times

Distribution of Catholics in Chester in 1590.

Uncertainty and confusion in Tudor Times

By the opening years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Chester was, to all intents and purposes, a Protestant city.2 The intervening period, from 1541 to 1559, must for many people have been a time of uncertainty and confusion, as the official religious policy swung to and fro with the change of monarch. The vast majority of the clergy, who seem to have been "quiet and submissive", retained their positions, some as late as Elizabeth's reign. A few even improved them. Richard Walker, the last Dean of the Collegiate Church of St. John's, was appointed Dean of the new Cathedral, while William Wall, the last Guardian of the Franciscan Friary became Subdean, a post he occupied until his death in 1573. He was buried under the West Wall of the Cathedral, which used to bear the inscription:­

Under this window lies William Wall, late Prebendary of this Church and formerly a Minorite, son of William Wall, a poor hermit who after the death of his wife ... led a solitary life in prayer, fasting and meditation.

How strange an exchange for the son of a poor hermit and spiritual son of the humble St. Francis!

Nicholas Bucksey, the ex-prior of St. Werburgh's, died in his old home in 1567, as a canon of the Cathedral, and Robert Bower, perpetual vicar of St. John's, retained his post there until 1559. Certainly some of the religious and especially the friars, found the pensions they received from the government insufficient to support them in their new life. In 1549 the churchwarden of Holy Trinity gave 3d. to a poor priest who may have been a monk or friar, and two years later he lent 10s. to "Sir Rafe the curate", who was also described as "frere Rafe".

Only one priest is recorded as suffering serious loss for his loyalty to the old faith. This was David Pole, a canon of St. John's. From St. John's he had moved to a Prebend in Lichfield Cathedral, where in Mary's reign he became Vicar General to the Bishop of Lichfield. In 1557 he was made Bishop of Peterborough, but Elizabeth deprived him of his office. Allowed freedom on parole, he spent his remaining years in London, "an ancient and grave person and a very quiet subject". He died in 1568.

In the parish churches, the attempts during the 1540's to carry on the old Catholic ritual side by side with the new ideas, and the rapid changes which followed in the 1550's are reflected in such Churchwardens' Accounts as have survived.3 John Cotgrave, the churchwarden of Holy Trinity from 1537 to 1547, went on buying the old familiar things, "tapers, candles, and holly at Christmas, and frankincense", but in 1542 he added to his purchases 6s. for a Bible, together with the cost of its carriage from London and the making of a reading desk for it. Six years later, the altars in the church were removed, and in 1549 the tabernacle followed.

The same changes were taking place in St. Mary's on the Hill, in obedience to the injunctions of the government. In the early 1540's, this church still possessed several sets of vestments, choir and processional books, bells including the "anthem bell" rung at the Elevation in the Mass, and candles burning before the statue of St. Stephen. At Christmastide 1544, the usual holly and the star appeared, and a purse was purchased "to carry the sacrament", but three years later the Rood was removed, and the paintings and the ornamentation on the walls obliterated by white-wash. More sweeping changes still came in the 1550's, as here also the altars were taken away and the floor tiled so that no trace remained and copes and vestments were disposed of by sale.

In 1553, churchwardens in all the churches were obliged to draw up lists of sacred vessels and vestments, showing what they needed to retain for the use of the parish, and what they were handing over to the King's Commissioners. Included among those at St. Mary's "kept in safety for the use of the parish" were a cope and chasuble of cloth of gold, while two other copes, four chasubles and two tunicles were handed over to the Commissioners. At the same time a quantity of church goods, including banners, hangings for the altars and two pyxes were sold for £3. £10 13s. 4d. had already been realised in an earlier sale, the largest sum paid in any church in Chester. At St. Michael's, the sale of copes, vestments and ornaments brought in only 15s. 9d., but the Commissioners allowed the church to keep a gilt chalice and paten, two vestments of green and red satin which were altered to be made into a carpet for the pulpit, altar linen, service books, three bells and two chests. In all this, Catholic practices, and in particular the celebration of Mass, were gradually being eroded away, and the more extreme services of the Reformers introduced.