Banns were
published in the market-place, and the marriages were performed by
Cromwell's Justices of the Peace whom, according to a Yorkshire vicar,
"that impious and rebell appointed out of the basest Hypocrites and
dissemblers with God and man." The clerks' marriage ceremony was no
worse than that of the justices.
Dr. Macray, of the Bodleian Library, has discovered the draft of a
licence granted by Dr. John Mountain, Bishop of London, to Thomas
Dickenson, parish clerk of Waltham Holy Cross, in the year 1621,
permitting him to read prayers, church women, and bury the dead. This
licence states that the parish of Waltham Holy Cross was very spacious,
many houses being a long distance from the church, and that the curate
was very much occupied with his various duties of visiting the sick,
burying the dead, churching women, and other business belonging to his
office; hence permission is granted to Thomas Dickenson to assist the
curate in reading prayers in church, burying dead corpses, and to church
women in the absence of the curate, or when the curate cannot
conveniently perform the same duty in his own person.
Doubtless this licence was no solitary exception, and it is fairly
certain that other clerks enjoyed the same privileges which are here
assigned to Master Thomas Dickenson. He must have been a worthy member
of his class, a man of education, and of skill and ability in reading,
or episcopal sanction would not have been given to him to perform these
important duties.
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