One good clergyman, Dr. Parr, vicar of Hatton, placed an interesting
record in his Prayer Book after the required erasure: "It is my duty as
a subject and as an ecclesiastic to read what is prescribed by my
Sovereign as head of the Church, but it is not my duty to express my
approbation." The sympathy of the people was with the injured Queen, and
they knew not how much the clergy agreed with them. During the trial
popular excitement ran high. In a Berkshire village the parish clerk
"improved the occasion" by giving out in church "the first, fourth,
eleventh, and twelfth verses of the thirty-fifth Psalm" in Tate and
Brady's New Version:
"False witnesses with forged complaints
Against my truth combined,
And to my charge such things they laid
As I had ne'er designed."
These words he sang most lustily.
Cowper mentions a similar application of psalmody to political affairs
in his _Task_:
"So in the chapel of old Ely House
When wandering Charles who meant to be the third,
Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,
The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,
And eke did rear right merrily, two staves
Sung to the praise and glory of King George."
It was not an unusual thing for a parish clerk to select a psalm suited
to the occasion when any special excitement gave him an opportunity.
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