still keeping its name, cannot even be called the village green, because it is a green without any village. The narrow strips of ground which formed the ancient burgagetenures are still in many cases to be seen fringing the forsaken streets. How many houses there may be besides the public-house and the town-hall, which last is now irreverently dwelled in, we do not accurately know, but we suspect that they might be counted on the fingers. Certainly, through all the streets and squares of Newtown we saw but a single inhabitant. He was but an old man driving a cow; still, as he was the only man whom we saw at all, our heated imagination at once clothed him with the dignity of Portreeve of the fallen commonwealth. But on more minute inquiries we found our mistake. Newtown never was so highly honoured. London once had her Portreeves so had Yeovil; Kenfig and Langport have their Portreeves still.* But Newtown never had anything better than a French Mayor; nay, the town itself once had a French name. The borough was incorporated in the days of Henry the Third by the King's half-brother, Aylmer Bishop of Winchester, whose name, which had wandered so far from its Teutonic root, Englishmen seem to have pleased themselves by translating back again into Æthelmar. In his days the town was Francheville, and the name of Francheville may still be seen on the corporate seal, and the corporate seal may be seen, if nowhere else, as the sign of the local ale-house. The town had charters from Edward the Second and Edward the Third, but the first and greatest of the name is not mentioned in connexion with Francheville. Yet one is strongly tempted to see his hand-the hand of the founder of more than one Francheville-in the regularly laid out streets, reminding us of Winchelsea and Libourne. Local history tells us that an attack in the French war ruined Francheville or Newtown, that it never * [They have perished since. I know of no more thoroughly wanton piece of innovation than the suppression of those harmless and picturesque survivals of an elder time.] XVII.] NEWTOWN. 325 recovered from the blow, and that the neighbouring town of Newport rose to prosperity on its downfall. And now here comes the fact which should be remembered; Francheville or Newtown never sent members to Parliament till long after the day of its ruin. The creation of Bishop Aylmer had no share in the national councils till the reign of Elizabeth. It is plain that the claim of Newtown to parliamentary honours was that it had already sunk into decay. XVIII. THE CASE OF THE DEANERY OF EXETER, THE suit in the Court of Queen's Bench which followed the election made to the deanery of Exeter in 1839 brings out several questions which, though in form legal, may seem to come within the understanding of some laymen. The matter has now become purely historical, and the questions debated in the pleadings are never likely to be raised again. Good care indeed was taken that they should not be raised again. The story in short comes to this. After an illegal interference on the part of the Crown for more than two hundred and fifty years, the Chapter of Exeter asserted their right to the choice of their own Dean. They proved their right in the Court of Queen's Bench, and the right thus proved was immediately taken from them by Act of Parliament. If at any time from Henry the Eighth onwards, and perhaps for some time before Henry the Eighth, an ordinary man had been asked in what hands was the appointment to the deaneries of the cathedral churches of England (not reckoning Wales), he would most likely have answered, without a moment's stopping to think, that it was in the hands of the Crown. And, at any rate from Henry the Eighth's time onward, the answer would have been formally true in some cases and practically true in all. I feel safe in saying that, at least from Henry the Eighth's time till now, only one dean of an English cathedral church has been appointed without the nomination of the Crown. This was Thomas Hill Lowe, who was elected Dean of Exeter XVIII.] APPOINTMENTS TO DEANERIES. 327 in 1839. He was elected, not only without the nomination of the Crown, but in direct opposition to a nomination of the Crown. The next year, in the judgement given in a suit brought by the Crown against the Chapter, he was declared by the Court of Queen's Bench to have been lawfully elected, and he kept his deanery for life. The thing must have been a little startling; it was a stirring incident in the commonly quiet routine of capitular matters. There had been nothing like it, in England at least, since the time of James the Second. Mr. Lowe filled an unique place in ecclesiastical history. All other English deans for some centuries past had either been directly appointed by the Crown or elected under a nomination from the Crown. Mr. Lowe alone was elected in the teeth of three successive attempts of the Crown to put other people in his place. How this came about needs some explanation, and the story which explains it has, possibly from the point of view of the lawyer, certainly from the point of view of the ecclesiastical antiquary, a good deal of interest. For my own part, I took some heed to such matters early, and I have always had a certain remembrance of the questions at issue, though of course not with the clear memory of an older person. Some local studies on the history of Exeter have lately drawn me again to the subject, and I have looked at the matter, both in more obvious documents and in the technical Report of the late Mr. Ralph Barnes.* The story opens a good many points in that mixed region where the historian is truly glad of the help of the lawyer, but where he ventures to think that he can sometimes give a little help back again. In going through the law and the facts as to the appointment to deaneries, everything that has to do with the newfoundation deaneries, those founded by Henry the Eighth, * Report of the Case of The Queen v. The President and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, regarding the Deanery of Exeter in the Queen's Bench in Easter and Trinity Terms, 1840. By Ralph Barnes, Chapter Clerk. London, 1841. has to be put aside. To these the Crown appoints directly. And to them may be added the old-foundation deanery of Wells, which was transferred to the direct appointment of the Crown by certain transactions in the reign of Elizabeth which might themselves form a curious subject of inquiry. What we have to deal with now is the rest of the oldfoundation deaneries of England proper, a class of which the deanery of Exeter is the youngest. The position of the old and new deaneries must be carefully distinguished. The distinction rests on a very simple principle, but a principle which involves the whole law of patronage. The Crown had the absolute nomination to the new-foundation deaneries, because of them it was founder and patron. It had of right nothing to do with the appointment to the oldfoundation deaneries, because of them it was not founder or patron. The words 'patron' and 'patronage' are words which have not exactly changed their meaning, but from which the greater part of their meaning has dropped off. The notion of appointing to something, the notion which has now become the main or rather sole idea of patronage, the notion from which indeed the word 'patronage' has been transferred to rights of appointments of other kinds, is rather an accident of the position of 'patron' than its essence. The patronus' or 'advocatus' of an ecclesiastical body was in idea the founder or his representative. He was strictly the patron, the advocate, the defender in words or deeds, of his own foundation or that of his forefather.* As such, he kept some rights and privileges over the foundation, a foundation which he might be called on to defend at the cost of some trouble or even risk; above all, he had some voice, in some shape or another, in its elections and appointments. The monastic or collegiate body, when its chief seat was vacant, applied to its 'patron' or 'founder' * [There were 'advocates' who became such by the choice of the monastery or other foundation; but the original advocates seem to be the founders. The same thing took place with towns and other communities, which found that a Schirmvogt was useful.] |