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"Roberts, Sexton, who was sent to them, that they would
"not come." Objection was taken by the Vestry to the
jurisdiction of the Ordinary in the matter of the information,
and the Vestry disowned the proceedings thereon. The
Vestry Clerk was thereupon instructed not to deliver any
of the books in custody to any person whatsoever without
an order of the Vestry, and an adjournment for a week was
agreed upon. When the business was resumed, the Church,
wardens offered an explanation as to the cause of their
leaving the former meeting; but their statement was contradicted
and ignored by the Vestry, who recorded their
opinion that the conduct of the Churchwardens was contrary
to the sense of the Vestry, an order being at the
same time given that Articles be exhibited against the
Churchwardens in the Spiritual Court for "their Contempt
"of the Ordinary, this Vestry, and their Orders." The
question of the employment of a sweeper and cleaner in the
church was at this time imported into the dispute, and was
included in the articles exhibited.
The trial took place in April, 1687—more than two years
later—when numerous witnesses, whose evidence is preserved,
were examined. The Court suspended Mr. England from
the office, and admonished Mr. Boult "for the future to
"behave himself more modestly, and with more respect to
"the Deaue and the Vestry, and to doe his duty." The decree
also installed one Mary Stroud in office as a sweeper, and
restored to the Vestry three books which Mr. England had
"by a surprise" taken to his custody.
After the conflict which the foregoing describes, it is a
little surprising to find the Vestry sanctioning the act of the
Churchwardens for the same year recorded in the Vestry
Minutes of 23rd August, 1685:—
The Churchwardens acquainted the Vestry that they have granted
to Madam Jepson libertie to make a casement to look into
the Churche for her convenency of hearing prayers as long as
she inhabitts in ye house adjoining to ye Church and passage
in St. Margarett's Lane.