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16
PART II.
Local Government in Westminster from the
Reformation to 1728.
Alternating and wavering as were the changes which
accompanied the spread of the Reformation to England in
the middle of the sixteenth century, a flood of light seemed
then, as it were, to impart vitality to the institutions of
the country. To the tendency to progress which was at
once developed, stimulated as it was by the spirit of
freedom, the condition of the popular mind, and the protection
and favour with which Henry VIII. regarded
Westminster, may be attributed a truly prosperous era in
the annals of the parish.
Gradual
recognition
of the Laity.
As the priestly supremacy subsided, the laity
spontaneously, though gradually, assumed direct
and important functions in parochial matters. The inhabitant
householders of Westminster began to meet in
Vestry—possibly as an open assembly of parishioners
until about 1590, thenceforward as a "select" Vestry—
exercising direct powers in a multiplicity of ways, far
greater than modern experience would suggest. In addition
to the regulation of matters pertaining to the Church, to
the relief of the poor, and to the repair of the highways and
bridges, the Vestry of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries assumed much more than nominal functions in
the constitution of their corporate assembly, in defining
the parish boundaries, on the questions of fire-prevention,
"local option," paving, street cleansing, lighting and
watching, the suppression of popery, the punishment of
vagrants, and on such matters as the custody of registers,
the water supply and sewerage system, burials, and even
in the choice of candidates for parliamentary honours, not