The Committee for Plundered Ministers was appointed by the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septe ...

, then under the influence of the

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s, after the start of the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

in August 1643 for the purpose of replacing and effectively silencing those clergy who were loyal to King Charles I.

Investigations

The Committee for Plundered Ministers met in London, but it delegated much of its work to its sub-committees of which there was one for each county. It was initially envisaged that the committee would help ministers who were evicted from their livings by Royalists for supporting the Parliamentary cause (hence the name).Foster
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However, as Parliament gained the upper hand in the war, so the work of the committees became less to do with supporting clerics who supported their cause and more to do with suppressing those who supported the monarchy. The committee would hear evidence, often from local parishioners, of the errors in doctrine of the parish priest. If the allegations were proved, the rector was replaced and his property forcibly sequestered, so that he could only recover it by buying it back. Local parishioners sometimes used the committee's activities as an opportunity to get rid of clergy they did not like. The committee also acted as trustee, allocating money collected from rent of rectory lands to support priests in their roles throughout Britain. These sequestrated clergy were described as "scandalous", which meant that either they supported the Royalist cause, or their theological attitudes were

high Anglican The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...

, or both. Often the two went hand in hand because, in a religious age, some of the political differences about how the country should be governed were over the laws on how church affairs should be organised and the details of how services should be conducted. An example of the worst sort of "scandalous" behaviour (from the point of view of Parliament and its supporters) was Griffith Williams, who at the start of the Civil War was

Bishop of Ossory The Bishop of Ossory () is an episcopal title which takes its name after the ancient of Kingdom of Ossory in the Province of Leinster, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but in the Church of Ireland it has ...

. He remained a committed Royalist throughout the war, writing pamphlets and preaching against Parliament. During the

Interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...

he lived in poverty because of the sequestration that was imposed on his property. Although during this period powerful friends found him livings, he could not take them because he would not take an oath of allegiance to Parliament. He was finally restored to his bishopric after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

Notes

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References

Archives in London and the M25 area
Senate House Library, University of London Accessed 1 April 2008. * Foster, William Edward, (Annotator (c. 1891)) ''The Plundered Ministers of Lincolnshire; Being Extracts from the Minutes of the Committee of Plundered Ministers'', Guildford : Printed by Billing and Sons
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The

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English Civil War Puritanism in England

Investigations

See also

Notes

References