"The Offscouring of the Earth": the Pessimistic Theology of Canon
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Proc. Hampshire Field Club Archaeol Soc. 62, 2007, 202-207 (Hampshire Studies 2007) 'THE OFFSCOURING OF THE EARTH': THE PESSIMISTIC THEOLOGY OF CANON ABRAHAM MARKLAND OF WINCHESTER By WILLIAM GIBSON ABSTRACT theological views give a fascinating insight into the reaction of a clergyman to the turbulence The Revd Abraham Markland held a canonry of and disturbances of the fifty years during which Winchester and the mastership of St Cross Hospital, he worked in the diocese of Winchester. Winchester for over thirty years. He luas in many The outlines of Markland's career are only respects an obscure and little known churchman. thinly documented. He was born in 1645, the However the sermons he preached at Winchester son of a London apothecary, and educated Cathedral, luhich were published after his death in at Merchant Taylors' School and at St John's 1728, reveal him to have developed a distinctive College, Oxford. He graduated in 1666 and theological reaction to the turbulence of the period. was elected a fellow of his college. Markland In contrast to clergy who adopted High and Low was a convinced Tor)' and as a youth at Oxford Church responses to the religious debates of the time, he attracted attention by publishing poems and Whig or Tory reactions to the political events of commemorating, among other things, the the day, Markland. taught his congregation not to anniversaries of the births of Charles II and trust human endeavour and to avoid placing faith Prince Rupert and reflecting on the Great Fire in human ideas. It was a rare theological vieivpoint, of London (Markland 1667). He was ordained and one which found little purchase in the early years in 1672 and received a series of significant pre- of the enlightenment. Nevertheless, Markland's vieius ferments in the diocese of Winchester-perhaps show tfie diversity of reaction to the ideas and events because his loyalist sentiments found favour of the late seventeenth and. early eighteenth century. with successive Tory bishops of Winchester. After three years as rector of Brightstone, Isle Abraham Markland has not left much of a mark of Wight, he was appointed by Bishop George on history. He was a canon of Winchester and Morley to the living of Easton near Winchester master of St Cross in the late seventeenth and in 1677. A year later Morley appointed him to eighteenth centuries. He is best known for the valuable rectory of Houghton and in 1684 the 'custumal' which made the master of St to that of Meonstoke. In July 1679 Morley had Cross the receiver of all the hospital's revenues made Markland a canon of Winchester and in and gave him control of all the income of 1694 Bishop Peter Mews, Morley's successor and the hospital. In actual fact this had been a also a Tory, appointed him to the mastership makeshift solution to the problem of paying of St Cross Hospital - one of the prize appoint- for the dilapidations of his predecessor, but the ments in his gift. From 1694 Markland remained practice became permanent. By the nineteenth quietly in possession of his livings before his century, when the practice was overturned in death in July 1728 at the age of eighty-three. the courts, it was attacked as having become Thus Markland rose from relatively poor family 'a wilful breach of trust.' Thus Markland is origins to become a significant clergyman of remembered for one, apparently disreputable, the diocese of Winchester and a man of some action and his thought and theology have been wealth and position. largely forgotten (Spicer 2005). But Markland's Markland's elevated social status enabled him 202 GIBSON: THE PESSIMISTIC THEOLOGY OF CANON ABRAHAM MARKLAND OF WINCHESTER 2 0 3 to marry Catherine Pitt, daughter of Edward in the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II Pitt and Rachel Morton of Stratfield Save; their and in the entirely trumped up Popish Plot. In son, George, was born on 18 November 1678, such times sermons took on a political aspect and they also had a datighter, Jane. With his and Markland's sermon in October 1682 was second wife, Elizabeth (d. 1734), he had a son, no exception. The City of London was firmly in Abraham {d, 1705), who died in infancy, and Tory control and Markland's sermon was well two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne (Spicer received because it was a strongly Tory loyalist 2005). Of Markland's family we know little. statement. He denounced the Whigs and non- His son George was the author of Pteryplegia: conformists for a factionalism which had led or, the art of shooting-flying, a poem, published the City into degeneracy and contempt for its by Stephen Austen in 1727 (and erroneously governors. He attacked the Whigs as men who ascribed to Abraham Markland by the English were impenitent at the death of Charles 1, who Short Title Catalogue). A popular work, two would prefer to ignore the commemoration editions appeared more or less simultane- of the king's execution and who might treat ously, it was a remarkable and spirited poem Charles II in the same way as his father. All this on hunting pheasants and partridge. Markland was the standard fare of a Tory Cavalier Anglican had a daughter by his first wife, for whom he who sought to strengthen and entrench the invested money in the 1693 Tontine. In 1692 the Church and monarchy and to attack the forces 'Million Act', was passed with the aim of raising of Whiggery and nonconformity (Markland one million pounds for the government. For 1683). Thereafter Markland's mind seems to every hundred pounds paid in, the contribu- have turned to more philosophical matters. In tor, or their nominees, would receive a tax-free 1705 he published A divine poem in memory of the dividend for the life of the nominee. This late high wind commemorating the damaging dividend was 10% for the first seven years and storms of 1703 (HRO, HP260). 7% thereafter. Named after its Italian inventor, However Markland's 1682 sermon and his called Tontini, the scheme was known as the poetry were not his only forays into the public 1693 Tontine. The fund was undersubscribed forum. Two volumes of his sermons, preached by the closing date of 1st May 1693 and only while he was canon of Winchester, were printed £108,100 was advanced to the Million Fund, far in 1729 after his death. They were produced by short of the target. There were 1,012 individual John Pemberton, a London publisher who had nominees most of whom were young children, previously collaborated with Edmund Curll in including the twelve year old Jane Markland, printing the works of the Whig historian John described as 'daughter of Abraham Markland of Oldmixon (Rogers 2005). Pemberton printed Winton in the county of Southampton, clerk'. and sold books by the Golden Buck by St By 1749 there were still 269 nominees surviving Dunstan's church in Fleet Street. The volumes (Anon 1749). Abraham Markland was buried contain no information about their publica- in the south side of the chancel of the chapel of tion at all, nor of the occasions on which they St Cross. The pavement contains slabs to both had been preached, but - as there was no sub- Abraham Markland, and to Catherine, his wife scription for them - Pemberton must have who died in 1695 (VCH, v, 69). calculated that there was a sufficient market for Markland's only significant mark on national them, probably in Winchester as well as further events came in October 1682 when he preached afield. It seems a likely conjecture that the col- before the aldermen of the City of London. lection was edited by one of Markland's sons; 1682 was a moment of national disturbance and clearly Abraham Markland had preserved a unrest: King Charles II was aging and attempts number of his sermons. The volumes may have were being made by the Whigs to exclude his had a small print-run, since there survives only- Catholic brother, James, Duke of York from one copy of volume one and four of volume succeeding to the throne. There were rumours two according to the English Short Title Catalogue of plots and counterplots, which culminated (ESTQ. 204 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY The sermons, twelve in the first volume himself stranded on the wrong side of a divide and fifteen in the second, have largely gone when events moved on. unnoticed by historians. But they are an In Winchester, from the Restoration the important body of theology. They shed light bishopric had been held by a succession of on the opinions and views of a churchman Tory bishops, George Morley, Peter Mews and who lived through the years of the Restoration, Sir Jonathon Trelawny. But in 1721 the low the Glorious Revolution, the Hanoverian Suc- church Whig Charles Trimnell was appointed cession. These may have been the principal to Winchester, and two years later the even political events of Markland's life, but he also more staunchly latitudinarian Whig Richard lived through the religious turmoil of the res- Willis succeeded him. The churchmanship toration of the Church of England in 1660, of the diocese was thrown into reverse and the ejection of nonconformists in 1662, the Trimnell and Willis started to replace Tory persecution of dissenters under the Clarendon high churchmen with Whig low churchmen. Code, the Catholic menace of James II's reign, Markland would have seen this immediately the Toleration Act of 1689, the Convocation in his colleagues in the chapter of Winches- Controversy, the Sacheverell sermon and trial, ter, where TrimneH's son, William, became the Bangorian Controversy and the trial and dean in 1722 and the heterodox Alured banishment of Bishop Atterbury.