'I read Prayers this morning being the 5 of November': Parson Woodforde, the Gunpowder Plot service, and New Georgians
Good Parson Woodforde's diary entry for 5th November 1768 is jarring. When the diaries were first published in 1924, editor John Beresford referred to "the peace which breathes from Parson Woodforde's pages". It is this which has made the good Parson beloved to many in the century since. But this entry for 5th November 1768 does not breathe such peace.
Or does it? Let us begin with with his opening phrase, "I read Prayers this morning". It is, of course, a very oft-repeated phrase in Woodforde's diaries, marking each Sunday. It was also the conventional clerical language for officiating at divine service in the 18th century and extending into the 19th. The phrase here, then, on 5th November 1768, reminds us of the rhythms and patterns of the year for Parson Woodforde and his parishioners.
Or some of his parishioners. In an earlier 5th November entry, for 1763, in the parish of Thurloxton, he noted that the congregation was small. This seems to reflect the fact that the Gunpowder Plot service, and the other two states services, had long lost the resonance they had in the decades between the Restoration and the Revolution of 1688. While almost a century after Parson Woodforde led the 5th November service in 1768, the 1858 House of Lord's debate on the 'Political Services of the Church of England' testified how the state services had long ceased to be a meaningful aspect of the worship of the Established Church.
In the debate, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated:
the State services are already practically obsolete ... those services have fallen into desuetude, and it is more seemly that they should be regularly abolished than irregularly disregarded.
The Bishop of London referred to their observance in cathedrals:
Greatly as he regretted that the congregations in cathedrals were not large at other times, if their Lordships went there on the occasions when the State services were used they would find the congregations diminished almost to those who were hired to attend in an official capacity.
The Bishop Oxford likewise noted:
although they stood prescribed for popular use, they had nevertheless sunk into disuse.
The contribution of the Bishop of Cashel in the debate particularly brings us close to the time of Woodforde:
The services in question, he said, had fallen into general disuse. He had been for half a century a clergyman of the Church of England, and he believed he had not heard those services ten times in his life. He asked why services which had fallen into such desuetude that the people at large were not acquainted with them should still be bound up along with the Book of Common Prayer?
If, as seems very likely, there was a small congregation in the parish church of Castle Cary, Somerset, on that 5th November in 1768, there is a significant contrast to be made with another state service at which Parson Woodforde 'read Prayers'. 13th December 1776 was appointed a fast day, with prayer to be offered for His Majesty's forces in the face of the American rebellion. Woodforde stated in his diary:
Dec. 13th ... This day being appointed a Fast on our Majesty’s arms against the rebel Americans, I went to Church this morning and read the Prayers appointed for the same. I had as full a congregation present as I have in an afternoon on a Sunday, very few that did not come.
If, as we assume, Woodforde was joined by only a small congregation for the Gunpowder Plot service in 1768, the full church on Friday 13th December 1776 suggests that state services could continue to resonate, but that this was not the case with the Gunpowder Plot service. The machinations of 'Popish conspirators' in 1605 were, after all, very far removed from the concerns and experience of the parishioners of Castle Cary and Weston Longville in the latter decades of the 18th century, unlike a rebellion tearing asunder the British Empire in 1776.
What, then, of the wording of Woodforde's diary entry for 5th November 1768? It is surely the case that he is deliberately echoing the language of the Prayer Book's Gunpowder Plot service:
From this unnatural Conspiracy, not our merit, but thy mercy; not our foresight, but thy providence delivered us ... hellish malice of Popish conspirators ...
There is very good reason, however, to not interpret Woodforde's diary entry as actually expressing his views regarding Roman Catholics. That the plot was "hellish" was, of course, obvious for a faithful son of the Church of England - or, indeed, for any subject of King George III. But there is no evidence that Woodforde regarded his fellow-subjects who were Roman Catholics to be the same as the Powder Plot conspirators - indeed, the evidence points to the contrary. The spectre of Popery certainly does not hang over his diaries. As with Parson White, his concern was not with Popery but with anti-Popery mobs. This is evident from his entries regarding the Gordon Riots:
Shocking accounts on the Papers of dreadful Riots in London fomented by Lord George Gordon... The Mob have done immense damage. The King's Bench Prison, the Fleet Prison, the New Compter, with many Houses belonging to the Roman Catholicks burnt to the ground. Upwards of 20,000 Military Men are in London to quell the Mob (14th June 1780);
Accounts from London say that all is quiet there at present, but the Nobs and Mobs have a list of every Roman Catholic Chapel and School throughout the Kingdom, particularly of every new one, and have dispatched their emissaries to go from town to town and destroy them (20th June 1780).
It is clear that Woodforde believes that the King's Peace should embrace Roman Catholic subjects, their property, and chapels, against the mob.
Likewise, amidst the dechristianisation pursued by the French Revolution, and the associated anti-clerical violence, Woodforde - following the example of the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England - generously contributed to relief funds for those Roman Catholic clergy who sought sanctuary in the realm of George III. In April 1793, in a declaration addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, lamenting "the dreadful persecutions of the French Clergy", George III directed "that the Ministers in each Parish may be enjoined to exhort their Parishioners to a liberal Contribution towards carrying on this Charitable Work". The Archbishop of Canterbury, in his communication to the bishops, described this as "so pious and excellent a Work".
The response of the Church of England to the plight of the French clergy was captured by Bishop Horsley in a 1793 sermon to the House of Lords:
Nice scruples about external forms, and differences of opinion upon controvertible points, cannot but take place among the best Christians, and dissolve not the fraternal tie: None are at this time more entitled to our offices of love than those with whom the difference is wide, in points of doctrine, discipline, and external rites - those venerable exiles, the prelates and clergy of the fallen Church of France.
The clergy and laity of the Church of England responded with generosity. In the Abbey Church of Bath, a collection raised the equivalent in 2026 terms of over £7,000. Woodforde records his own generous donation of £2.25, now the equivalent of approximately £400. The good Parson would have heartily agreed with the words of a sermon preached in support of these collections:
Tell an Englishman a tale of distress, or shew him a miserable object; he stays not to enquire whether the faith of the sufferer be similar to his own, or whether his life and conversation deserve favour: the present sufferings of the object are enough for him; he looks no farther: he draws not aside the veil, nor scrutinizes with uncharitable curiosity into the merits of the sufferer: he remembers that if one on whom he himself depends for mercy, were extreme to mark what is done amiss, that no one could abide it: he considers only the man, the fellow-creature, the fellow-sufferer; and he gratifies the finest feelings ofhis heart, by relieving his brother. But when he finds that the object is a fellow christian, (however in certain doctrines he may differ from him) that he is persecuted for a conscientious adherence to what he has been taught to believe the true-faith; and that if he had not been animated by a fervent sense of loyalty to his sovereign, and of religion to his God, he might have remained in quiet possession of his accustomed worldly prosperity, our generous compassion rises: and love, esteem, pity, and admiration, are combined in our sentiments towards this character.
This radically different approach to Roman Catholicism than that found in the Gunpowder Plot service was famously referenced by Burke in his Reflections:
Violently condemning neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the Protestant; not because we think it has less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our judgment, it has more.
'Since heats are subsided.' The implication of Burke's words - and, indeed, it is borne out by his favourable accounts of pre-1789 encounters with French Catholic clergy in the Reflections - is that the heats of theological controversies had subsided before the Revolution. With the permanent defeat of the Jacobite threat in 1745, great power rivalry, not confessional conflict, shaped the relationship with France. The clerical response to the sectarian violence of the Gordon Riots demonstrated infinitely greater concern with the mob than with 'Popery'. The bishops of the Church of England did not invoke anti-Popery in opposition to the 1774 Quebec Act - indeed, they accepted the Act as necessary for the peace of the Empire. As a result, the gracious generosity displayed towards the exiled French Catholic clergy by the Church of England post-1789 was not surprising.
Woodforde's diaries, however, are not the stuff of high politics. It is a parson's diary, recollecting the events, relationships, and rhythms of life in a local community. And it is here that we see that his response to the Gordon Riots and his generosity to the exiled French clergy had deep roots. Two diary entries from 1765 demonstrate how Woodforde did not view his Roman Catholic neighbours through the prism of the Gunpowder Plot service.
Firstly, we note his comments from 28th February, on meeting Mr. Taton:
Spent part of the afternoon at Mr. Lewis Bowers with him, his brother Parson Gapper of East Charleton, and on Mr. Taton, a Roman. Mr. Taton is a young, sensible man of great wealth.
Here, then, are two Parsons and a gentleman of the Church of England spending time with a Roman Catholic, whose character Woodforde praises. There is no sense whatsoever of discomfort from any of the parties. And there is a complete absence of any suggested censure of the young man's confession.
On 4th March, Woodforde records:
On my return home I called upon Mr. Andrew Russ at Clanville, and spent the remaining part of the afternoon with him, Mr. Dod a Baker and a Roman Catholick, Mr. Thomas and Seth Burge. Mr. Dod and myself touched a little upon Religion, which I own was not right at all.
He regrets that Mr. Dod had "touched a little upon Religion", a phrase that suggests little more than passing comments, perhaps a mere mention of confessional identity. Even this, however, provokes regret in Woodforde. This - together with the encounter with Mr. Taton - speaks of Woodforde's commitment to virtues beloved of Georgian Anglicanism, neighbourliness and communal harmony.
All of which brings us back to Parson Woodforde in Castle Cary on 5th November 1768. A loyal, faithful son of the Church of England, he would, without question, have been grateful for the failure of the Powder Plot. And, no doubt, he did view Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators as disloyal Papists. That, however, was in 1605. Parson Woodforde did not view his Roman Catholic fellow subjects as he viewed Fawkes.
To be clear, as a Tory country rector, he would have been opposed to Catholic Emancipation. He was, of course, instinctively loyal to the Protestant Succession and Constitution. And as for those who in the 1830s began to suggest that the Church of England was somehow not Protestant ... the good Parson would have been utterly mystified by such nonsense. But such constitutional and ecclesiastical allegiances were not a cause for bigotry. Nor was reading the 5th November service. By 1768 it had become a quaint custom, an echo of a time long past, a reminder of days when the heats had not subsided. As he read Prayers on that 5th November morning, Parson Woodforde would have had no interest in encouraging those Burke termed "miserable bigots":
For those of us who are New Georgians, it is comforting to know that old bigotries and hatreds did not shape Parson Woodforde. We see in him how those Georgian Anglican virtues of neighbourliness and communal harmony, expressions of - in the words of the Catechism - "thy duty towards thy Neighbour", ensured that the divisive terms and phrases from the 5th November service did not determine his relationships with his Roman Catholic neighbours. On this anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, may we learn from the good Parson and those Georgian Anglican virtues he lived out, virtues no less significant in our own times, amidst fears and hatreds promoted by 21st century "miserable bigots".
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