The Annesleys And The Wesleys 25
THE ANNESLEYS AND THE WESLEYS
now comes a mere fledgling of a preacher to chastise them for their drunkenness and other excesses. They went at him with stones, even threatened his life, but the winsome good ness of his personality finally took over and made remarkable changes in this worldly parish.
But there were graver troubles in store for the young cleric. England was, then in the throes of a bitter conflict, both in politics and religion, between the Church and the Dissenters. The extremists on the Church side wanted an absolute monarchy in the realm and an ironclad episcopacy in the Church; the Dissenters demanded a limited monarchy in the realm and a Church government by presbyters or by a union of presb)rters and bishops. As the outcome of this strug gle, King Charles I was beheaded (January 30, 1649) and Oliver Cromwell was declared Protector. Annesley, like many a Nonconformist, was probably more Royalist than Roundhead in his political sympathies. Certainly he disapproved heartily of the execution of King Charles, but he did not hesitate to lash out against evils in either group and so found himself con stantly in hot water.
As early as his first pastorate he was called upon to preach before the House of Commons, and during a fiery discourse he antagonized the Royalists, still in the ascendency at that time, by an indirect but unmistakable censure of the king.
Later on when the Puritans came to power he publicly called Oliver Cromwell "the arrantest hypocrite the Church of Christ was* ever pestered with," and for this he was punished by being ousted from one of the most important parishes in England and transferred to the tiniest church in London (about 1650).
Oliver Cromwell, a ruthless ruler, did much for England in the five years of his Protectorate. Under his strong hand the country rose to heights of power and greatness. But in spite of their prosperity the people were not happy. They were used to a king, and a Puritan regime was too strict for most of them. Richard Cromwell who succeeded his father was too
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
weak for the role he inherited and retired to the Continent.
Then on May 25, 1660, the fleet arrived at Dover bearing the Merry Monarch, Prince Charles, returning from exile in Holland; He disembarked amid great pomp and ceremony, and England had a king again.
When the Dissenters saw that under the new regime the Church party showed no sign of forming a union with them, they appealed to the new king for discretionary powers in the conduct of their ministry. After all, the Church of England was Protestant, and therefore its clergy, the dissenting mem bers stoutly maintained, were entitled to some latitude in the use of the Prayer Book to conform to the dictates of their consciences.
The king was well aware that the Dissenters had helped to bring him back, so even before his actual return he made favorable promises to them. On March 25, 1661, King Charles
II appointed a commission with equal representation from both sides—eleven bishops and eleven Dissenting leaders, its purpose being to resolve this whole matter. This commission made some changes in the Prayer Book—the last changes made to this present day—^but the Church group was complete ly unyielding in its position. Again the Dissenters appealed to the king; but they were dealing with a pleasure-loving monarch who allowed the bishops to have their way.
From then on, stark tragedy moved nearer and nearer to Nonconformists like Samuel Annesley. Early in 1662, the legislature passed the Act of Uniformity whereby each minister of the Establishment must promise, among other things, com plete compliance with every word prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. This edict was considered by the Dissenters
"as wiping out all benefits of liberty of conscience that had been theirs since the Reformation." Fall in line, the law prescribed, or be ejected from your parish and preach no more from any Anglican pulpit in England! The same Act applied
THE ANNESLEYS AND THE WESLEYS 27
to all teachers and tutors under penalty of three months' imprisonment.
Again a group of the most eminent divines of London, Samuel Annesley among them, appealed to the king, and again they were overruled. In vain did Dr. Annesley's close relative, the Earl of Anglesea, plead with him to conform, promising the use of his vast influence for a place of high rank in the Church. Dr. Annesley remained firm.
And so on St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1662, Samuel Annesley and two thousand of his fellow priests preached to their people for the last time and went out for conscience's sake, not knowing whither they went.
For the next ten years, there is little record of Dr. Annesley except that he lived in London. Then in 1672, when the Declaration of Indulgence eliminated for all Dissenters the possibility of legal prosecution. Dr. Annesley set up a "meet ing house" in London called Little St. Helen's, which under his ministry became a large and influential church. He soon became a leader of the Puritans—a second St. Paul, they called him—helping to place Dissenting parsons, relieving their finan cial distress, and spending much time and energy upon young candidates for the ministry.
Dr. Annesley originally had a "good estate" which he devoted to charity. Perhaps it was during this trying period that his fortune disappeared. Many Nonconformist ministers upon their expulsion from their parishes were left with no source of livelihood whatever, and Dr. Annesley was always generous to a fault. Be that as it may, except for modest be quests to his son and his two unmarried daughters, his legacy was a mere shilling apiece to his children, and to Susanna he left his valuable papers and manuscripts.
It is a rather striking commentary on the magnanimity of Dr. Annesley that he never held it against his favorite daughter that she joined the Established Church, particularly when he himself paid such a heavy price for his nonconformity to that
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
faith. Doubtless he thought her entitled to an independence of opinion equal to his own when she dissented from the Dissenters!
There were marked differences between the temperaments of Susanna and her father. He was a social type and strode through the streets of London without hat or coat even in the bitterest weather, with a greeting for all he met. Susanna was quiet and contemplative, more penetrating in intellect. She was slower in making up her mind but unwavering once that had been accomplished. Her father was quicker on decisions but more willing to compromise than his daughter.
As is characteristic of that period, Susanna's mother is given little space by the historians. A second wife, she is thought to have been the mother of all except the oldest of Dr. Annesley's large family. Her piety and human understanding are the qualities universally mentioned. Her daughter Elizabeth re cords the "united" efforts of her parents for their children's education. Perhaps Susanna's mother, too, kept school for her children and set the pattern which was to have such amazing results in the training of the founders of Methodism.
The Wesleys also were an old family. Genealogists trace the ancestors of Samuel Westley (as he was enrolled at Oxford) far back before the Normans conquered England and before surnames were used. The forbears of this family fought in the crusades. Edward, one of the ancestors, set out for Palestine with Sir James Douglas and intended to place the heart of Robert Bruce in the Holy Sepulcher; he was killed by the Saracens in 1340. It was this encounter that "entitles the Wesleys to use the scallop shell in the quarterings of their family arms." ^ The Wesleys, like the Annesleys, seemed destined to live always in the thick of ecclesiastical conflict, and so it was with Bartholomew Wesley, the grandfather of Samuel. He was born
THE ANNESLEYS AND THE WESLEYS 29
in 1599, the same year as Oliver Cromwell, and was educated at Oxford in medicine and theology.
Bartholomew Wesley served acceptably in several parishes of his native Dorsetshire but like his grandson spoke out boldly whenever he saw fit, regardless of the consequences to his popularity. He joined the Puritans during the reign of Charles
I. After the Restoration he was driven from his living and forbidden by the Five Mile Act to go within that distance of any former parish. From then on he practiced medicine for a livelihood, preaching whenever he could do so with safety.
His son, John Wesley, the father of Samuel, was another firebrand but of a different type from his father Bartholomew.
He, too, was an Oxonian and won some fame in Oriental studies. He did not have regular ordination but was a sort of evangelist. Strangely enough, his way of preaching was strik ingly similar to that of the Methodists under his famous grandson.
He accepted the living of Winterboum, Whitchurch, under the "gathered church" which he had joined while at Oxford.
This small living was insufficient for the needs of his family, so he maintained himself by teaching school.
When the bishop of Bristol questioned his right to preach without ordination according to the strict forms of the Church of England, Mr. John Wesley in true Wesley fashioit defied him, and so effective was his preaching and so formidable his personality that the bishop decided not to "meddle" with him lon^r.
When the Restoration came, Mr. Wesley, too, dissented and even the bishop of Bristol could not save him. He moved from one church to another in rapid succession, with dire poverty his constant companion. In defiance of the Five Mile
Act of 1665, he persisted in preaching. Four times he was imprisoned and was tormented each time. He died at the age of thirty-four, crushed in body and spirit. He is buried in the churchyard at Preston in an undistinguished grave, deprived.
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
because of his dissent, of his proper place of burial in the church. His father Bartholomew, brokenhearted because of the persecution of his son, soon followed him in death.
"The opposition of Bartholomew and John Westley to the Common Prayer, and other ecclesiastical requisitions of the times, was more a protest against bigotry than bigotry itself; and by the progress of such dissent has the Anglo-Saxon mind reached its later and more forbearing liberality." ^
"It cannot," observes Adam Clarke, "escape the notice and reflection of the reader, that Methodism, in its grand principles of economy, and the means by which they have been brought into action, has had its specific, healthy, though slowly vege tating, seeds in the original members of the Wesley family." ®
The maternal grandfather of Samuel Wesley, strangely enough, bore the same name as Susanna's maternal grand father, John White. He is commonly identified with a beloved rector of Trinity Church, Dorchester, who came to be affec tionately called the "Patriarch of Dorchester" and one who helped to found Dorchester, Massachusetts, as an asylum for fugitives unable to conform to the discipline of the Church of England. Dr. Frank Baker, however, backed by eminent au thority,* believes this identification to be erroneous, stating that there were at least three possible John Whites at this time. John Wesley himself seems to have been in error about the John White involved.
Samuel Wesley's mother was the niece of a celebrated clergyman, the Reverend Dr. Thomas Fuller, who was chaplain to King Charles II.
Little is told of Samuel's mother, but of her courage and re sourcefulness we can be sure since she kept Samuel in school after his father's early death, in spite of her penury. She must have done the same for Samuel's brother Matthew who became an apothecary and surgeon with a lucrative practice in London.
Samuel provided for her as long as she lived, and for a time she resided with the Epworth Wesleys in the rectory.
The religious life of i England was at a low Esa |
THE EIVGLAIMD
of SUSAIVIVA'S TIME
England during Susanna Wesley's lifetime presented striking contrasts. In some respects it was a golden age for English genius. Newton and Boyle, Halley the astronomer, and the early members of the Royal Society lent distinction in the field of science. Hogarth was the realistic painter and carica turist of the period, with Gainsborough and Reynolds coming on a bit later; Christopher Wren was the great architect,
Bentley the famous scholar and philosopher. Purcell and Han-
SUSANNA-MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
del, who by this time had taken up his abode in England, were the musicians. Four years before Susanna's birth Milton gave to the world his Paradise Lost, and Dryden, Bunyan,
Pope, Defoe, Addison and Steele, and Swift lent scintillating distinction in the field of letters.
Though experiments with machinery were in early process, the machine age had not yet made its real appearance; the English craftsman still took infinite pride in his handiwork.
Chippendale and, a bit later, Adam brought the designing of furniture to a perfection of beauty which has scarcely been approached since. The manor houses of this era were large and elegant, built on lines of classic simplicity. Within there were art objects of great beauty, Jacobean paneling and hand some furniture. Rugs were now replacing the unsanitary rushes of former days. These rugs were imported from Turkey or Persia or could even be furnished by English weavers.
During the reign of Queen Anne, with Marlborough to win the battles, Britain was fast taking the lead in European civilization. The little island was pushing out its borders in colonization, and while it was to lose the American colonies in 1776, before the century ended Canada and India came to be added to its territory, won at but little cost; Australia was literally "plucked from the sea," as Trevelyan has it, by Captain Cook. Overseas trade was growing by leaps and bounds and the British navy with it, thus enhancing the power and prestige of the country.
In song and story the rural Englishman of Susanna's time is pictured as a happy, hearty individual, content with the in dependence of his life as a small farmer, or as a craftsman proud of his accomplishment with his own hands. These simple people were satisfied with the homely pleasures common to village life—or so they are pictured.
But there was a contrasting side to English life of that period. The court of Charles II, during whose reign Susanna was born, was a maze of corruption from which the country did