Note 7 — Chapter II

By a royal proclamation of James I., issued in 1618 (for Lancashire), these pastimes were made lawful recreations for the First-day of the week, provided they did not interfere with the times appointed for worship. Many of the clergy at first refused to promulgate the proclamation, though by so doing they acted contrary to their canonical obedience, and laid themselves open to penalties. In the seventh year of Charles I., this proclamation, at the instigation of Archbishop Laud, was revived, and extended to the whole nation, and was enjoined to be published and advocated from the pulpit by all ministers, to their disgrace. By the revival of this offensive proclamation, these disorderly revels had arrived to such a height of licentious depravity, that some well-disposed justices, in the county of Somerset, petitioned the judges on the western circuit, Sir Thomas Richardson, Lord Chief Justice, and Baron Denham, to suppress them. For so doing, they were summoned before the King and Council, by Archbishop Laud, for illegally interfering with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the council rescinded the prohibitions, and cashiered the judges.—(See Fuller’s Church Hist., Book x., p. 74: and Book xi., p. 147).