North Cadbury Religious History - Victoria County History

Rectors were normally resident 50 although there was an unordained curate in 1623. 51The church plate comprises a cup and cover of 1631 by ‘B.F.’ In 1685 thechurchwardens paid to have it hidden. 52 Rector John Dodd, prebendary of Wells,disappeared in 1643, supposed to have died in prison for debt. A new rector wasappointed but Dodd was discovered living under an assumed name in the 1650s. 53Baldwin Acland, presented in Dodd’s place, had his episcopal institution declaredvoid and the House of Lords ordered the institution of the Cambridge ‘Platonist’Benjamin Whichcote, Provost of King’s but Acland served as curate in 1649 when hehad as pupil George Bull, later a theologian and bishop of St. David’s. 54 In 1649Whichcote, who with a parishioner had attended a Presbyterian classis in 1648, 55 wassucceeded by Cambridge scholar Ralph Cudworth. 56 In 1656 Cudworth was followedby the puritan Samuel Craddock, author of theological works, including Knowledgeand Practice (1659) written for his parishioners. He was ejected in 1662 and later keptan academy in Suffolk. 57 William Peirs, rector 1712—50, was a prebendary of Wellsand grandson of Bishop Peirs. 58Resident curates were employed even by resident rectors and there were fourcelebrations of communion from the 17th century to the early 19th when two services50SHC, D/P/cad. n 2/1/1—2; SDNQ. XIV, 265.51SHC, D/D/Ca 236.52E. H. Bates, ‘An Inventory of Church Plate in South-East Somerset’, PSAS. 43 (1897), 184; SHC,D/P/cad. n 4/1/1, 5/2/1.53Cal. SP Dom. 1637—8, 362; 1638—9, 61; J. M. Horn & D. S. Bailey (ed.), Fasti EcclesiaeAnglicanae 1541—1857, V Bath and Wells (1979), 24, 29; Lambeth Palace Lib. MS. COMM.A/1/28;TNA, E 134/1654/East 3.54TNA, E 134/1654/East 3; Lambeth Pal. Lib. MS. COMM.I/82—3; HL. Jnl. VIII, 30a; DNB; A. G.Mathews (ed.), Walker Revised, 308.55W. A. Shaw, A history of the English church: during the civil wars and under the commonwealth1640-1660 (1900), II, 416.56TNA, E 134/1654/East 3; A. E. Robinson (ed.), Life of Bishop Kidder (Som. Rec. Soc. 37, 1922),189.57DNB; Robinson, Life of Bishop Kidder, 189; J. S. Cockburn (ed.), Somerset Assize Orders,1640—1659 (Som. Rec. Soc. 71, 1971), 62.58SHC, D/P/cad. n 2/1/1; Fasti, Bath and Wells, 1541—1857, 54.7