CHAPTER IV. Two prominent Churchmen. Thomas de Bradwardin, 1290-1-1349.-William Beveridge, 1638-1708. E have traced the gradual decay of the old Parish Church of Ealing in its latter years right on to its final dissolution in 1729. Few vestiges of the ancient building remain. A monumental brass, two or three mural tablets, slabs, and other sepulchral memorials-these are the only material relics saved from the wholesale ruin. The fabric itself has disappeared. Fragments only have been preserved of its history-its vicissitudes, its fortunes-in the bygone centuries. There are, however, two memories which stand out in vivid. colour from the faded past and shed undying lustre on the church served by two men, in learning and piety, simple honesty, and intellectual power, most truly great in any age. Naturally the name of William Beveridge is the more familiar, the more cherished. Not only is the memory less remote, but as resident Vicar he held intimate fellowship with the community, shared the same interests-Ealing's welfare his. Ealing had no renegade, time-serving, easeloving parson for Vicar during the dreadful plague years. The simple pathos of Beveridge's words, in a sermon preached in St. Mary's at the time, reveal much. Sadly he tells his hearers, "there is not a house in Ealing wherein there is not one dead." So well he knew the suffering of his people. An earlier memory, a grander personality is Thomas de Bradwardin, than whom no finer character figures in the pages of history. As Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral, or as the title was when Bradwardin held the office, Magister Scholarum, he was Rector of Ealing, paying the sum of £10 yearly to the Vicar of Ealing, and compelled by the terms of his office to read lectures on divinity in St. Mary's Church, either himself or by a sufficient deputy, on pain of certain penalties. Nor may we suppose that the office of Rector of Ealing in those early days was the sinecure that later apparently it became. It is with most a temptation to dwell on local memories, and the names of Bradwardin and Beveridge have enriched the ancient church with lasting associations of the great and good. In addition they suggest a comparison not without interest. The intervening years-Beveridge was born some three hundred and fifty years after Bradwardin— brought many religious changes, and probably no more forcible illustration of the wide difference between mediæval churchmanship and that of the Restoration, could be found than that afforded by a study of the lives of these two distinguished prelates, both of whom are associated with Ealing. Happily, able hands have drawn the two scholarly sketches which follow. That of Bradwardin is by the Rev. W. E. de Burgh, while the Rev. W. E. Oliver, LL.D., Vicar of Ealing, contributes the account of Beveridge. THOMAS DE BRADWARDIN. Thomas de Bradwardin was Rector of Ealing A.D. 1337. Upon the death of Archbishop Stratford, he was elected by the Prior and Convent of Canterbury to the vacant see. He had been confessor to Edward III, and had been with him in his French wars. Edward, it is said, was so fond of his company that he refused to part with him, and he wrote to the Pope to take no notice of the monk's appointment, but to appoint Ufford, who was a son of the Earl of Suffolk. Ufford was accordingly advanced to the archbishopric. He was, however, never more than archbishop-elect, as death carried him off before his consecration. Upon the death of Ufford the monks of Canterbury continued their regards for Bradwardin and elected him for their archbishop a second time. The Pope, knowing nothing of these proceedings, pitched upon the same person, so that now Bradwardin had a double title for his promotion. He was consecrated at Avignon by Pope Clement VI. He was, however, by no means adapted to a court. His manners and deportment were ridiculed by the courtiers. And when he was consecrated at Avignon, Cardinal Hugh, a nephew of the Pope, in order to call attention to the archbishop's poverty of manners and learning, caused to be led into the hall, a person dressed as a peasant, riding on an ass, petitioning the Pope to make him Archbishop of Canterbury. The jest was not successful, the Pope and his Cardinals resented the indignity and rebuked the insolence of Hugh. They judged that profound knowledge and close reasoning and observation, though lacking the attraction of charm of manner and address, when accompanied by genuine goodness and humility, as in the case of Bradwardin, were by no means proper subjects for mockery and insult. The power possessed by the archbishops of that time seems to have been very great. Archbishop Stratford writes thus to Edward III:-" There are two principal heads of authority for the government of the world-the regal, and the sacerdotal. That the latter may be said to have the advantage both in interest and in dignity, inasmuch as H those of this function are charged with the conduct of Kings themselves in the day of Judgment. Your Majesty therefore may please to take notice that you are not to direct, but be directed by the Hierarchy." Stratford had recommended Bradwardin to the king (Edward III) as confessor, to direct the King's conscience. "This office", Collier tells us, "he managed with great integrity and courage, solicited for no preferment either in Church or State, and was constantly with the King in the campaign. When he perceived the King's management indefensible, and that the measures of conscience were not well pursued, he used to put him in mind of his duty with great freedom, but then the manner was ordered with such inoffensiveness and discretion that the remonstrance was never ill-taken." When with the King he used often to preach to the army. He persuaded them to make a good-natured use of their victories, not to be elated overduly by their successes, but to attribute them to Almighty God. He had considerable influence with the army; and this influence constrained the soldiers from those unwarrantable excesses which so often follow in the wake of war. Like his predecessor Ufford, his tenure of the Archbishopric was a very short one. Not many weeks after his consecration, and only seven days after his return to England, he died at Lambeth. He was a philosopher and a mathematician. His mathematical knowledge and logical powers helped him towards accurate and solid investigations in Divinity, which gained for him the title of "Doctor Profundus". His great work against the error of the Pelagians bears the title "De Causa Dei vel de Virtute Dei Causa Causarum." In connection with this work he is mentioned by Chaucer, in the Nun's Priest's Tale, touching God's Foreknowledge and Man's Freewill: "But we cannot boult it to the bren |