"EIGHTH ARTICLE. tr Whereupon a pretended order of the said Tinwald Court was made the same 25th day of June, taking notice that your petitioners had refused to comply with either of the said orders of the 9th of February or the 20th of June, and therefore fining your petitioner the Bishop in £50, and your petitioners the Vicars-General in £20 a-piece for their contempt, which fines the Coroner of Michael Sheading was thereby required to demand forthwith. "Answer. "Under the Fifth Article and the Ninth Article. "NINTH ARTICLE. "That this last order, though said to be made at a Tinwald Court, was not made till after that Court was dissolved, and the majority of the members necessary to hold such Court were neither present at the making that order, or acquainted therewith; nor would that order or sentence have been at all legal or regular if all the members of such Court had been present at the making thereof. "Answer. "The objection laid against this order dated "REPLY TO EIGHTH ANSWER. "As the officers answer to the Eighth Article is said to be under our Fifth and Ninth Articles, so there also may be found our reasons offered against them. "REPLY TO NINTH ANSWER. "The complaint made by us was not touching any right of imposing fines, which the members of the Tinwald Court who were not present might have, but that the order for fining us is pretended to be made at the said Tinwald Court, when certainly it was not, the majority of the members of that Court having solemnly declared they neither were present, nor made acquainted with it; whose ample testimony we are also able to produce, that we have assumed to ourselves no undue authority, and that justice was never more impartially administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts of this isle. The meaning of the officers therefore in styling the paper aforesaid an order of Tinwald, can no otherwise be accounted for, than that posterity might be induced to believe the whole legislative power in this isle were privy and consenting to so unheard of a proceeding as the fining of a Bishop and his substitutes for matters of judgment; which we expressly affirm they had no power of doing, nor СНАР. XVIII. CHAP. at the Tinwald Court, XVIII. June 25, 1722, of members necessary to hold such Court not being present, is altogether groundless, for had they been present they had no right to impose fines, but are liable to be fined by the Governor themselves if they demerit it; and it is he who had the sole power of setting the fines now complained of, by vir tue of the law beforementioned. "TENTH ARTICLE. "That about two days after making the last order, the Coroner demanded the said fines of your petitioners, but your petitioners could by no means submit to pay the same; whereupon the 29th of June last, being St. Peter's day, your petitioners were by three soldiers taken and carried to prison in Castle Rushen aforesaid, and are there still detained by means of the aforesaid orders, without any hopes of relief save from your Majesty's goodness and justice. any reason or precedent to support them therein. "REPLY TO TENTH ANSWER. "As the Moar and not the Coroner was the proper officer to levy the fines imposed, provided such fines had been legal; so if there be no law to warrant the whole process, and this be the first instance (as it certainly is) of fining and imprisoning a Bishop and Vicars-General for not cancelling their judgments, the imprisonment by soldiers for such a cause can in no sense be legal or regular, or with any truth be said to have ever been practised before. "As to the imprisonment on St. Peter's Day, we do not look upon it to concern the merits of the cause, any more than they do, but if it was really accidental it was also very remarkable, as may be observed from the Church's service for that day. And whereas it is said by us that we were detained in prison without any hope of relief save from his Majesty, &c., the officers have very harshly termed this a false and injurious allegation, by reason (say they) your releasement had been granted, either upon paying down the fine, or appealing to the Lord of the Isle. As to paying down the fine, that perhaps might have released, but not have relieved us'; for our so doing would have been the giving up, in a manner, all that we contended for, and subjected not only the episcopal, but (as far as in us lay) the archiepiscopal juris cases, but its falling on St. Peter's day was not premeditated, but happened by mere chance, nor is the day at all material. And for their being detained in Castle Rushen without any hopes of relief save only from your Majesty,[that] is altogether false and injurious; because upon paying the fine, or upon an appeal to the Right Honourable the Lord of this Isle, (the only method prescribed by our laws if they held themselves aggrieved,) their enlargement had been immediately granted, their fines suspended, and all proceedings cease [? ceased] till an indifferent trial was had according to the laws of this isle. "As to the records of the isle, neither the Bishop nor Vicars-General now are, or have been, debarred of free recourse for what copies they wanted. Therefore it is unfair to insinuate as though they were denied or hindered of that common privilege never refused to any. "And we hope your Majesty (before whose happy reign no attempt of this kind was ever made) will graciously be pleased to take into consideration, how that if the poor inhabitants of XVIII. diction to their mere will and pleasure. And CHAP. "What is further answered by the officers Their seeming concern, then, for the inconveniences which may attend appealing, either to his Majesty or to the Archbishop of York, deserves not the least notice; since there is no reason offered, but what will equally hold against appealing to the Lord of the Isle, as against applying to his Majesty or the Archbishop; his Lordship understanding as little as either of them of the native language, and his residence having for some years past been mostly at London, or Halnaker in Sussex, both which places are more remote from the inhabitants of this isle than York is. 1 2 See Geo. Christian's Case. CHAP. this isle should be con- 1 See H. Halsal's Case. DAN. McYLREA. "And yet no consideration of such remoteness took place with the said Governor and officers, when they fined the Bishop ten pounds for not appearing before his Lordship in London to answer an appeal in a case purely spiritual. "It may therefore be concluded that if the poor inhabitants of this isle were utterly debarred of seeking redress in the manner the laws have provided, their condition would be most sad and deplorable, as the loud complaints. of such as have been denied this privilege1, as well as our many and grievous sufferings, do fully demonstrate. "T. S. M. W. W. CHAPTER XIX. FROM THE BISHOP'S RETURN, OCT. 6, 1724, TO THE END OF "AFTER a very tedious controversy before the King and Council in defence of the discipline of this Church, in which we experienced many favours of Divine Providence, beyond our foresight or even best hopes, I returned to this place in safety; blessed be God for it; and though the Governor has published an order to prohibit all rejoicings, bonfires, &c., yet the people could not contain their joy, for which many of them have been unworthily treated by the Governor." Thus Bishop Wilson poured himself out, October 6, 1724, on his arrival at Bishop's Court, his heart full of thankfulness-none the less that his mind was not free from forebodings: but evidently the love of his flock more than comforted him for the continued alienation of his patron, if Lord Derby might be so called. The Governor of whom he speaks was Major John Lloyd, or Floyd, of whose previous history we have no information: but what little the Castletown XIX. records tell of the doings of Government, before and after he CHAP. took office in the island, agrees well with the Bishop's statement. On Thursday, Aug. 8, 1723, there had been a sort of illumination at Peel, the occasion of which is not specified; but looking to proceedings in England at the time, it seems probable that Horne's retirement had just come to be known in the island, and that the people were expressing their joy for this, and for the hopes which were held out, on Stevenson's return, of a fair settlement of the insular grievances. It was "contrary to the Governor's" (i. e. the Deputy Governor's) "order lately issued out;" for the popular feeling had been well understood. Enquiry was made, and to the great scandal of the Government it was proved that divers householders of Peel, including the Vicar, Mr. Matthias Curghey, had had candles lighted in their windows; that there were lights also in the church, "drinking of healths in the churchyard, in a mobbish manner, and crying, 'Up with the Tories, and down with the Whigs."" For these atrocities each of the illuminators was sentenced to pay twenty shillings, and each of the men and boys who shouted in the churchyard, 13s. 4d. The Bishop's return a twelvemonth after was evidently solemnized by the same kind of process on both sides. The feelings of the people had been aggravated in the meantime by a movement for inclosing and appropriating part of the mountains near Kirk Michael. An agrarian riot ensued, of which some graphic particulars may be found in the Exchequer Book of Castle Rushen, from July 22, to Aug. 21, 1724; how that the Governor and officers being somewhere in the mountains with a person who was treating for a part of the land, some provisions intended for them were stopped on the way, the rope-harness cut, and a wish uttered―. "that those whom the provisions were intended for might be choked at the eating thereof;" how "Philip Quayle expressed himself in these words, If Mr. McGuire will come to take our mountains, we will fight him;'" how "the Governor, with the The copy which I have seen of the record does not name the month, but August was the only month of that year the 8th day of which fell |