[Footnote 3:  The Clerk’s Book of 1549, edited by J. Wickham Legg, Appendix IX, p. 95.]

This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted to prove that the clerk’s office by no means ceased to exist after the Reformation changes.  I shall refer later on to the survival of the collection of money for the holy loaf and to its transference to other uses.

The clerk, therefore, appears to have continued to hold his office shorn of some of his former duties.  He witnessed all the changes of that changeful time, the spoliation of his church, the selling of numerous altar cloths, vestments, banners, plate, and other costly furniture, and, moreover, took his part in the destruction of altars and the desecration of the sanctuary.  In the accounts for the year 1559 of the Church of St. Lawrence, Reading, appear the items: 

“Itm—­for taking-downe the awlters and laying the stones, vs.

“To Loryman (the clerk) for carrying out the rubbish x d[4].”

[Footnote 4:  Rev. C. Kerry’s History of S. Lawrence’s Church, Reading, p. 25.]

Indeed, the clerk can claim a more perfect continuity of office than the rector or vicar.  There was a time when the incumbents were forced to leave their cure and give place to an intruding minister appointed by the Cromwellian Parliament.  But the clerk remained on to chant his “Amen” to the long-winded prayers of some black-gowned Puritan.  That is a very realistic scene sketched by Sir Walter Besant when he describes the old clerk, an ancient man and rheumatic, hobbling slowly through the village, key in hand, to the church door.  It was towards the end of the Puritan regime.  After ringing the bell and preparing the church for the service, he goes into the vestry, where stood an ancient black oak coffer, the sides curiously graven, and a great rusty key in the lock.  The clerk (Sir Walter calls him the sexton, but it is evidently the clerk who is referred to) turns the key with difficulty, throws open the lid, and looks in.

“Ay,” he says, chuckling, “the old surplice and the old Book of Common Prayer.  Ye have had a long rest; ’tis time for you both to come out again.  When the surplice is out, the book will stay no longer locked up.”  He draws forth an old and yellow roll.  It was the surplice which had once been white.  “Here you be,” he says; “put you away for a matter of twelve year and more, and you bide your time; you know you will come back again; you are not in any hurry.  Even the clerk dies; but you die not, you bide your time.  Everything comes again.  The old woman shall give you a taste o’ the suds and the hot iron.  Thus we go up and thus we go down.”  Then he takes up the old book, musty and damp after twelve years’ imprisonment.  “Fie,” he says, “thy leather is parting from thy boards, and thy leaves they do stick together.  Shalt have a pot of paste, and then lie in the sun before thou goest back to the desk.  Whether ’tis Mass or Common Prayer, whether ’tis Independent or Presbyterian, folk mun still die and be buried—­ay, and married and born—­whatever they do say.  Parson goes and Preacher comes; Preacher goes and Parson comes; but Sexton stays.”  He chuckles again, puts back the surplice and the book, and locks the coffer[5].