THE following is a translation of the Charter of King John, confirming the grant of the Advowson, &c., of the Church of Hope and its Chapel of Tideswell to the Bishop of Coventry. (Reliquary, vol. xi, 1870-71. Communicated by the late R. Daniel-Tyssen, F.S.A.)

Wherefore, we will etc., that the aforesaid Bishop G. . . ., and his successors may have and hold the aforesaid Church

with the Chapel, and all their appurtenances, and all other things aforesaid, well and peaceably, free and quiet, wholly and honourably in all places and things, with all liberties and free customs, to the same belonging as is aforesaid.”

witnesses: Lords W.London, J.Norwich. Bishops G . . ., the son of Peter Earl of Essex, W. Marc Earl of Pembroke, W. Earl of Salisbury, Albert de Veer Earl of Oxford, Roger de Lascy Constable of Chester, Saho de Quincy W. de Briwerr, Simon de Patesch.

Dated by the hand of H. de Well Archdeacon of Wells, at Ongar, 10th day of August in the 7th year etc.”

The patronage of the livings of Hope and Tideswell subsequently became vested in the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, the present patrons, by the grant of Geoffrey de Muschamp, the Bishop of Coventry referred to as Bishop G . . . in the above Charter. This grant was confirmed (1215-1221) by William de Cornhill, Bishop of Coventry. “It was during the episcopate of Alexander de Savensby (1224-1238) that the Vicarage of Hope seems to have been formally ordained”.^[1]

The present vicarage house was erected, at an estimated cost of £720, between 1854 and 1857, on the site of an older vicarage, which was taken down in 1854 when the Rev. Wilmot C.B. Cave was vicar.

There is no complete list of the. Vicars of Hope extant. The Rev. Dr. Cox, author of Churches of Derbyshire, recovered some of the names of the earlier vicars from the Chapter of Lichfield Acts Books, and several of the seventeenth century vicars are mentioned in the Hope Parish Registers. There are also chance references in ancient charters, and later the Churchwardens' Account Book supplies the names of most of the vicars.

A petition against John Dean, Vicar of Hope, and others was presented to the King and Council, 4th Henry IV (1403) as follows:

“To the most wise Lords of the Council of our Lord the King, most humbly prays a poor and plain esquire, Godfrey Rowland of the County of Derby, and complains of Sir Thomas Wendesley^[2] knight, and John Dean vicar of the Church of Hope, for that the said Thomas and John, with John Shawe, Richard Hunt, Reynold Wombewell, John de Sutton, Thomas Swynscowe, and John Swynscoe his son, with many others of their bad associates, armed in a warlike manner, on the Monday next before the Feast of the Translation of Saint John of Beverley, in the 23rd year of the reign of King Richard, formerly King of England, came feloniously to the house of the said petitioner at Mikel Longesdon, and the said house, with force and arms, broke into and despoiled, and all his goods and chattels there found, as well living as dead, to the value of two hundred marks, took and carried away, and the said petitioner, out of his said house, took and brought with them to the Castle of High Peek, and there imprisoned him for six whole days without giving him any meat or drink; and after the six days they brought him out of the said Castle, and cut off his right hand wrongfully and against the peace, and to the perpetual injury and loss of the said petitioner; therefore be pleased in your most wise discretion to consider the shameful trespasses and the bad example of those, the poverty and loss of the said petitioner, and to order to the said petitioner proper and hasty remedy, according to your wise discretion, for God and as a work of charity.”

The 'Valor Ecclesiasticus' 27th Henry VIII, gives the value of the Vicarage of Hope at £13 13s. 4d., and Nicholas Heys was then the vicar. In 1602 Edmund Eyre, vicar, died under Church censure, and it is recorded in the Parish Registers that he was buried in the night without service or bell. In 1650 the Parliamentary Commissioners report Thomas Bocking “the present incumbent, formerly in armes against the Parliament and reputed scandalous”. That he fought on the other side was in those days considered to be ample justification for the adjective scandalous; but as we have seen from the inscriptions and date on the pulpit at Hope, he apparently remained there in 1652, though he is described as “teacher” rather than vicar. In a conveyance dated November 11th 1654, of a property at Nether Hurst in the parish of Hathersage, which I have seen, the name of Thomas Bocking, clerk, figures as an occupier of the land. One supposes that the vicar, or ex-vicar of Hope, is referred to, as it is very unlikely that there were two individuals of the name, both “clerks”, living at the same time in the Hope valley.

From 1754 to 1814 five vicars in succession appear to have been absentees and their duties performed by curates, whose names alone appear in the Registers and Churchwardens' Accounts during that period. In the case of Charles Buckeridge, one of them, it is recorded in the Chapter Acts Books that he had accepted two livings at the time (1789) that his successor Richard Buckeridge was institued. John Baptist Proby, vicar from 1791 to 1804, may have been a son of Dr. Baptist Proby who was Dean of Lichfield in 1776.