IN the week that Tim Dakin has resigned as the Bishop of Winchester a page from local history harks back to a time when some called for an end to the office. It concerns studies of ‘old dissent’ and its consequences in New Hampshire, USA, recently made by a Hampshire clergyman near the end of his ministry at South Wonston and elsewhere in the Dever valley.

The story involves a puritan clergyman, Stephen Bachiler, who in 1605 was ejected from his living at Wherwell, where he had served for 18 years. With the help of legacies and other means, he managed to make ends meet for another 17 years, before investing in the Company of Husbandmen in London and eventually, only 12 years after the Mayflower, sailing from Southampton on the Whale bound for New England.

There he pursued an eventful and controversial career as a pastor, only to end his days in vitriolic disputes about a young housekeeper who became his fourth wife. Returning to England, he lived his last years in a country that had adopted many of his puritan ideas after a civil war he had avoided.

During his time in America he founded a new town and a church – one of the country’s oldest and still a place of worship – and is much better known there than in his native England. A plaque on a ‘memorial boulder’ in Founders Park, Hampton, New Hampshire – which predated the Hamptons Long Island – reads:

“A little band of pioneers under the leadership of Rev. Stephen Bachiler of Southampton, England, seeking larger liberty in October 1638 settled in the wilderness near this spot to plant a free church in a free town. They were joined in 1639 by others and in that year the town was incorporated. To do honour to the founders and fathers of Hampton, to exalt the ideas for which they strove, and as an inspiration to posterity, this memorial is dedicated October 14, 1925.”

The full story of his life and his four marriages is told in an impressively researched paper, Rev. Stephen Bachiler, Notorious Inconformist of Newton Stacey, posted on the website of the Lane Library, Hampton, New Hampshire, USA, and available in print from the Barton Stacey History Group.

His first wife Ann was a local girl from Wherwell and bore him six children. His second wife Christian probably came from Abbots Ann, and when after a few years she died he married Helena, the widow of a fellow puritan clergyman from Odiham. In the USA he raised a storm when claimed to have married his housekeeper, Mary Beadle, a widow nearly 60 years his junior.

Bachiler’s life illustrates the tumultuous times in Hampshire and elsewhere when nonconformists and the established church were at loggerheads. They fought theological battles over issues that were fundamental to the English state and argued about other matters that, to modern minds, seem hardly worth the effort.

Near the centre of all this was Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, who was a prime antagonist of nonconformists. He is now remembered, if at all, as the man who oversaw the Authorised version of the bible in English, also called the King James Bible. One of the translators was another Wykehamist, the classical scholar John Harmar, who followed Bilson as Warden of the College, where he is commemorated by the ‘Harmar Room’.

Bilson was a native of Winchester, who served as head master of the College and then its Warden, before landing the episcopacy in 1596, apparently in return for an annuity of £400 paid to Elizabeth I. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, between the tombs of Edward III and Richard II where (in Latin) he is described as “a counsellor in sacred matters of his serene highness King James of Great Britain”.

This was James VII of Scotland, James I of England. Not surprisingly, Bilson was a strong advocate of episcopacy and defended it against those puritans who sought to abolish it. A similar battle was also being fought in Scotland by James, where he was similarly threatened by Presbyterians. They claimed their authority direct from God, and denied the monarch ‘divine right’. However, James held his ground by pandering to moderates and reviving the office of bishop.

This parity of ideas no doubt accounted for the Wintonian Bilson being given the honour of preaching the sermon at James’ coronation. There were, however, ongoing issues , notably the claims of people like Bachiler, who labelled themselves ‘godly’ and wanted to ‘purify’ the church from what they regarded as the unfinished business of ridding the country of Catholicism.

Apart from the niceties of liturgy and ritual – the fabric of the church, the form and position of the altar, which ‘books’ were acceptable, how baptism should be performed, the wearing of surplices, kneeling for communion and other details – a major problem in some minds was whether the office of bishops should be abolished.

In 1604, in an attempt to resolve these matters, the Hampton Court Conference was held in London. Puritans regarded it as an opportunity to press their cause, thinking – wrongly as it turned out – that the activities of Scottish Presbyterians would aid their case. But, apart from an agreement to translate the bible into English, they made no headway. In fact, the most significant outcome was the ejection of 90 of the most outspoken puritans from their livings! And one of the first to go was Bachiler.

Commenting on his paper, Mark said: “I have always been interested in history. And in Newton Stacey, which is part of my patch, I discovered this story of a man who in the USA is known as ‘America’s first eccentric’ – but is virtually unknown here. In 1593 he was brought before the Star Chamber for a ‘seditious sermon’. Some years after being ejected from his living at Wherwell in 1605, he came to Newton Stacey, where he tore down a chapel, though we don’t know where it was.

“He had an eye for the ladies and in his 80s got into trouble when he claimed that he was married to his housekeeper – he said the banns had not been read due to an oversight and he had performed the marriage himself. He came back to England and is buried in All Hallows Staining [in the City of London].”

When Bachiler set sail in 1632, he was following in the path of the Mayflower, whose passengers included Stephen Hopkins and family from Upper Clatford. A young daughter died en route, two other children survived, and his wife Elizabeth gave birth to the only child born on the Mayflower. He was named Oceanus, and survived during the early years of the settlement, but died aged seven.

At the end of July, Mark ends his term as rector of South Wonston with Bullington and Barton Stacey, leaving a paper that adds greatly to the history of the locality and the county. It can be purchased from the Barton Stacey History Group at: www.bartonstaceyhistory.co.uk/