The account contains some obvious exaggerations. Stubbe was one of those of whom the Earl of Dorset might have said as he said of Prynne,—“My Lords, when God made all His works, He looked upon them and saw that they were good; this gentleman, the devil having put spectacles on his nose, says that all is bad.” It will not do for Macaulay’s New Zealander in looking through the files of old newspapers, discovered in the ruins of the British Museum, to accept every statement of the modern teetotal platform as representing an actual fact.
Carew gives an account of the matter which probably represents the actual state of the case:—“Touching Church-Ales: these be mine { 268} assertions, if not my proofs:—Of things induced by our forefathers, some were instituted to a good use, and perverted to a bad; again, some were both naught in the invention and so continued in the practice. Now that Church Ales ought to be sorted in the better rank of these twaine, may be gathered from their causes and effects, which I thus raffe up together:—entertaining of Christian love; conforming of men’s behaviour to a civil conversation; compounding of controversies; appeasing of quarrels; raising a store, which might be converted partlie to good and goodlie uses, as relieving all sorts of poor people; repairing of bridges, amending of highways, and partlie for the Prince’s service, by defraying, at an instant, such rates and taxes as the magistrate imposeth for the countrie’s defence. Briefly, they do tend to an instructing of the mind by amiable conference, and an enabling of the bodie by commendable exercise.”
The curious old Indenture of pre-Reformation times given below, is an agreement between the inhabitants of the parishes of Elvarton, Thurlaston, and Ambaston of the one part, and the good folk of Okebrook of the other part, by John, Abbot of the Dale, Ralph Saucheverell, Esqre., John Bradshaw, and Henry Tithell. It provides that—“the inhabitants, as well of the said Parish of Elvarton, as of the town of Okebrook, shall brew four Ales, and every ale of one quarter of malt, and at their own costs and charges, betwixt this and the feast of St. John Baptist next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of Okebrook shall be at the several Ales; and every husband and his wife shall pay two pence, every cottager one penny; and all the inhabitants of Elvarton, Thurlaston and Ambaston shall have and receive all the profits and advantages coming of the said Ales to the use and behoof of the said Church of Elvarton; and that the inhabitants of the said towns of Elvarton, Thurlaston, and Ambaston, shall brew eight Ales betwixt this and the feast of St. John the Baptist; at the which Ales, and every one of them, the inhabitants of Okebrook shall come and pay as before rehearsed: and if he be away at one Ale, to pay at t’oder Ale for both, or else to send his money. And the inhabitants of Okebrook shall carry all manner of Tymber being in the Dale wood now felled, that the said Prestchyrch of the said towns of Elvarton, Thurlaston, and Ambaston shall occupye to the use and profit of the said Church.” Shakspere mentions these festivals in _Pericles_: