having a legerstowe, was, and regularly is a character of a parish church or ecclesia, as it is commonly distinguished from capella: and anciently if a quare impedit had been brought for a church, whereas the defendant pretended it to be a chapel only, the issue was not so much whether it were church or chapel, as whether it had baptisterium or sepulturam or no. So it appears in a case of 23 Hen. III., where William of Whitanston, in his count against the Archbishop of Canterbury, expresses, ecclesiam de Hey in Sussex, to be of his advowson, and the Archbishop pleads, that what he calls a church, non est ecclesia, imo capella pertinens ad matricem ecclesiam de Terringes, ita quod non est ibi baptisterium neque sepultura, imo omnes qui nascuntur ibidem baptizantur apud Terringes, et similiter omnes qui ibi moriuntur, sepeliuntur apud Terringes, &c. And thence was it also that the whole clergy of England put the inquiry of such an issue among their grievances, when in 21 Henry III., they desired Otho, the Pope's legate, among other freedoms, to get for them of the King, Quod judices seculares non decidant causas ecclesiasticas in foro seculari, nec tales homines determinent utrum talis capella debeat habere baptisterium et sepulturam an non. For if it had the right of administration of sacraments in it and sepulture also, then differed it not from a parish church, but might be styled capella parochialis, by which name some chapels are with us known; and in the Saxon times also we find comiterium capella, for the burial-place of a

• The reference in Selden is, "Trinit. Placit. 23 Hen. III. ret. 15, in arce Londinensi." The following extract was sent to the late rector of Tarring, the Rev. Will. Vaux, with Mr. Petrie's compliments :

"William de Withameston and Robt. le Faton claim the advowson of the church of Hen against Edmund, Arbp. of Canterbury, which they say had descended to them from Ralph, the ancestor of Willm., in the time of Henry II., and Isabell the ancestor of Robt. That is to say, Ralph was the father of William, the father of Henry, the father of William, one of the claimants, and Isabell was the mother of William, the father of Matilda, the mother of Robt., the other claimant.

"The Abp. replied, that Hen is not a church, but a chapel dependent on the church of Terring, inasmuch as neither baptism nor the burial service was performed there, but at Terring, the mother church. To this Willm. and Robt. answer, that it is not a chapel, but a mother church, although neither baptism nor funerals took place there at present; but that baptism had always been celebrated there until the time of Abp. Stephen, since which period it had been intermitted. They admit, however, that it had never been customary to bury at Hen."

(Judgment deferred to the Morrow of All Souls, i. e. to the next Term.)

chapel, which must be understood of a church that had the like right as that which is mentioned in the second part of Edgar's law. And those other churches which in his and king Knout's laws are spoken of, that is, churches without burial-places, Feldeyrican, or Field-churches, are only what at this day we call chapels-of-ease, built and consecrated for oratories, but not diminishing any thing of the mother churches' profits."

Whether or not burials ever took place at Heene, has been considered a doubtful point; but a circumstance occurred when the Rev. Edward Phillips was vicar (he was instituted in 1786), which seems conclusive as to the fact that there were funerals there, for on the lowering of the chapel mound so many bones were discovered, that, being in London, he was written to on the subject, and he immediately wrote back to say that no further alterations were to take place. From that time to this the little patch of ground has remained undisturbed,

"Withouten let or yet impediment","

and it is now looked upon as a part of the grass-plot in the front of the old farm-house. Why it was ceded, and during whose incumbency is not easily discoverable.

As regards the chapel itself, all that remains may be seen in the annexed engraving 10, and, as in the case of the ruins at Durrington, within a few years more it may be the only record. Nothing whatever is known of the time when it was built, and the crumbling ruin gives no clue to it. The only portion yet standing is a part of the east end, not more than sixteen feet wide. It seems perfectly inexcusable that it should have been allowed to fall to decay. When the indifference to its existence as a separate place of worship first commenced is not clear, but probably it was about 1700. The faculty for taking it down was granted in August, 1766. It is stated that duty had not been done there for some time when the permission was granted. My old parishioner, Daniel Monk, who died at the age of ninety-six, told me that when he was a boy Divine Service was held there once in three weeks, and that he very well remembered Mr. Cutler's uncle being married there; but he added that the fabric was then in a very dilapidated state. The person he alluded to 10 See. note infrà, p. 252.

9 Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure.

is thus entered in the Register: "1747.

William Penfold and Ann Dodson. June 2nd." One more marriage is recorded in the old register in the year following,—it is not, however, clear that it was celebrated at Heene, and Mr. Monk was inclined to think that the marriage of Mr. Penfold was the last. Nothing can be proved from the register, as the registries at Tarring, Heene, and Durrington are all separately kept, and have been so kept from the first. As respects christenings and marriages there was never any doubt; the only question is as to whether there were ever burials there, which, I think, may be answered in the affirmative. The old font still remains, and is reverently kept in the farm garden, but it is much broken and defaced. Mrs. Mitchell, who has resided on the farm many years, tells me that she recollects a window facing the farm, but it became dangerous, and was "shored up with great shores" for a long time. At last, as the mullions dropped out they were afraid for their pigs and sheep (the chapel-yard being unenclosed), and Mr. Mitchell had it taken down. The keys, said the same authority, are in the hands of my son Mr. Henry Mitchell, "rusty old things, worth nobody's having." The old communion plate (a small cup and paten like the one at Durrington) was for a long time kept at the farm-house, " as long as Mr. Marchant lived there." After his death, "Mrs. Bartlett took it, and left it, as is supposed, to her niece, Mrs. Saunders; but no one ever saw it afterwards, and no further trace of it remains." What neglect is here shown, and how does the evil of peculiars come out? Had there been due and proper visitations, such things never could have been! Lord Brooke was right in saying,

"The ancient Church, which did succeed that light,

In which the Jewes High Priesthood justly fell,

More faithfully endeavoured to unite,

And thereby nearer came to doing well;

Never revealing curious mysteries,

Unless enforced by man's impieties'."

The only other point I have been enabled to collect relative to the chapel and its precincts is, that it had a single bell. "The last I ever heard of it," said Mrs. Mitchell, "was, that Mr. Butler

1 Of Human Learning.

of Warminghurst took it, and used it for his dinner bell." mentioning this to old James Long the clerk, one day, when he significantly said, "I know it to be true, for when I was young, I went over to Warminghurst, and there I saw and heard it!" It is painful to hear such things of an old church bell, and

"If, according to the wiser law,

2 99

There be a high divinity in sound","

this usage of it was as unseemly and as indecorous, to use no harsher term, as well might have been. Better the superstition that Jeremy Taylor tells of than this, for superstition, any day, is preferable to profaneness3. What became of this bell when the property passed into other hands,—when the mansion of Warminghurst" was pulled down, the lake dried up, the timber levelled, and the park converted into a farm","-deponent saith not, but it had been better left where it was, for it never answers, as many wise and even worldly men have said, to meddle with sacred things, and to turn them from their proper use. There can be little doubt but that much of the stone of the chapel has been worked up into the adjoining buildings. The last mullion of the window I ever saw was in the Heene Field. I turned it over, and underneath it was an adder.

2 Drayton.

3 The passage alluded to occurs in the "Preface to the Reader " of the 1st Part of " A Dissuasive from Popery." "I was lately," says he," within a few months, very much troubled with petitions and earnest requests for the restoring of a bell, which a person of quality had in his hands in the time of, and ever since, the Great Rebellion. I could not guess at the reasons of their so great and violent importunity; but told the petitioners, if they could prove that bell to be theirs, the gentleman was willing to pay the full value of it; though he had no obligation to do so, that I know of, but charity: but this was so far from satisfying them, that still the importunity increased, which made me diligently to inquire into the secret of it. The first cause I found was, that a dying person in the parish desired to have it rung before him to church, and pretended he could not die in peace if it were denied him; and that the keeping of that bell did anciently belong to that family, from father to son; but because this seemed nothing but a fond and an unreasonable superstition, I inquired further, and at last found that they believed this bell came from heaven, and that it used to be carried from place to place, and to end controversies by oath, which the worst men durst not violate, if they swore upon that bell, and the best men amongst them durst not but believe him ; that if this bell was rung before the corpse to the grave, it would help him out of purgatory; and that, therefore, when any one died, the friends of the deceased did, whilst the bell was in their possession, hire it for behoof of their dead, and that, by this means, that family was in part maintained." Works, vol. x. p. cxxii. See Cartwright, p. 265.

The tithes of Heene have been commuted. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners receive 1407. The vicar of Tarring 287.5 In the East Field there are two roods and four poles of land belonging to the Arundel poor officers, thus showing the ancient connexion with the Hospital of the Holy Trinity there. It is stated by Cartwright that in the Computus of Robert Cartys, 39 Henry VI., this land was let to John Palyngham for 67. 10s. 4d. per annum. The encroachment of the sea upon the parish of Heene is very great. Within twelve years the road into Worthing has twice been swallowed up, and full twelve yards of solid ground have passed into shingle between the Tarring and the Heene Lane during the same period. Old Mr. Monk told me that he recollected land nearly to low water mark; and an aged man named James Carter, who died three or four years ago, said he had sown wheat and ploughed where now there is nothing but sand. There is nothing, therefore, improbable in the following extract from a letter of W. Bray, Esq., the historian of Surrey, given in Cartwright's "History of the Rape of Bramber." It bears date March 3, 1827: "In the year 1755, I was sent to inquire about a wreck, which happened on the coast below Tarring, and which was claimed by the lord of the manor. The tenant went with me

to the high water mark, and told me that when he was young (I do not remember his then age) they used to play cricket in the ground on which we stood, and that the sea was then at such a distance that no one ever struck a ball into it. Though so long ago as seventy-two years, I have a perfect recollection of what passed."-p. 20.

The population of the parish in 1841 was 184,-in Heene itself, 147; in Little Heene, which joins upon Worthing, 37. It probably derives its name from its elevation above the sea; heah or hean in Anglo-Saxon simply meaning high,—above the water mark, that is. So Hanbury in Huntingdonshire, is literally Hean-byrig, that is, high town.

Instead of following the road to Tarring, we diverged from the chapel-yard to the great Heene field, and from thence we gazed on the dear old church with delight, seldom seen with more effect than when the purple light of eve rests upon its time-worn tower, and shingled spire that points to heaven. At any time

5 The Vicar of Heene "hath tythe of herrings at Fluetime, called Christ's share," as at Climping. See Dallaway's Rape of Arundel, p. 15.