# Life in Puritan Banbury



## VirginiaHuguenot (Oct 4, 2008)

From the introduction to Willem Teellinck's _Redeeming the Time_:



> Teellinck gives a revealing pen-picture of his stay at Banbury in the early part of his life. He tells how each person in the family rose early, and first prayed to the Lord and read a chapter of His Word, the servants in the house being allowed time to do the same.
> 
> Having begun the day like this, each person followed his calling till noon, and then the whole household assembled, young and old, and read together a chapter from the Bible, then kneeled together in prayer, at table, the Lord's blessing having been sought on the meal prepared, they spoke together of what each one had noted in the chapter read. Sometimes they also had questions before them, which each person in turn could raise a day or two before, and to which they would then answer at table, according to the gifts he possessed. After the meal they sang a psalm together, and so returned to work. Then they went through the same procedure before and at the evening meal.
> 
> ...


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Oct 4, 2008)

There is a well-known children's nursery rhyme:



> Ride a c o c k horse to Banbury Cross.
> To see a fine lady upon a white horse,
> Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
> She shall have music wherever she goes.



said by some to be about Queen Elizabeth I taking a pilgrimage to one of the famous crosses in Banbury. That cross was destroyed by Puritans in 1602.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Oct 5, 2008)

William Whately, Banbury Puritan minister, _Sinne no more_ (1628), p. 23:



> I beseech you (brethren) let there be none, no not one amongst you, that out of a malicious desire to scourge pietie, so nicke-named, vpon our sides, shall mocke at Puritanisme, vpon occasion of this hand of God which he hath stretched out against vs, whom the world hath pleased, but falsely, to terme Puritans.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Oct 28, 2008)

William Whately had a daughter baptized in 1604 with the name Hopeful. I picked up this trivia reading a book about Puritan names and the correlation was to John Bunyan's Hopeful character in _Pilgrim's Progress_.


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