Tuke of Silk Willoughby

The Church of St Denis in the Lincolnshire village of Silk Willougby was once the parish of the Rev Hugh Tuke. Appointed to the living in 1577 by its patron and local landowner Bartholomew Armyne, Tuke was not only a puritan in theology but a nonconformist, too. Elizabethan Anglican clergy were expected to wear the surplice, a white garment over their cassock, which the government hoped would add some dignity to clerical dress, but which the puritans thought an unwelcome leftover from Rome, a rag of antichrist. Many wore it under protest, while others, such as Tuke, simply refused. It might seem a small matter to us, but to some early modern folk, it was a link to the Roman Catholicism from which they had been delivered.

Tuke was duly suspended in 1584 for refusing to use the sign of the cross at a baptism, which he also thought a vestige of Roman superstition, as well as not wearing a surplice. Tuke thus won the title of ‘the father of Lincolnshire puritans’ from one of the county’s historians. He survived further intended prosecutions in 1605, and was described as ‘unconformable’ in 1611, and again in 1612. He was once even in the pulpit when he received a summons to appear before Bishop Barlow to answer for his actions. Yet he remained at St Denis’ until 1627 because local gentry like Sir William Armyne defended him as ‘an honest, godly and peaceable man’.

Had the bishop and chancellor of Lincoln diocese had their way, he would have been fined, deprived of his living or even imprisoned. Yet he made a brave stand for Protestant truth, and God raised up godly landowners to shield him. Like Daniel’s three friends, he refused to conform to the prevailing norms, even when others thought it a small matter or a ‘thing indifferent’.

Although Tuke was not martyred for his faith, and neither did his principles cost him his parish and livelihood, he still risked all these by his stance. The days were coming when Oliver and his friends would protect such men as Tuke from the vantage of Whitehall, but those days were not yet. Tuke is a relatively unknown man who made a courageous stand on a matter we might dismiss as immaterial, but he knew that in the eyes of God, little things count. Would that we learned a lesson or two from him.

The graffito, above, located in the porch, is of the name David Tuke, and may have been Hugo's son. Perhaps he was 'unconformable', also, but in a different way.