Schofield of High Cross, Todmorden

The Church of St Paul at Stone Cross, Todmorden, was once the church which served the Yorkshire part of the township. It seems to be a nineteenth-century construction which has now been converted into a rather salubrious private home with wonderful views of the valley below. Because of its domestic status, I did not feel inclined to snoop around the churchyard, even though this might have been my right; an Englishman’s home is sacrosanct. Online sources suggest the presence of some early seventeenth-century datestones, which would have been familiar to Rev Jonathan Schofield, the vicar here in the 1640s. One otherwise helpful website erroneously describes him as a royalist, which seems bizarre considering his ejection for puritanism in 1662 and his laying hands on Oliver Heywood for the purpose of ordination. Schofield appears to have assisted Parliamentary general Sir Thomas Fairfax on the assault on Leeds on 23rd January 1643, while lustily singing Psalm 68 from the Psalter:

Let God arise, and scattered

Let all His enemies be;

And let all those that do Him hate,

Before His presence flee.

While fighting northwards along Briggate, he helped in to drive men out of each house as he progressed. Leading twelve musketeers up the street towards a second cannon, he succeeding in killing the crew and capturing the gun. In 1646, he transferred as minister to Bury, Lancashire.

The old warrior bishops and crusading monks did not entirely die out in the Middle Ages. Master Schofield, it would seem, helped to keep this tradition of holy soldiery going. As previously indicated, he was out of his post when the government changed after Cromwell, and he then had other battles to face. The church at Stone Cross which is now a home he would not have known seeing as it is a Victorian re-build, but those battling, restless eyes would surely have beheld this dark valley with all the grim assessment of a godly campaigner.

Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth mine hands to fight, and my fingers to battle. He is my goodness and my fortress, my tower and my deliverer, my shield and in him I trust, which subdueth my people under me. Psalm 144:1-2, Geneva Bible