page_title: Thomas Blake (minister)
section_title: Appointment at Shrewsbury
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Blake (minister) / The Civil War and Commonwealth / Appointment at Shrewsbury
caption_attribution_description: English: Church of St Alkmund, Shrewsbury Wikidata has entry Q17550400 with data related to this building.This is a photo of listed building number 1254774.
context_page_description: Thomas Blake was an English Puritan clergyman and controversialist of moderate Presbyterian sympathies. He worked in Tamworth, Staffordshire and in Shrewsbury, from which he was ejected over the Engagement controversy. He disputed in print with Richard Baxter over admission to baptism and the Lords Supper.
context_section_description: Blake then moved to the church of St Alkmund (sometimes rendered Alkmond) in Shrewsbury, where the parliamentary committee had assumed power after overwhelming the royalist garrison on 21 February 1645. It is possible he was established at Shrewsbury in 1645, although the first confirmation came on 21 August 1646, when the corporation agreed to add £5 to his annual income. This corresponds well with the appointment of Ralph Hodges on 27 June 1646 as his replacement at Tamworth.
  At the time of Blake's appointment Parliament's alliance with the Scottish Covenanters was still strong and it had decided that each county should plan and secure approval for a Presbyterian polity, in fulfilment of the Solemn League and Covenant, to which parliamentarian forces had subscribed in 1643. Shropshire was one of only eight counties that attempted to put such a scheme into practice. It is set out in a document dated 29 April 1647. This is entitled: The Severall Divisions and Persons for Classicall Presbyteries in the County of Salop and was issued over the signature of Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester. It envisaged six classical presbyteries, the first centred on Shrewsbury itself. Thomas Blake was third on its list of eight serving ministers. The ruling elders or lay leaders were headed by the mayor of Shrewsbury and Humphrey Mackworth, the town's governor. As the title "Saint" was now restricted to the Apostles, Blake's church was now named simply "Alkmonds".
  In 1648 Blake signed the Solemn League and Covenant. He was one of 57 signatories to a document entitled A Testimony of the Ministers in the Province of Salop to the Truth of Jesus Christ and to the Solemn League and Covenant: as also against the Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies of these times and the Toleration of them. Prominent by its absence from the document was the name of another Shrewsbury clergyman, Thomas Paget, incumbent of St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury and governor Mackworth's parish minister. The Testimony was a broadside against Independency or Congregationalism – a show of strength by the Presbyterian clergy made necessary by the weakening of their political position. Presbyterianism had been fatally wounded by the Scottish Engager invasion in support of Charles I. By the end of 1648 Pride's Purge had removed moderate Presbyterians from the English House of Commons and cleared the way for the execution of the king.
caption: St Alkmund's, Shrewsbury. The tower and spire were retained from the medieval building when the church was largely rebuilt in the late 18th century.
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