Susanna Wesley

BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 3
ill-fated monarch he seems to have taken some considerable
share. He was by no means silent or passive
when Episcopacy was under discussion, and would fain
have seen the offices of deacons, priests, and bishops
abolished. He was chairman of the Committee for
Religion, and in that capacity had to consider the cases
of one hundred clergymen who lived scandalous lives.
These cases he published in a quarto volume of fiftyseven
pages, a copy of which, under the title of The
First Century of Scandalous and Malignant Priests,
may be seen in the British Museum. Mr. White was,
moreover, a member of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines ;
and what with the excitement and unrest of
the times, his natural zeal, and the heat of party spirit,
he wore himself out at the comparatively early age of
fifty- four, and was buried with a considerable amount
of ceremony in the Temple Church on the 29th of
January 1644. Over his grave was placed a marble
tablet with this inscription :
Here lyeth a John, a burning, shining light,
Whose name, life, actions all were White.
It was no doubt to his maternal great-grandfather
that Charles Wesley alluded many years after, when his
daughter Sally refused to believe that kings reigned
by Divine right ;
and in his anger at her contumacy
exclaimed, " I protest, the rebel blood of some of her
"
ancestors runs in her veins !
Dr.- Annesley was himself of aristocratic lineage,
and looked it every inch. His father and the Earl of
Anglesey of that date were first cousins, their fathers
being brothers. Samuel Annesley was an only child,
and received the Christian name that has been transmitted
to so many of his descendants, at the request of
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