uppon
payne of finall expellinge the Universitie."

Evidently the intention was to make things pleasant for the royal foe
of tobacco during his visit. It would appear to be a fair inference
from the wording of this prohibition that when the King was not at
Cambridge, graduates and scholars and students could resume their
liberty to resort to inns, taverns, ale-houses and tobacco-shops, and
presumably to take tobacco in St. Mary's Church, without question.

The prohibition, in the regulation quoted, of smoking in St. Mary's
Church, referred, it may be noted, to the Act which was held therein.
Candidates for degrees, or graduates to display their proficiency,
publicly maintained theses; and this performance was termed keeping or
holding an Act.

It is, of course, conceivable that the prohibition, so far as the
church and Trinity College Hall were concerned, was against the taking
of snuff rather than against smoking; but the phrase "to take tobacco"
was at that time quite commonly applied to smoking, and, considering
the extraordinary and immoderate use of tobacco soon after its
introduction, it is not in the least incredible that pipes were
lighted, at least occasionally, even in sacred buildings.

Sometimes tobacco was used in church for disinfecting or deodorizing
purposes. The churchwardens' accounts of St. Peter's, Barnstaple, for
1741 contain the entry: "Pd. for Tobacco and Frankincense burnt in the
Church 2s. 6d." Sprigs of juniper, pitch, and "sweete wood," in
combination with incense, were often used for the same purpose.

Smoking, it may safely be asserted, was never practised commonly in
English churches. Even in our own day people have been observed
smoking--not during service time, but in passing through the
building--in church in some of the South American States, and nearer
home in Holland; but in England such desecration has been occasional
only, and quite exceptional.

One need not be much surprised at any instance of lack of reverence in
English churches during the eighteenth century, and a few instances
can be given of church smoking in that era.

Blackburn, Archbishop of York, was a great smoker. On one occasion he
was at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, for a confirmation. The story of
what happened was told long afterwards in a letter written in December
1773 by John Disney, rector of Swinderby, Lincolnshire, the grandson
of the Mr. Disney who at the time of the Archbishop's visit to St.
Mary'