ABSTRACT
On 20 May 1656 Charles Cheyne wrote from Chelsea to his brother-in-law Charles Cavendish, Viscount Mansfield, at Welbeck, to report the birth and baptism of his first child, a daughter: ‘its weakness made us give itt presently a sprinkling of Christianity under much confusion’. Indeed, the haste with which a distinctly unPuritan baptism with ample godparents had been arranged meant that the occasion had fallen foul of Cromwellian legislation on Sabbath observation:
My Lord of Bullingbrooke was pleased though not here at first upon request to come & stand for my Lord of Newcastle such was my Deare Lady’s desire & his kindnesse, but some unchristian Justice, it being Sunday made him pay 10s for breaking the sabbath & then gave him then a license to doe itt. Such use we make of the laws of God and man.1
