And now let us glance for a moment at the manner of people who frequented these churches Sunday after Sunday. We shall find among them the extremes of both worldly pomp and ostentation, on the one hand, and humble simplicity, on the other, as they went to the weekly discharge of their religious duties. Our Colonial forebears, however democratic some of them may have been in religious principle or however much some of them may have decried set ceremonial forms, were, almost without exception, great respecters of persons and in no way did they more fully display this common failing--it is just as prevalent in kindred forms at the present day--than in their methods of seating the congregations according to the accepted worth or dignity of the individual members. In the South, the lords of the manors or the squires, just as in England, had their great square pews in the chancel or, perhaps, a whole transept would be reserved to their exclusive use for their family, dependants or tenants as was the case, for example, in Christ Church, Lancaster County, Virginia, where Robert (“King”) Carter, at whose charge the edifice was built, made such a reservation. The “King’s” own high panelled family pew, just before the pulpit, had a brass rail around the top from which hung damask curtains on all sides except that opposite the pulpit. This screened the occupants, when standing up, from the gaze of the rudely inquisitive. Upon the removal of the seat of the Virginia government from Jamestown to Williamsburg, in 1699, Bruton Parish Church became the “court church” of the Colony and “official distinction was recognised and emphasized” in the order of seating. The historian of the parish, writing of the present building, which was completed in 1715, says: “To His Excellency the Governour and His Council of State was assigned a pew elevated from the floor, overhung with a red velvet canopy, around which his name was emblasoned in letters of gold, the name being changed as Spotswood, Drysdale, Gooch, Dinwiddie, Fauquier, Lord Botetourt and Lord Dunmore succeeded to office. In the square pews of the transepts sat the members of the House of Burgesses, the pews in the choir being assigned to the Surveyor General and the Parish Rector, while in the overhanging galleries in the transept and along the side walls of the church sat the Speaker of the House of Burgesses and other persons of wealth and distinction, to whom the privilege of erecting these private galleries was accorded from time to time.”