The Antipathy of the English Lordly Prelacy
Hilary the fifth Bishop of this See, though he was content absolutely to allow of the Declaration after published at Claridon, without mention of that odious clause ( saluo ordine suo ) being shreudly baited of his brethren for his labor, yet afterwards he had some contests with the King, and sought to impeach his prerogative royal, as appear • s by this notable passage, of the Author of the Holy Table, name and Thing p. 30.31. Sure I am, that [according to this advice of Eleuthe • ius ] the B • ittish, Saxon, Danish • and first Norman Kings have governed their Churches and Churchmen by Capitula • s and mixed Digests, composed (as it were) of Common and Canon Law, and promulgated with the advice of the Counsel of the King, as w • e may see in those particulars set forth by Mr. Lambard, Mr. Selden Dr. Powell, and others. And I do not believe there can be shown any Ecclesiastical Canons for the government of the Church of England, until long after the conquest, which were not either originally promulgated • or afterwards approved and allowed by either the Monarch, or some King of the Heptarchy, sitting and directing in the National or Provincial Synod. For all the Collections that Lindwood Comments upon, are (as Theophrastus speaks) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 but rough and rugged money of a more fresh & later coining: and yet in those usurping times I have seen a Transcript of a Record, An. 1157.3 o . Henry the 2. wherein when the Bishop of Chichister opposed some late Canons against the Kings exemption of the Abby of Battells from the Episcopal Jurisdiction; it is said, That the King being angry and much moved therewith, should reply. Tu pro Papae authoritate ab hominibus concessa, contra dignitatum Regalium authoritates mihi à Deo concessas, calliditate arguta niti praecogitas,? Do you Sir go about by subtleties of wit to oppose the Popes authority, which is but the favor or connivence of men against the authority of my Regal Dignities, being the Charters and Donations of God himself? and thereupon requires Reason, and Justice against the Bishop for this soul insolency. A good evidence, that the Canon Law, had little esteem or fo • ce among us in that age; and not long after it was prohibited by special Writ to be read among us, as appears by the Writ of 19. Hen. 3. directed to the Major and Sheriefes of London, commanding them, Quod per totara Civitatem London Clamari faciant & firmiter prohiberi, ne aliquis Scolas regens de Legibus in eadem Civitate de caetero ibidem Leges doceat. Et si aliquis ibidem fuerit hujusmodi Scolas regens, ipsum sine dilatione cessare faciat. T. Rege apud Basing XI. die Decembris • This was five years after the Decretals published, and it seems most probable, that these Leges were Canon Laws, perhaps mixed (as usually they were in the profession also,) with the Imperialls (for both of them were it seems, studied here under Henry the third by the Clergy, more • han any other part of learning,) and therefore were forbidden, as being b • th in regard of their own authority, against the supreme majesty, and independency of the Crown of England. And before this, in King 〈◊〉 reign, in that great controversy in the Synod of Winchester touching the Castles of Newark, Sales • ury, and the Vies, the King denied utterly Censuram Canonum pati, that is, to have it determined by them • whether or no • the two Bishops Roger of Salisbury and Alexander of Lincoln might lawfully keep their Castles that they had fortified. But while the rest of the Bishops stood so much upon their Canons, and even in the face of majesty, professed a rebellion, the King, and the Lay subjects, it seems grew so exasperated against them, that by public command for the preservation of the Liberty of the Crown and Laity, they were forbidden to be of anymore use in the Kingdom: for so perhaps is that to be understood in John of Chartres, where he says; that, Tempore Regis Stephani a regno jussae sunt Leges Romanae quas in Brittanniam domus venerabilis Patris T • eobaldi Bri • tanniarum Primatis asciverat. Ne quis etiam libros retineret, edicto Regio prohibitum est. The Canon Law made by Popes and Prelates being inconsistent with the Kings Supremacy, and Subjects Liberty.
Stephen Berksteed the 14th. Bishop of Chichester, Anno. 1265. was excommunicated by O • tobon the Popes Legate, for rebelling and taking part with the Barons against King Henry the third, who thereupon repaired to Rome for absolution.
John de Langhton, the 16th. Bishop of Chichister, Anno. 1315. excommunicated Warren, Earl of Kent, for adultery: whereupon the Earl came unto him with armed men, making some show to lay violent hands upon him, unless he would absolve him. The Bishops men perceiving it, by their Masters command set upon them, and put both the Earl, and his men in prison, whereupon ensued great combustions.
Thomas Rushocke the 20th Bishop of Chichester, a lewd pernicious Prelate. Anno. 1388. was driven away from the Court by the Barons, as a Traitor, for his ill Councils to Richard the second, his Lands and goods confiscated, he banished and deprived of his Bishopric by Act of Parliament, himself had suffered as a Traitor, but that his guiltiness made him fly before he could be apprehended.
Adam Molins the 31. Bishop of that See, falling at variance with Richard Duke of York was slain at Portsmouth by certain Mariners, June 9. 1449.
Richard Sampson the 37th. of Chichester. Anno 21. Hen. 8. was committed to the T ••••• r for relieving certain Trayterous persons, who denied the Kings Supremacy.
George Day the 21. Bishop of this See, October 10. 1551. was deprived from his Bishopric, for denying the Kings Supremacy, and maintaining the Popes, and other misdemeanors, but was afterwards restored by Queen Mary, at whose Coronation he preached.
John Christopherson the 40. Bishop of this Diocese, was deprived by Act of Parliament in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's happy reign, for denying her supremacy, and refusing to take the oath of alegiance.
To pass by the subsequent Bishops of this See, Richard Montague the last Bishop thereof but one, was the principal abetter and reviver of those late Arminian and Popish Doctrines, Ceremonies, Innovations which for sundry years have disquieted • both our Church and State; and that not only in his Book, entitled Appello Caesarem, published in the year 1625. complained against in three several Parliaments, and called in by his Majesty's special Proclamation, as a Book that opened the way to those Schisms and Divisions which have since ensued in our Church; (though for this very Book • he was advanced to this See, by the practice and confederacy of some swaying Prelates;) and in his Gagge ; but likewise in his Visitation Articles, his Antidiatribae, his Aparatus ad Historiam Eccles • asticam, and other Works, as you may rea • more largely in Mr. Bayly his Canterburians se • fe-Conviction, the last Edition: which Books of his have given great scandal to our Church, much advantage to our Popish Adversaries, and much distracted • not only our Church, but State; for which no doubt he should have received his just demerits in the high Court of Parliament, had not he died suddenly out of fear, (being sent for to answer his old and new offenses upon some fresh complaints) to ease the Parliament, and prevent a censure. Of his successor in this See, I need say nothing he is so well known: wherefore I shall next visit Carlisle Diocese, and give you but a touch of some special Acts of the Bishops of that See.
The Bishops of Carlisle.
Walter Malclerke, in the year 1223. was consecrated unto the Bishopric of Carlisle, which he acknowledged to have obtained by evil and corrupt means, and therefore resigned the same (moved in conscience so to do as he alleged) June 29. 1246. and took on him the habit of a Friar Preacher at Oxford, in which he continued till his death. Being Treasurer of England under King Henry the third ; the King upon a sudden, at the instigation of Peter, Bishop of W • nchester, not only displaced him from that office, but revoked certain Grants made unto him heretofore, & charged him with the debt of 100. pound. which he acknowledged not. For redress of these wrongs (as he took them) he determined to travel to Rome, but was stayed at the waters-side by the Kings Officers; whom Roger, Bishop of London excommunicated for the same; and riding presently to Worcester, where the Court lay, renewed that Excommunication in the Kings presence • How he thrived with these businesses afterward I find not. But likely enough it is, that these troubles rather made him weary of the world, than any such scruple induce him to leave his Bishopric.
Sylvester de Everdon, the 5th. Bishop of this See, was elected in the year, •• 46. but not consecrated till February 5th. 1247. because he refused to accept of the election, alleging his own unworthiness; but at last upon better deliberation, yielded: he was one of them that joined with Boniface the Archbishop, and Ethelma • re the Elect of Winchester in their request to the King that remembering his promise often made, hereafter he would not impeach the Liberty of Elections by interposing his armed requests, &c. The King acknowledged he had indeed offended that way, and that especially (quoth he) in making means for you yourselves, that thererefore of all other should least find fault with it. To this man particularly he used these words. I remember how I exalted thee Sylvester of Carlisle unto a Bishopric, having hankered a long time about the Chancery, and being a petty Chaplain to my Chaplains, preferring thee before many grave and reverend Divines, &c. His conclusion was that if they would give over their places which they had obtained by so undue means, he would hereafter forbear to commend any so unworthy. This was the year 1253. The year following, May the 13th This Bishop riding a horse somewhat too lusty for him, was cast, and so bruised with the fall, as he died by and by, to wit, May 13 • 1254.
Thomas Merkes the Fiftenth Bishop of this See, amongst many unworthy preferred to Bishopprickes in those days, was undoubtedly a man well-deserving that honor; for he was both learned and wise, but principally to be commended; first, for his constant and immovable fidelity unto his Patron and preferrer King Richard, then for his excellent courage in professing the same, when he might safely, yea, and honestly also, have concealed his affection. Some other there were of the Nobility that remembering their duty and allegiance, when all the world b • s • de forsook this unfortunate Prince, followed him with their best assistance, even till the time of his captivity. This man nothing regarding the danger might ensue, not only refused to forsake him when he had forsaken himself, but defended him and his cause the best he could, when he might well perceive, his endeavor might hurt himse • fe much, without any possibility of helping the other, when the furious and unstable multitude, not contented that King Richard had resigned his Crown to save the head that wore it, and their darling Henry the fourth. seated himself in his royal throne, importuned the Parliament assembled to proceed yet farther against him, desiring no doubt that to make all sure, his life might be taken from him. This worthy and memorable Prelate stepping forth, doubted not to tell them, that there was none amongst them meet to give judgment upon so noble a Prince as King Richard was • whom they had taken for their Sovereign and Liege Lord, by the space of twenty two years and more, And proceeding further, I assure you, quoth he (I report his words as I find them in our Chronicles) there is not so rank a Trayter, nor so arrant a thief, nor yet so cruel a murderer, apprehended or detained in prison for his offense, but he shall be brought before the justice to hear Judgment; and will you proceed to the judgment of an anointed King, hearing neither his answer nor excuse? I say and will avow, that the Duke of Lancaster (whom ye call king) hath more trespassed to King Richard and his Realm; the King Richard hath done either to him or us: for it is manifest and well known, that the Duke was banished the Realm by King Richard and his Council, and by the judgment of his own Father • for the space of ten years, for what cause ye remember well enough • This notwithstanding, without Licence of King Richard, he is returned again into the Realm, and (that is worse) hath taken upon him the name, title, and preeminence of King: and therefore I say that you have done manifest wrong to proceed against King Richard in any sort without calling him openly to his answer and defense. This Speech scarcely ended, he was att • ched by the Earl Marshall, and for a time committed to ward in the Abbey of St. Albanes. Continuing yet his loyal affection unto his distressed Master, soon af • er his enlargement, he traitorously joined with the Hollands, and others in a conspiracy against King Henry the 4th. which being bewrayed to the destruction of all the rest, he only was pardoned, peradventure in regard of his calling (for it had seldom or never been seen hitherto, that any Bishop was put to death by order of Law;) peradventure in some kind of favor and admiration of his faithful constancy (for virtue will be honored, even of her enemies;) peradventure also to this end, that by forcing him to live miserably, they might lay a punishment upon him more grievous than death, which they well saw he despised. The Pope (who seldom denied the King any request that he might afford good cheepe) was easily entreated, to translate forsooth, this good Bishop from the See of Carlisle, that yielded him honorable maintenance, unto Samos in Greece, whereof he knew he should never receive one penny profit: he was so happy, as neither to take benefit of the gift of his enemy, nor to be hurt by the masked malice of his counterfeit friend, disdaining (as it were) to take his life by his gift, that took away from his Master, both life and Kingdom, he died shortly after his deliverance, so deluding also the mockery of his Translation, whereby (things so falling out) he was nothing damnified. Hall reports, that he died for fear, more than sickness, as one rather desirous to die by deaths dart, than the temporal Sword, which this his Treason deserved, being a great blemish to his former fidelity.
Owen Oglethorpe the 31. B. of this See, was deprived with divers other Bishops for withstanding Q. Eliza. proceedings, and refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance, in the year 1559. Of other Bishops of this See, since his days, I find little mention, most of them being translated to other Sees; I shall therefore proceed to the Bishops of Norwich.
The Bishops of Norwich.
John de Gray, the fifth Bishop of Norwich (if we believe Matthew Paris, ) was one of those three Court Bishops who were consiliarios iniquissimos most wicked counsellors to King John, during the time of the inderdict of the Realm: who desiring to please the King in all things, consilium non pro ration, sed pro voluntate dederunt, gave the King counsel, not according to Reason, but Will, and thereby wrought much trouble both to the King and Kingdom.
Pandulphus the next Bishop of this See, consecrated by the Pope at Rome, Anno. 1222. was the Popes Legate, and the chief instument, who persuaded King John, most ignominiously, and shamefully to resign up his Crown and Kingdom to the Pope, to become his Vassall, to his eternal infamy, and to submit himself to S • ephen Langhton, and those other Trayterly Prelates who intardicted the Realm, excommunicated this King, published the Popes deprivation of him from his Crown, and instigated the French King to invade the Realm of England, and usurp the Crown, which the Pope had conferred on him upon King John's deprivation from it, of which you may read more at large before in Stephen Langhton, Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 33. to 41. Only let me inform you, that during the time of this inderdict (above six years space) all Ecclesiastical Sacraments ceased in England, except Confession, and the viaticum in extreme necessity, and the Baptism of Infants; so as the bodies of dead men were carried out of Towns and Villages, and burried like dogs in Highwayes and Ditches without prayers, and the ministry of Priests, as Matthew Paris and others testify. Such was the Prelates piety and charity.
About the year of our Lord, 1271. In the time of Roger de Skerwing, 12. Bishop of Norwich, there was raised a dangerous sedition between the Citizens of Norwich and the Monks of the Cathedral Church; the History whereof is briefly this. At a Faire that was kept before the gates of the Priory, there happened a fray, in which some servants of the Covent, • lew certain citizens: A Jury being empaneled hereupon, found them guilty, and the Officers took order for the apprehending of the murderers if they might be met withal. The Monks greatly offended herewith, first, excommunicated the Citizens, then shutting the gates, not only prepared themselves to defense. but also began to offend the other, shooting at the passengers first, and afterward issuing out of their gates, killing divers persons, and spoiling many houses: The Citizens greatly incensed herewith, fired the gates, entered the Monastery. and after a long conflict (a great number being slain on both sides) prevailed, rifled the Priory, and set fire on the same in divers places at once. This fire consumed not only the Cells and Offices of the Monks, but the Alms house also, the steeple, and greatest part of the Cathedral Church. The King hearing of this tumult, with all speed posted thither, with the Bishop of Rochester, and others. The Bishop of Rochester, excommunicated all those who had consented to this wickedness, and the King caused divers Citizens to be hanged • drawn, and quartered; amongst the rest that were executed • a woman that carried fire to the gates was burned. The Monks for their part appealed to Rome, and so handled the matter, that they not only escaped punishment but also forced the Citizens to pay them 3000. marks after 500. marks a year, toward the reparation of their Church, and to present them with a Pix or Cup of gold of seven pound weight. This end was made by King Edward the first (his Father being now dead) at the request and solicitation of the Bishop. But the Prior (saith Holinshed ) was well enough borne out and defended by the Bishop of Norwich named Roger, who (as it is likely) was the Master of the mischief, though hands were not laid upon him, nor upon his adherents, perhaps for fear, peradventure for favor; and no marvel, though the less faulty lost their lives, as most guilty; for
After him Anthony de Becke, the 17th. Bishop of this See attaining this dignity at the Popes hands. behaved himself so imperiously in the place, that he bereaved the Monks of divers ancient and long enjoyed privileges suffering them to do nothing in their house but what seemed good unto him, plucking down and preferring amongst them whom he listed. Neither could he only be content thus to tyrannize over them, but scorning to have his actions reformed or called in question by any other, he openly withstood Robert Winchelsey, Bishop of Canterbury in his Visitation; affirming, that he would not answer to those things which were objected against him, unless it were at the Court of Rome. This boisterous and unruly dealing purchased him such hatred of all men, that at the last he was poisoned by some of his own servants.
William Bateman the 18th. Bishop of Norwich • forced the Lord Morley for killing certain Deere in one of his Parkes, and abusing his Keepers, to carry a burning Taper in his hand, through the streets of Norwich unto the High-Altar by way of Penance. And although King Edward the third became an earnest intercessor for him to the Bishop, mingling sometimes threats with requests, yet nothing could move the Bishop following his determinate course; such arrogant, malicious, dispitefull froward creatures are Prelates for the most part, both towards Kings and Nobles. In his time there happened a great Pestilence, so that in many Monasteries and religious Houses, there were scarce two of twenty left alive, there died only in Norwich in one year, besides religious men 57104 persons.
Henry Spencer, a Gentleman of great valor and skill in martial affairs, serving the Pope as General in his, wars, in the year 1370. was made Bishop of Norwich. And being a better Butcher and Soldier than a Shepherd, he (notwithstanding the Kings Commandment to the contrary) procured the Popes authority for levying of an army here in England, which he transported about the year 1385. into the Low-Countries for the Popes service in his war • es, where after he had slain above 1100. men, in a set batt • ll (wherein the Priests and religious men that were with the Bishop fought valiantly and most eagerly, some of them slaying sixteen men apiece in one battle against the • lemmings : vanquished an army of 30000. and burnt the Towns of Graveling, Dunkirke, Newport and others, returned again into England, the King seising his Temporalties into his hands & detaining them two years space for his contempt, in raising an army without, and against his express command. This Martial Prelate, had forgotten what answer all the Bishops, Abbots, and Clergy of England gave to King Henry the third, Anno. 1267. in a Parliament at St. Edmond's Berry, where the King demanding, that all Clergy men holding Baronies, or Lay Fee, should go armed in person against the Kings enemies, or should find so many men to serve the King in his Expidition, as pertained to so much land or tenement. To this they answered, Quod non debent pugnare cum gladio raateriali; That they ought not to fight with the material sword, but with the spiritual, naraely with tears, and sighs, and devout Prayers; and that for their Benefices they were bound to maintain peace not war: and that their Baronies were founded in pure Franck-Almoigne, where they owed no Knights Service but what was certain; neither would they begin any new: and when it was replied, that the Prelates were obliged to grant all the Kings requests (there specified and contradicted by them) whether they would or no, by reason of the Oath they had taken at Coventrie, where they swore, that they would aid their Lord the King by all means that they could. To this they gave this equivocating answer; that when they made this Oath, they understood it not of any other aid, but spiritual and wholesome council, denying to grant the King any money at all. But it seems that this was then the Bishops received distinction, that they might lawfully bear arms, and fight with the material sword, and grant Subsedias to aid the Pope against his enemies, as this Bishop and the Clergy in his time did; but not to assist the King against his enemies • This Martial Act of his warlike Prelate is thus censured by William Swinderby, one of our Martyrs in Richard the seconds reign. Further I say, if the Pope hold men of arms, in maintaining his Temporalties and Lordship to venge him on them that gilten and offend him, and gives remission to fight and to sley them that contrary him • as men say he did by the Bishop of Norwich, not putting his sword into his sheath, as God commanded Peter Mitte, &c. he is Antichrist, for he does contrary to the Commandments of Jesus, that bade Peter forgive to his brother seventy times seventy. Si peccaverit in me frater meus, quotiens dimittam ei? Septies? &c & Christus; non dieo tibi septi • s, sed septuagesies sepcies. Which Walter Brute another martyr in that time thus seconds, Again, Christ saith, You have heard that it is said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, see that you resist not evil. But if any man shall strike you upon the right cheek, give him the other too; and to him that will strive with thee for thy caate in judgment, let him have thy cloak also, and whosoever shall contstrain thee one mile, go with him also two other. He that asketh of thee give him, and he that will borrow of thee, turn not thyself from him. By these things it may plainly appear how that Christ the King of peace, the Savior of mankind, who came to save, and not to destroy, who gave a Law of Charity to be observed of his faithful people, hath taught us not to be angry, not to hate our enemies, nor to render evil for evil, nor to resist evil. For all these things do foster and nourish peace and charity, and do proceed and come forth of charity, and when they be not kept charity is loosed, and peace is broken. But the Bishop of Rome approveth and alloweth wars and slaughters of men in war, as well against our enemies, that is, the Infidels, as also against the Christians for temporal goods. Now these things are quite contrary to Christ's Doctrine, and to charity; and to peace, &c. And indeed if we consider Pope Vrbanes Commission and privileges granted to this martial Prelate against Clement the Antipope and his complices, we shall see how far the Popes practices are opposite to Christ's practi • e and precepts, and what merciful, peaceable men Lordly prelates are, I shall give you a taste hereof out of Walsingham. In the year of our Lord 1382. Henry Spencer Bishop of Norwich, received Bulls from the Pope his Lord directed to him, to sign with the Cross all those who were willing to go with him into France, to the destruction of the Antipope, who called himself Clement, and to sanctify a war against all who adhered to him. Which Bulls, because they conferred great power to him, he caused to be published in Parliament, and sent abroad Copies of them round about into every place, which he caused to be fixed on the doors of Churches and Monasteries in open view. These Bulls relate at large the injuries that Clement the Antipope, and the Cardinals confederating with him, had offered to Urban, and that Pope Urban, being unable without great offense of Christ, and remorse of conscience any longer to endure so many great excesses, thought meet to rise up against those wicked ones in the power of the most high, and proceeding judicicially against them by a definitive sentence denounced and declared them to be scismatickes, and conspirators against the Pope, and blasphemers, and that they should be punished like Heretics, and persons guilty of high Treason, and did thereupon excommunicate and accurse them, and withal deprived them from all their Benefices and O • fices whatsoever, making them uncapable to retain or receive them, or any other, both for the present and future; withal, he degraded all the Nobl • s and Knights who adhered to him from all their honors, dignities, and Knightships, decreed all their goods, moveables and immoveables, rights, and jurisdictions to be confiscated, and their persons to be detestable, and so to be esteemed, and exposed them to be apprehended by all Christians, and so apprehended to be kept in such sort, that they should not escape, and either be sent immediately to the said Pope, or else detained close prisoners in safe custody, till he should give further order therein: Moreover he excommunicated all those who should either believe, receive, defend, or favor any of them, so as they should not be absolved from this sentence without his privity, unless it were at the very point of death; he further decreed, that whosoever should wittingly presume to admit any of them to Ecclesiastical burial, should be subject to the sentence of Excommunication, from which he should not be absolved, unless at the very point of death; except (O barbarous cruelty) they would first with their own hands dignity them out of their graves, Et procul e •• ecrent ab Ecclesiastica sepultura corpora eorundem ; and cast out their bodies far from the Church-yard or Ecclesiastical burying place. Moreover, he inhibited all Christians wittingly to harbor any of them, or to presume to bring, send • or suffer to be brought or sent, any corn, wine, flesh • clothes, wood • victuals, or any other thing profitable for their use, to any place where any of them should dwell or abide, if it lay in their power to prohibit it; he commanded likewise, that no man should presume in any wise to hinder the apprehention and detention of the said Antipope and his adherents and their transmission to him, and commanded every man to be assisting to their apprehention. And if any did contrary to the premises, or wittingly name, believe in, or preach Clement to be Pope, if he were a single person he should be excommunicated, if a Commonwealth or Corporation, they should be interdicted, and their cities and Lands, deprived of all commerce with other cities, places, and countries, and that the cities themselves should be deprived of their pontifical dignity, and that none but the Pope himself should have power to absolve them from this interdict, or excommunication, unless it were at the very point of death, he further granted to all persons truly penitent, and confessed who would fight against the said Antipope, and his confederates in their proper persons, or by others for one whole years space, from the day this Bishop of Norwhich should appoint, either continually, or by times if they were lawfully hindered, to all, as well Clergy men as Lay men who should follow the standard of the Church, and likewise to all such that should contribute towards the expenses of this war according to their ability, either to the Bishop or to his Deputy, or should hire fit soldiers to war and continue with him for the said space, the same indulgence that was usually granted to those who went to aide the holy Land. Moreover this Pope grants these Privileges to this his General the Bishop of Norwich, for the better promoting of this war. First, that the said Bishop might execute capital punishments against the Antipope, his adherers, factors, and councellours in any place, with strong hand. Item that he should have power to publish process against the Antipope and his adherents and any other, to be fulminated out by the said Lord the Pope himself, against them • and every of them. Item, that he should have power summarily, and plainly to inquire of all and singular Schismatics, and to imprison them, and to confiscate all their goods, moveables, and immoveables. Item, that he should have power to deprive Lay Schismatics of all secular Offices whatsoever, and to confer their Offices upon fit persons. Item, That he should have power of depriving and declaring to be deprived all Schismaticall Clergy men, and of conferring their Benefices with Cure, or without Cure, their dignities, Personages, or Offices to other idoneous persons. Item, That he should have power over all exempt persons, Clerks or Laics, Seculars or Regulars, though they were brethren of the Order of the Mendicants, or Professors, or Professed of other Houses, or of the Hospital of St. John's of Jerusalem, or of St. Mary of the Teutonicks, or professors of any other Orders. Item, That he should have power of dispensing with any Beneficed secular Clerks, with Cure, or without Cure, or such who had any dignities, parsonages, or Offices, and with regulars exempt or not exempt, that every of them might be absent with him from their benefices, dignities, offices, and houses under the sign of the Cross, without any license of their Prelates obtained, with the notice and reception of the fruits of their benefices, as if they personally had resided. Item, It is granted to all, who go oversea with him at their own cost and expenses, or at the charges of any other plenary remission of all sins, and so many privileges, as are granted to those who go to the aide of the holy Land. Item, They who out of their proper goods and means shall minister sufficient wages to fit soldiers, according to the discretion of the said Bishop, or of any deputed by him, albeit he himself shall not be personally present in the execution of the said business, shall have like remission of sins and indulgence as aforesaid, as they had been personally present with him. Item, All shall be partakers of this remission who shall congruously minister of their goods to the said Bishop towards the expugnation of the said Heretics. Item, if any in following the same Standard shall chance to die in the journey undertaken, or if the business it self shall chance to be finished in the interim with a convenient end, he shall entirely receive the same grace, who shall be partaker of the forenamed indulgence & remission. Item, he hath power of excommunicating, suspending, interdicting all rebellious persons; or those who hinder him to execute the power granted to him, of what dignity, state, degree, preeminence, order, place, or condition soever they shall be, although Regal, Queenely, or Imperial, or of what other Ecclesiastical or worldly dignity soever they excel in. Item, He hath power of compelling all religious persons whatsoever, even the professors of the Order of the Mendicants, if it shall seem expedient to him, to destinate or transmit them where he please for the execution of the premises. This Bishop armed with this large Commission, sends out his Mandates, everywhere for the advancement of this holy papal war; and among other his precepts, directs this ensuing mandate to the Clergy of the Province of York. Henry, by Divine permission, Bishop of Norwich, Nuncio of the See Apostolic, to our beloved in Christ, all and singular the Rectors, Vicars, and Chaplains Parochial within the City and Diocese of York, greeting in the Lord; Albeit we have exhorted all, and every of you by Apostolical authority in the Lord, and strictly commanded you, that you should publish the cross committed to us and its virtue to your parishioners in the most opportune time and places, whose sustainers, fauters, and aiders according to Ours, or Our Deputies discretion have plenary remission of sins granted, and besides this, have augmentation of eternal salvation permitted, as is more fully contained in the Apostolical Bulls lawfully published throughout all England. And because we understand by the relation of credible men, that our exhortation and command hath taken none, or small effect, especially (as is believed) by reason of the negligence of Curates, to the diminution of the Catholic faith, and danger of souls, who easily by your council and exhortation might obtain the foresaid privileges and sempiternall grace. Therefore we much affecting the salvation and pofit of souls, lest the precious gift of this spiritual universal grace or our power, should not as much as in us lieth be unknown to any of your parishoners, for time to come; do you cause the names of all your Parishioners to be written, setting down the sum and donations of those that pay upon their names, and those that pay not, from day today, as often, and when it shall be most expedient, not only the rich, but also the poor, according to the similitude of the poor widow, the healthy, and those that are sick, especially in confession, do you prudently handle, and persuade to put their helping hands to this holy voyage, to the destruction and extermination of moderne Heretics, that so they may be partakers of the merit and reward granted in this behalf, and yourselves hereby very much eased from the burden of your Cure. Moreover, the desturbers of this holy Voyage, or Rebells to our Commands, or rather to the Apostles, and fauters of the moderne Schism, you, or some of you shall peremptorily cite, that they personally appear before us, or our Commissioners by a certain day perfixed by you, or someone of you in the Cathedral of St. Paul in London, to show cause, at a precise and peremptory time, wherefore they ought not to be pronounced to have fallen into the censures thundered out against those who perpetrate such things. And further to do and receive what Justice shall persuade. You or someone of you shall distinstly and wisely certify us or our Commissioners of the nam ••• and quantity of the alms conferred in this kind • and also of the days of your citations, and of the manner and form thereof: Of all, and every of which we burden every of your consciences, firmly enjoining you by virtue of that obedience you stand obliged to the See Apostolic • that you publish these our present Letters among your Parishioners, retaining the Copies of them with yourselves, and that ye speedily transmit them to the next Curate in the foresaid Diocese: In witness whereof we have to these presents set to our usual S •• le in this behalf: Given at Our Lodging • t Charing near Westmi • ster the 9th. day of the Monesh of February, Anno. Dom. 1382. and the 13th. of Our Consecration. And withal he granted this form of Absolution to all aiders and Assistants to this holy war. By the Apostolical authority committed to me in this behalf, we absolve thee, A. B. from all sins confessed with the mouth and sorrowed for with the heart, and which thou wouldst confess if they came to thy memory, and we grant thee plenary remission of all thy sins, and promise thee retribution of just men, and augmentation of eternal salvation; and we grant to thee so many privileges as are granted to those who go to the aide of the holy Land, and we impart to thee the suffrages of the prayers and benefits of the Synod of the Universal Church, and of the holy Catholic Church. By these recited Letters and Absolutions, you may clearly discern, 1. The extraordinary insatiable malice, uncharitableness, cruelty, rage of Popes and Lordly Prelates against their opposites. 2. Their earnest desire and promotion of bloody wars by all manner of instigations and enforcements. 3. Their exorbitant encroachments and usurpations upon Emperors, Kings, Princes, Subjects, and all sorts of men, who must be subject to their Censures, Excommunications, and Deprivations, if they resist their wills and bloody designs. 4. Their notable abuse of Excommunications, and other Ecclesiastical censures to avenge their own mere personal wrongs • and execute their own malicious designs. 5. Their political inventions to raise monies, and men to maintain their wars. 6. The impiety and strange abuse of their pretended indulgences wherewith they grossly cheat poor silly people. 7. The industry of this Martial Prelate of Norwi • h to promote this holy war, as he termed it, only in maintenance of Pope Vrbans inurbanity. This Bull and large Commission of the Pope to the Bishop • was many days debated in Parliament, and so his Voyage: During which time the Bishops foresaid Letters & Popes Bull being published throughout the Realm, the silly people, hearing the sweetness of so great a benediction to have arrived to the English, would neither reject nor receive in vain so great grace, but inflamed with the heat of devotion and faith, those who thought themselves fit for war, prepared themselves with all speed, and those who seemed unable for the Expedition, according to the council of their Confessors liberally contributed out of their goods towards the use of those who wentt, •• t they might deserve to be partakers of so great remission and indulgence. And the hearts of all men were so generally inflamed with devotion, that there was almost no man found in so great a Kingdom, who did not either offer himself to the said business or contribute something towards it, out of his estate: So that in a short space, divers great sums of money were brought to the Bishop out of many parts of the Kingdom, and multitudes of soldiers resorted to him: whereupon the Bishop takes his journey with part of his army towards the Sea-side, and comes to Northborne in Kent ; where making some small stay, he received the Kings writ, commanding him to return to speak with the King • and to know his pleasure. The Bishop thinking that if he returned, the King would command him to stay his Voyage, and so all his pains and provision should be lost, and himself exposed to derision, gathering together those soldiers he had present by the help of John Philpot, transported both himself and them to Chalis, from whence he went and besieged Graveling ; where in a set battle he vanquished the Flemmins and Schismatics, and obtained a glorious victory, slaying at least 12. thousand of them in the battle and flight. The news whereof coming over into England, so affected the people moved with the hope of the prey they should gain, that many Apprentices in London, and many servants took the Cross upon them without their Masters consent, and against their wills, whose example others following throughout the Kingdom, leaving their parents, kind red, and dear consorts, being unarmed, having only swords, bows, and arrows went out to this war; and many religious persons of all Orders, (who craved license to go but could not obtain it) presumed to undertake that Voyage, In magnum personarum suarum dedecus & detrimentum, quia non propter Iesnm tantum peregrinare decreverunt sed ut patriam mundumque viderent. John Philpot pro •••• ng all these with necessaries, transported them to the Bishop: whose temporalties the King seised and detained many years in his hands for undertaking this war, and passing the sea with his subjects, contrary to his inhibition. A little before this war, this Martial Prelate had occasion given him of employing his valor at home to better purpose. In the year 1381 the Commons of Suffolk, and Norfolk made one John Lister their Leader, a Dyer of Norwich, called the King of the Commons, endeavoring to join their forces with those notable Rebells Wat • yler, and Jack Straw. The Bishop hereupon armed from top to toe, marcheth with such forces as he could raise against these Rebells: meeting with some of them at Ickingham, he presently laid hold of the three chief of them, and without more ado, cut off their heads, which he caused to be set upon poles at Newmark • t : Thence he marched towards Norwich, where he understood the Rebells had determined to make some stay. By the way divers Gentlemen that had hid themselves • Videntes Episcopum militem induisse, & galeam assumps • sse raetalicam, & lor • cam duram quam non possent penetrare sagittae, nec non gladium ma • ertalem ancipitem arr • puisse (as Walsingham writes) joined with him; so as by that time he came to Norwich he had a reasonable company about him. With that troop (such as it was) he set upon the Rebells, who had fortified themselves with trenches, and barracadoes very strongly, having their carriages, and wagons behind them. The Martial Bishop without delay, about to give them open battle, moved with their audacity, commands the Trumpets to blow, and the Drums to beat; and taking a Lance in his right hand, puts spurs to his horse, and is carried with so great animosity and impetuous boldness against them, that with a most speedy course he pre-ocupies their trenches, before his Archers could come up to him, neither was there need of Archers, they being come to fight hand to hand. The warlike Prelate therefore, like a wild Boore gnashing his teeth, sparing neither himself nor his enemies, where he perceives most danger thither he directs his strength, running through this man, casting down that man, wounding another, and ceaseth not to hurt the enemy most vehemently, until all the troop which followed him • had gotten the Trench, and were prepared to the conflict: the Bishops party then fought valiantly, and so did the Commons, Donec infirmior conscientia partem terreret injustams & animum ab audacia & voluntate subtraheret moriendi. Hereupon the fearful vulgar betake themselves to flight, and because they had no way left besides their Carts and Carriages which they had placed behind them, they strove to leap over them, and so to escape. But the Bishop, exercising everywhere the Office of a circumspect General • dashed these endeavors, and hindered those who thought to flee by killing them, and in hindering slays them, till he had taken their Ringleaders, and John Litcestere their King, whom he caused to be drawn, quartered, and beheaded. Which done, this Bishop rested not, until having searched out the malefactors throughout the country, he caused Justice to be executed on them, Sicque pacem peperit regioni, & indicibile toto regno commodum, laudanda probitas, & audac • a commendanda Pontificis bellicosi. This Act was very commendable, I confess yet unsuitable to his calling. There wa • great contention between him and the Monks of Norwhich for fifteen years, concerning their privileges and jurisdictions; at last they gave him 400. Markes to enjoy their privileges.
Alexander P • yor of Norwich was next elected B. by the Monks, but the King so misliked their choice, as he not only kept him from his dignity, but also imprisoned him at Winsor almost a whole year after his election, yet afterwards at the request of Thomas Arrundell Archbishop of Canterbury, and divers other of the Nobility, he was released, set at liberty, and afforded Consecration, Anno. 1408.
Richard Nyx. 29. Bishop of this Sea, had a report of a vicious and dissolute liver, and was blind long before his death. Hilary 25 H. 8. Coram Rege Rot. 15. he was attainted in a praemun • re, put out of the Kings protection, his person imprisoned, Lands, Goods, and Chattles forfeited to the King, for citing Richard Cockerall, Major of Thetford, and others into his Spiritual Court, and enjoining them under pain of Excommunication, to call a Jury of the said town before them, and cause them to revoke and cancel a Presentment they had found upon Oath touching their Liberties, to wit, that none of the said Town ought to be cited into any Spiritual Consistory, but only into the Dean of Thetfords Court; and that if any one cited any of that Town into another Spiritual Court, he • hold forfeit six shillings eight pence for the same, The Glass-windows of Kings-College Chapel in Cambridge were bought and set up with part of this Bishops Fine and Forfeiture upon this his attainder, as the Author. of the Catalogue of the Chancellors and Colleges of Cambridge Record • , in his Collegi • m Regis.
John Hopton the 32th Bishop of this Sea, was a great persecutor, and a cause of putting many of our Martyrs to death; as you may read in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments.
Samuel Harsnet Bishop of this Diocese, a turbulent Prelate and great opposer of Godly Ministers in the latter end of King James, and the beginning of King Charles reign was questioned and proceeded against in Parliament for divers oppressions, Extortions, and Superstitious innovations introduced in that Dioces • e. Of whom, See more in York, to which he was translated.
Dr. White, and Dr. Corbet his immediate successors, were men of the same strain with Harsnet, and whereas Dr. White had gained great fame and reputation in our Church for his learning and Books against the Papists whilst he continued an ordinary Minister, his carriage and change was such, that he soon lost all his honor and reputation after he became a Bishop, and when as other men grow commonly white in their old age, he contrariwise like the Albanes (who do in senectute nigrescere ) waxed black in his declining days, and as some say, deserved the title of that Popish Treatise which he answered in his Orthodox, White died black. A strange effect of a white Rochet.
But his Successor in this See, Matthew Wren, a man of a more active spirit, thinking it a disparagement to him, not to transcend his predecessors in superstitious Popish Innovations, and extravagant oppressions, both of the Ministers and people of that Diocese, hath been so exorbitantly outrageous in his proceedings, that upon the hearing of sundry Petition • and complaints against him in Parliament, the whole House of Commons have transmitted to the Lord's these subsequent Articles of impeachment against him (already Printed) wherein the malicious venom of his spirit against piety and our Religion, with his seditious, oppressive practices are Anatomized to the full, and most elegantly displayed in their proper colors by Sir Thomas Widdrington in his Speech at their transmission, which Articles and Speech here I insert.
ARTICLES of Impeachment, of the COMMONS A • sembled in Parliament in the name of themselves, and of all the Commons of England, against Matthew Wren, Dr. in Divinity, late Bishop of Norwich, and now Bishop of Eli, for several Crimes, and Misdemeanors committed by him.
THat the said Matthew Wren, being Popishly and superstitiously affected, did at his first coming to be Bishop of Norwich, which was in the year 1635. endeavor by sundry ways, and means, to suppress the powerful and painful Preaching of the Word of God; did introduce divers Orders, and Injunctions, tending to Superstition and Idolatry; did disturb, and disquiet the orderly, and settled estate of the Ministers, and people, and Churches of that Diocese, to the great prejudice of His Majesty, the great grief and disquiet, and hazard of the estates, consciences, and lives of many of his Majesty's Loyall Subjects there, to the manifest bringing in, and increasing of profaneness, ignorance, and disobedience in the Common people, (as by the particulars ensuing may appear.)
I. Whereas many Chancels of Churches, during all the time of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and of his Majesty that now is, had laid and been continued, even and flat, without any steps ascending towards the East-end of the same, and are ordered to continue as they were, and so ought to have continued; He of his own mind and will, without any lawful warrant of authority, in the year 1636. being then Bishop of Norwich, ordered and enjoined, that the same should be raised towards the East-end, some two, some three, some four steps, that so the Communion Table there placed Altarwise, might be the better seen of the people.
II. He in the same year 1636. ordered, That the Communion Table which is appointed by the said Rubric, at the time of the celebration of the holy Communion, to be placed in the Body of the Church or Chancel, where Divine Prayers are usually read, and where the people might best hear, should be set up close under the Wall at the East-end of the Chancel Altarwise, and not to be removed from thence; whereby the Minister, who is by the Law to Officiate at the North-side of the Table, must either stand and officiate at the North-end of the Table so standing Altarwise, or else after the Popish and Idolatrous manner, stand and officiate at the Westside of the Table with his back towards the people.
III. He in the same year 1636. enjoined that there should be a Rayle set on the top of the new raised steps before the Communion Table so set Altarwise as aforesaid, which Rayl should raise from the Southside of the Chancel to the North within, which the Minister only should enter, as a place too holy for the people; and some of the people were punished for stepping into it, as namely Daniel Wayman, and others.
IV. The more to advance blind Superstition, he in the same year 1636. ordered that all the Pewes in the Church should be so altered, that the people might kneel with their faces Eastward, towards the Communion Table so set Altarwise as aforesaid; And that there should be no seats in the Chancel above, or on either side even up with the said Table.
V. He in the same year 1636. enjoined that every Minister after he had finished the reading of some part of the Morning Prayer, at the Deske, should go out from the same to the holy Table set Altarwise, as to a more holy place, and there, when no Communion was to be administered, read at the said Table a part of the Communion Service, now commonly called the second Service, whereby the consciences both of the Minister, and people, have been not only very much offended, and grieved, but also the Service it self was made very unprofitable to the people • who could not hear what was said, or prayed in that place.
VI. That both he in his own person, his Chaplains, and others of the Clergy as namely, Master John Novell, Master William Guest, Master John Dunckon, and others following his example, did ever after the Table was so set Altarwise, use and perform such, so many, and so frequent bowings and adorations before, and towards the said Table as have been dangerous examples to draw others to the like superstitious gestures, and have given great scandal • and offense to the sound, and sincere, and well affected Christians.
VII. He in the said year 1636, enjoined all the people to come up to the Rayle to receive the holy Communion, and there kneel, and do reverence before the holy Table placed Altarwise and gave directions to the Ministers not to administer the Communion to such people as should not so come up, and do such reverence as aforesaid, And that the Minister should within the Rayle deliver the Bread to such people only as should so come up and kneel before the said Table as aforesaid. This was to the offense of the consciences of many good people, who for fear of Idolatry and Superstition, durst not come to kneel at the • aid Rayl before the Table so placed Altarwise; and many people not coming up thither, though presenting themselves upon their knees in the Chancel, have not had the Communion delivered unto them, and afterward for not receiving have been excommunicated, as namely, John Shyming, Samuel Dunckon, Peter Fisher, Thomas Neuton, Edward Bedwell, Edmund Day, John Frowar, and many others.
VIII. He did in the said year, 1636. enjoin and command, that there should be no Sermons on the Lord's Days in the afternoon or on the week days at all, without his Licence. And also enjoined that there should be no Catechising, but only such questions, and answers • as are contained in the Book of the Common prayer. Not allowing the Ministers to expound or open the points of the same to the poople. He and his under Officers affirming in public places, that such an exposition might be as ill as a Sermon. And the more to hearten, and confirm the people in profaning the Lord's Day, He enjoined the Ministers to read publicly in their Churches, a Book published touching Sports on the Lord's Day. For not reading whereof, some Ministers were by the command and directions of the said Bishop suspended, viz. Master William Leigh, Mr. Richard Proud, Mr. Jonathan Burr, Mr. Matthew Brumwrigg, Mr. Mott, and divers others, some deprived Master Powell, Mr. Richard Raymond, Mr. Jeremy Borrowes, and some otherwise troubled. By all which, knowledge was suppressed, and ignorance and profaneness introduced in that Diocese.
IX. There having been formerly two kinds of ringing of Bells, and calling people to the Church in that Diocese ( viz. ) one kind, when there were only Prayers to be read, and another kind, when there were both Prayers to be read, and a Sermon preached, whereby the people did apply themselves to the Service of God in those places, where both Prayers, and Preaching was to be; He to hinder the people in their good desires of serving of God, and edifying their souls, did in the same year 1636. command, and enjoin that there should be no difference in ringing of Bells to Church when there was a Sermon, and when there was none.
X. Whereas many godly Ministers for the preventing of the great sin in the people of unworthy receiving the holy Communion of the Lord's Supper • did use to Preach two or three days before every Communion, a preparation Sermon to prepare, and instruct the people in the right and worthy receiving of the Communion, He the said Bishop did in the said year, 1636. forbid Ministers, to preach any such prepa • ation Sermon in that Diocese, as namely, Master Devereux, Master Swayn, and other Ministers.
XI. Whereas all God's Ordinances are sanctified, and made fruitful by the blessing of God upon them by Prayer; He endeavoring to suppress the power, and benefit of Prayer in the year 1636. enjoined that no Minister should use any prayer before his Sermon, but move the people to pray only in the words of the fifty fifth Canon made Anno Dom. 1603. which Canon was not warranted by the Law. And that no prayer should be used before or after the Sermon. And he in his own person having been at the Sermon in the Town of Ipswich when the Preacher did use or make any other prayer, did sit upon his seat without using, or giving any reverence of kneeling, or otherwise, thereby to discountenance such prayer. And he in the said year 1636. enjoined that no prayer should be made in the Pulpit for the sick, and that such as were prayed for in the reading Deske, should be prayed for only in the two Collects prescribed for the Visitation of the sick in private houses.
XII. He the more to alienate the people's heart from hearing of Sermons in the said year 1636. commanded, and enjoined all Ministers to preach constantly in their Hood, and Surplice, a thing not used before in that Diocese, and much offensive to the people as a scandalous innovation. And the Parishioners of Knattshall wanting a Surplice • he did by his Officers in the year 1637. enjoin the Churchwardens there, that no prayers should be read in that Church till they had got a Surplice, which they not getting for the space of two Lord's days after, had no prayers during that time there.
XIII. That during the time of his being Bishop of Norwich, which was about two years, and four months, There were for not reading the Service, at the Communion Table set • Altarwise, for not reading the Book of Sports • for using conceived prayers before and after Sermons, and for not observing some other illegal innovations by him, and his under-officers, by and upon his directions, and Injunctions, sundry godly painful Preaching Ministers, that is to say, Master William Powell, Mr. John Carter, Mr. Robert Pe • k • Mr. William Bridge, Mr. William Green, Mr. Mott, Mr. Richard Raymond, Mr. Thomas Scot, Mr. Greenehill, Mr. Nicholas Beard, Mr. Hudson, Robert Kent, Jeremy Burrow, Mr. Thomas Allen, and others to the number of fifty, were excommunicated, suspended, or deprived and otherwise censured, and silenced, to the undoing of many of them, their wives, and children, and they could not be absolved without giving promise to conform to his directions editis & edendis, by means whereof some Ministers were enforced to depart this Realm into Holland, and other parts beyond Sea, viz. the said Mr. William Bridge, Mr. Jeremy Burrowes, Mr. Thomas Allen • Mr. John Ward, and others of Norwich, to remove into other more peaceable Dioceses, as namely, Mr. Edmund Calamy, Mr. Broome, Mr. Beard and others, and some of them so pros • cuted, as hath been suspected to be the cause of their deaths, as namely, Mr. Th • mas Scot and others; the terror of which proceedings, hath caused other Ministers to leave their Cures, and go away, viz. Mr. William Kirington, M. Thomas Warren, Mr. John Allen and others; & if a stranger preached at the Cure of such person suspended, the Church-wardens permitting such person so to preach, were enjoined penance, and otherwise troubled, as namely, the Church-wardens of Snaile-well, and the stranger for preaching, was also therefore molested, viz. Mr. Ash, Mr. Eades, Mr. Manning, and other Ministers.
XIV. That during the time he was Bishop of the said See of Norwich, he did unlawfully compel the inhabitants of the several parishes within that Dio • esse, to raise the floors of the Chancells, of their respective Churches, to rail in their Communion Tables, to remove the Pewes and Seats, and to make other alterations in the respective Churches; in the doing whereof the said Inhabitan • s, were put to great, excessive, and unnecessary charges and expenses, amounting in the whole, to the sum of five thousand pounds, and upwards, which said charges and expenses, he did by unlawful means and courses, enforce the said Inhabitants to undergo; And such of the said Inhabitants, as did not obey the same, he did vex, trouble, and molest by presentments, Citations, Excommunications, tedious, and frequent Journeyes, and by attendances at the Court of his Chancellor, and other his Officials, viz. the Churchwardens of Lin, Ipswich, S. Edmunds Bury, and others.
XV. That for not coming up to the Rail, to receive the holy Communion, kneeling there before the Table Altarwise, for not standing up at the Gospel, and for not observing and performing of his unlawful Innovations, and Injunctions, many other of his Majesty's subjects, viz. Peter Fisher, Samuel Duncon, James Percivall, John Armiger, Thomas King and others, have been by him, his Chancellors, Visitors, Commissaries, and Officials by his command and Injunctions, much molested, disquieted, and vexed in their estates and consciences by Citations to the Courts, long attendance there, Dismission, Fees, Excommunications, Penances, and other Censures.
XVI. That by reason of the rigorous prosecutions, and dealings in the last precedent Articles mentioned, and by reason of the continual superstitious bowing to, and afore the Table set Altarwise, the suspending, silencing, driving away of the painful preaching Ministers, the suppressing, and forbidding of Sermons, and Prayer, the putting down of Lecturer, the suppressing means of knowledge, and salvation, and introducing ignorance, Superstition, and profaneness, many of his Majesty's subjects, to the number of three thousand, many of which used trades of Spinning, W • aving, Knitting, and making of Cloth, and Stuffe, Stockings, and other manufactures of Woolls, that is to say, Daniel Sunning, Michael Metcalfe, John Berant, Nicholas Metcalfe, John Derant, Busby, widow Mapes, Richard Cock, John Dicks, Francis Laws, John Senty, and many others, some of them setting an hundred poor people on work, have removed themselves, their families, and estates into Holland, and other parts beyond the Seas, and there set up and taught the Natives there, the said manufactures, to the great hindrance of trade in this kingdom, & to the impoverishing, and bringing to extreme want, very many who were by those parties formerly set on work, to the great prejudice of his Majesty and his people.
XVII. That he the said Bishop, finding the people to distaste his innovations, hath often in public, and private speeches declared in the said year, 1636. That what he did in the same, was by his Majesty's command, whereby he contrary to the duty of his place, which he held under his Majesty, being Dean of his Majesty's Royal Chapel, and contrary to the duty of a good and loyal subject, endeavored, to free himself of blame, and to raise an ill opinion of his Royal Majesty, in the hearts of his loving subjects.
XVIII. That he the said Matthew Wren, being Bishop of Norwich in the said year, 1636. in the Tower Church in Ipswich, and other places, did in his own person, use superstitious and idolatrous actions, and gestures in the administration of the Lord's Supper, consecrating the bread and wine, standing at the West-side of the Table with his face to the East, and • is back towards the people, elevating the Bread and Wine, to be seen over his shoulders bowing low, either to o • before them • when he after the Elevation, and Consecration, had set them down on the Table.
XIX. That he the more to manifest his Popish affection in the said year 1636. caused a Crucifix, that is to say, the figure of Christ upon the Cross to be engraven upon the Episcopal Seal besides the Arms of the See.
XX. That he hath chosen and employed such men to be his Commissioners, Rurall Deans, and to be his household Chaplains, whom he knew to be, and stand affected to his innovated courses, and to popish superstition, and to be erroneous, and unsound in judgment and practice, as namely M. John Novel. M. E • mond Maple • of • , M. John Dunkin. M. Bo • ek, M. Dun, and others.
XXI. That he hath very much oppressed divers Patrons of Churches by admitting without any color of title his own Chaplains and others whom he affected into Livings, which became void within his Dioces • unjustly enforcing the true and right Patrons to long and chargeable suits to evict such Incumbents, and to recover their own right, some of which he did against his Priestly word given to the said Patrons or their friends in verbo Sac • rdotis not to do the same. This he did in the case of one M. Rivet.
XXII. That he and others in the year 1635, sold, granted away the profits of his Primary Visitation for five hundred pounds over and above the charges of the Visitation • and for the better benefit of the Farmer, s • t forth a book in the year 1636 entitled, Articles to be inquired of within the Dioces of Norwich, in the first Visitation of Matthew Lord Bishop of Norwich, consisting of 139 Articles, and wherein are contained the number of eight hundred ninety seven questions, according to all which, the Churchwardens were enforced to present upon pain of perjury. And some Churchwardens, that is to say, Robert Langly, Charles Newton, Richard Hart, William Bull, and Zephaniah Ford, and others not making presentments accordingly, were cited, molested, and troubled, and enjoined penance • notwithstanding many of the said Articles were ridiculous and impossible.
XXIII. That the Churchwardens, and other men sworn at the Visitation, were enforced to have their presentments written by Clerks specially appointed by such as bought the said Visitation • to whom they paid excessive sums of money for the same, some two and twenty shillings, as namely, Richard Hurrell, John Punchard, and others, some more, some less, for writing one Presentment, to the grievous oppression of his Majesty's poor subjects in his Diocese.
XXIV. Whereas by the Laws of this Realm no tithes ought to be paid out of the rents of houses, nor is there any custom or usage in the City of Norwich for such payment, yet the said Bishop endeavored to draw the Citizens, and other inhabitants within the said City against their wills and consents to pay two shillings in the pound in lieu of the tithes of houses within the several Parishes of the said City, unto the Ministers there, of the said respective parishes. And the better to effect this his unjust resolution, he did by false and undue suggestions, in the fourteenth year of his Majesty's reign that now is, procure his Majesty to declare under his Highness great Seal of England his royal pleasure, That if any person, within the said City shall refuse to pay according to the said rat • of two shillings the pound unto the Minister of any Parish with in the said city, That the same be heard in the Court of Chancery, or in the Consistory of the Bishop of Norwich. And that in such case no prohibition against the said Bishop of Norwich, their Chancellors, or Commissaries in the s •• d Courts of Consistory be g • anting the same upon • ight of his Highness said Order, shall forthwith grant a consultation to the Minister, desiring the same with his reasonable costs and charges for the same, which said Order and Decree under the great Seal of England tended to the violation of the Oaths of the Judges • and was devised, contrived, and made by the said Bishop. And afterwards by his evil counsels and false surmises he did obtain his Majesty's royal consent thereunto, and by color of the order aforesaid; and other the doings of the said Bishop, the Citizens and inhabitants of Norwich aforesaid, viz. John Collar, Judith Perkeford, and others, have been enforced to pay the said two shillings in the pound in lieu of tithes, or else by suits and other undue means been much molested, and put to great charges and expenses, contrary to the Law and Justice.
XXV. That he assumed to himself an arbitrary power to compel the respective parishioners in the said Diocese to pay great and excessive wages to Parish Clerks • viz. the Parishioners of Yarmouth, Congham, Tostocke, and others, commanding his officers, that if any parishioner did refuse to pay such wages, they should certify him their names, and he would set them into the High Commission Court for example of them. And that one or two out of Ipswich might be taken for that purpose.
And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the liberty • of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other accusation or impeachment against the said Matthew Wren late Bishop of Norwich, and now Bishop of Eli, and also of replying to the answer to the said Articles, or any of them, or of offering proof of the premisses or any other impeachments or accusations that shall be exhibited by them as the case shall (according to the course of Parlia • ents) require, do pray that the said Matthew • ren may be called to answer the said several crimes, and misde • eanours, and receive such condign punishment as the same shall deserve, and that such further proceedings may be upon every of them had, and used against him, as is agreeable to Law and Justice.
Sir THOMAS WIDDRINGTONS SPEECH, At a Conference between both Houses, on Tuesday the 20 • of July, 1641. At the transmission of the impeachment against Matthew Wren Doctor of Divinity, late Bishop of Norwich, and now Bishop of Eli.
My Lord's, I am commanded by the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses now assembled for the Commons in Parliament, to deliver to your Lordships these Articles against the Bishop of Eli. May it please your Lordships first to hear them read.
MY Lord's, These Articles are dipped in those Colours, in which this Bishop rendered himself to the Diocese of Norwich, they need no Gloss, nor Varnish. In them you may behold the spirit and disposition of this Bishop, hear the groans and cries of the people, see a shepherd scattering, (I had almost said) devouring his own flock; He that was desired to paint Hercules, thought he had done enough, when he had made a resemblance of the Lions skin, which he was wont to carry about him as a Trophy of his honor.
I will not say that in these you will find a resemblance of the Lions skin, I am sure you will find the resemblance of the skins (that is to say,) the tottered and ruined fortunes, of poor innocent Lambs, who have extremely suffered by the violence of this Bishop.
In the year 1635. this man was created Bishop of Norwich: he is no sooner there, but he marcheth furiously.
In the creation of the world light was one of th • first productions, the first visible action of this Bishop after his creation into this See was to put out many burning and shining lights, to suspend diverse able learned and conscientious Ministers • he that should have been the Golden • nuffer of these lights, became the extinguisher, and when these are taken away, where shall poor men light their Candles?
My Lord's, this was not all.
He put out lights, and sets up firebrands in their places, suspends painful Ministers, and sets up idle factious and superstitious Priests, (to use their own language) in their places, yet it is the fortune of these men at this time, like Rivers in the Ocean, to be buried the in extreme activity of their Diocesan.
He made a scourge, not of small cords, but of new Injunctions and numerous Articles tied about with a strong twist of a most dangerous oath; and with this he whips not out buyers and sellers, but the faithful dispensers of the word out of their Churches, out of their estates, out of their deer Country.
This Noah (if I may so call him without offense) as soon as he entered into the Ark of this Diocese, he sends, nay forces Doves to fly out of this Ark, and when they return unto him, with Olive branches in their mouths of peaceable and humble submissions, he will not receive them into this Ark again, unless like Ravens they would feed upon the Carrion of his new Inventions, they must not have any footing there • he stands as a flaming sword to keep such out of his Diocese.
My Lord's, unless he had done this, he could never have hoped to have brought that great work he undoubtedly aimed at to any perfection.
Whilst the Palladium of Troy stood, that City was impregnable, The Greeks had no sooner stolen that away but they instantly won the City • So then he first put out the Candles, then was the opportunity to shuffle in his works of darkness: h • first bea • s off the Watchmen and seers, then was likely to follow that which the impiety of some was pleased to style, the piety of the times.
This being done, he then begins to dress out God's Worship according to his own fancy, this he expresseth in Injunctions and directions, the Minerva's of his own brain; we find them styled Regales Injunctiones Domini Episcopy : a style too sacred to Baptise his brats withal; I shall be bold to ca • l them Tyrannicas injunctiones Do • Episcopy; stories afford not a more barbarous cruelty then to join a dead and a living body together, the one is miserable, killed with the stench of the other.
This Bi. who like Aaron should have stood between the living & the dead hath joined to lively ordinances many dead & venomous ceremonies, which have no other life, than what they received from the breath of his Injunctions • and these are pressed upon the Consciences • even these must be observed as moral laws.
An arbitrary government in the Church is more dangerous, more grievous than that in the state; this is exercised upon men • conscien • es the most tender parts, and is the very pinnacle of • yranny, and of all other most intolerable; tha • blow which will hardly be felt by the arm, will put out the eye.
(My Lord's) in the time of King Ri • h. 1. one of this man's predecessors, a valiant Bishop went into the holy war, this Bishop hath raised a war at home in his own Diocese; a war not against Sa • azen • , Barbarians, Turks or Infidels, but against good & well disposed people. I know not what style to give this war: without doubt (my Lord's) this was no holy war.
The weapons of this warfare were 28. Injunctions, •• 9. Articles containing 87 • . questions.
The soldiers were Chancellors, Commissaries, Officials, Commissioners, Rurall Deans, &c.
Himself commanded in chief.
The ways of assault and killing were by excommunications, suspensions, deprivations, — I stay here, Mille modis mori • ur mortals.
The Magazine wherein all these were originally hatched and lodged, was the superstitious and malicious breast of this Bishop.
This Dioces was the stage where the direful tragedies of this war were acted by the space of two years and upwards.
Thus did he trouble Israel in the time of peace, nay by these he put some of the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel to flight, out of these he raiseth a farm of 500. pounds for his primary Visitation: if it be considered cum pertinentiis, it was not deer, yet well improved; for formerly but 40. pound in the time of some of his predecessors.
Will it please your Lordships with patience to cast your eyes upon the model of this Bishops zeal, piety, and Religion: Let his affection to prayer and preaching speak for all the rest.
First, for prayer. It was his hap to find a prayer which is no prayer, pretended to be prescribed by a Canon which is no Canon, I mean the 55. Canon set forth in the year 1603. and no other prayer must be used in his Dioces before Sermons. That monster of conceived prayer (pardon the expression, its not my own) seemed as bad to him as a spell or charm. It must not be used upon any occasion, without doubt he would never have been so strait-laced, and severe in this particular, if he had but dreamed of that strait which a minister a friend of his was put unto by this means; the story is short. A Butcher was gored in the belly by an Ox, the wound was cured, the party desired public thanksgiving in the Congregation, the Minister finding no form for that purpose, reads the Collects for Churching of women.
Next for preaching. That he is most able in this kind is agreed by all. But that he ever preached himself in this Diocese saving once, I never heard affirmed by any.
His next care was that others should not preach too often; if they did, they must be put into his black Bill: He changed that golden sentence of ( vae mihi si non praedicavero ) into vae aliis si praedicaverint ; he was so far from the practice of Saint Paul the great Preacher of the Gentiles, who (we read) preached till midnight, that there must be no Sermons in the afternoon; there may be, nay there must be sports and pastimes then. And as if he had stood in fear of inarticulate language bells which might foretell a Sermon, he cannot endure to hear the noise of a Sermon in the toll of a Bell.
In a word; he adorned Churches at the charge of other men, and spoiled Pulpits, which ought to have been the greatest part of his own charge.
(My Lord's) you have now presented to your Lordships a brother, nay, one whose place engaged him to be a father of the Clergy, yet one who like Joseph's brethren hath taken the coat from Joseph, nay they were forced to fly from him as Joseph from his Mistress, or else they must taste of his forbidden waters, but in their going away he rents their skirts, nay their whole garments and livelihoods from them, he hath taken the locks from many Samson's, and done what he could to put out their eyes, and to make them grind in the mill of his pernicious and dangerous innovations.
He should like Moses have led his flock. Moses led the children of Israel through the red Sea, this man drives part of his flock over the Sea, but went not himself.
Like Nimrod he hath invaded the laws and liberties of the subject, he hath been as great a robber as ever was presented to your Lordships: He hath robbed the King of his Subjects, the greatest glory of Kings; the Kingdom of trade, of tradesmen, the supporters of it.
He that deprives the King of one subject, you know his punishment • and what shall be the punishment of him who hath robbed the King of so many subjects?
In the time of King Henry the third • we find a tenant in Dower punished in action of waste, because she had destroyed two rich villeynes, and made them beggars.
I appeal to your Lordships, what is his offense who hath committed so much willful waste and spoil, beggared hundreds, not villains, but free borne subjects.
He robbed the souls of that sweet Manna, which is pabulum animarum, the Word of God.
(My Lord's) I have not yet recounted all his robberies; he hath robbed God of part of his day • makes part of that a day of sports; he hath robbed the subjects of their indubitable birth-right, the Laws of the Kingdom.
The citizens of Norwich must pay tithes for the rents of houses; there's no Law in England, nor Custom in Norwich for it: Nay and that they may be sure to be robbed of justice too, the suite for these tithes must be in his own Consistory, from whence there must be no appeal, no prohibition.
The true • Patrons of Churches, they are robbed of their presentations • others who had none or small pretence of right are admitted upon this unhallowed maxim, That if he should institute those who had right, the pretender was without remedy; by this he inverted a fundamental Law of this Nation, to invest remediless rights with unjust possessions.
(My Lord's) I cannot tell you all, but you can measure a Lyon by the paw.
I am commanded to lay this great malefactor at your doors, one who hath been a great oppugner o • the life and liberty of Religion, and who set a brand of infamy (to use his own words) upon Ipswich education.
In sum, one who is a complete mirror of innovation, superstition, and oppression • he is now in the snare of those Articles, which were the works of his own hands.
The rod of Moses at a distance was a serpent, it was a rod again when it was taken into his hands: this Bishop was a serpent, a devouring serpent in the Diocese of Norwich; your Lordships peradventure will by handling of him make him a rod again • or if not, I doubt not but your Lordships will chastise him with such rods as his crimes shall deserve.
(My Lord's) I am commanded by the House of Commons to desire your Lordships that this Bishop may be required to make answer to these Articles, and that there may be such proceedings against him as the Course and Justice of Parliament doth admit.
You see by this Parlamentary impeachment what a Regulus, Tyrant, and Serpent this Wren hath been, I shall say no more of him, but leave him to his legal trial.
Richard Montague who next succeeded Bishop Wren, in this Sea, proceeded on in his extravagant courses, and Popish innovations; witness his strange Visitation Articles printed for the Diocese of Norwich ; many whereof are directly Popish, others unjust, absurd and strangely ridiculous; as, of what Assise is • our Surplice? What is your Surplice or Lord's Table worth if it were to be sold? Is your Communion Table railed in, so as Cats and Dogs (he might as well have added, Rats and Mice) cannot get through unto it? &c. This Bishop conscious to himself of his own guiltiness came not up to this last Parliament for fear of questioning, and being complained of for suspending a Lecturer in Norwich without any just cause, even sitting this Parliament, the House thereupon made an Order, that a special Committee should be appointed to examine all his offenses old and new; the news whereof so affrighted him, that within few days after he died, to ease the Parliament of that labor, of whom see more in Chichester : Since his decease this See hath continued vacant; and the whole Diocese earnestly desire it may so remain till Doomesday, having been almost ruined, and infinitely vexed by their late monstrous Prelates; of whom I shall now take my farewell, and shape my course to Chester Diocese.
The Bishops of Chester.
The Bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield in former times, had three Episcopal Sees, Chester, Coventry, and Lichfield, whence some of the Bishops in our Chronicles, were formerly called the Bishops of Chester, because they there resided, of some of whose Acts I shall give you a taste:
Hugh Novant Bishop of Chester (whom Godwin reckons among the Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield ) about the year 1188. when King Richard the first was taken prisoner by the Arch-duke of Austria, joined with John Earl of Morton the Kings Brother against the King, to dispossess him of his Kingdom; his brother went from this Earl and the French King to the Emperor with Letters, & a message, promising him a great sum of money in their names to detain the King still in Prison, after the Articles for his release and ransom were concluded; for which treason and conspiracy after the Kings enlargement, this Bishop was indicted in a Parliament at Nottingham, that he being privy to the Kings secrets had revolted from him to the King of France and Earl John, his enemies; & adhered to them plotting all mischief for the destruction of the King and of the Kingdom, whereupon he was peremptorily cited to appear and answer this indictment within 40. days, which he failing to do, was adjudged to be punished by Ecclesiastical censures as he was a Bishop, and as an Officer to the King, he was also by the Laity banished the Realm, and at last enforced to purchase his peace with a Fine of 5000 marks to the King. Anno 211 90. he having purchased the Monastery of Coventry from the King, came thither with a power of armed men to place in secular Priests instead of the Monks, who making resistance against him, he invaded them with forces, chased away some, lamed others of them • spoiled their house, burnt their Charters and Evidences, himself being wounded (and that in the Church before the High Altar) in this conflict, to the effusion of his blood.
In the year of our Lord, 1234. in the Purification of St. Mary, King Henry the third came to a conference at Westminster, wherein he sharply rebuked certain Bishops, Et maxim Alexandrū Cestrensem Epis • opum ; & especially Alexander de Savensby Bishop of Chester, that they were over-familiar with the Earl Marshall; Et quod ipsum de regni solio depellere nitebantur ; that they endeavored to depose him from his royal throne. But this Bishop clad in his Pontificalibus, when he knew such things were objected to him, and also that some had suggested to the King by way of exasperating, that the Bishops favoring the party of the Marshall would create another King, was exceedingly moved, especially against Roger de Catelu ; whereupon he incontinently excommunicated all those, who imagined any such wickedness against the King, or maliciously imposed such things upon the Bishops, who were altogether folicitous of the Kings honors and safety. The innocence of the Bishops being thus manifested and proved, and the sowers of dissention confounded, Catelu held his peace being not free, as it seemed • from the Anathema. So the other Bishops who were present intervening, Alexander B • . of Chester was pacified, and his spirit quieted, Nimis ante amaricatus, being overmuch imbittered before. Edmond Elect Archbishop of Canterbury with many of his suffragans, were present at this conference, who all condoling at the desolation of the King and Kingdom, came to the King, and as it were with one heart, mind and mouth said. O our Lord the King, let us tell you in the Lord, as your faithful subjects, that the counsel which you now have and use • is neither wholesome nor safe, but cruel and dangerous to yourself, and to the Kingdom of England, to wit, the counsel of Peter Bishop of Winchester (of whom before) Peter de Rivallis and their complices. Fi • st of all, because they hate and contemn the English Nation calling them Traitors, and causing them all to be so called, and turning your mind away from the love of your own Nation, and • h • hearts of your people from you, as appears in the Marshall, who is the best man of your Land, whom they have perverted and estranged from you by lies they have scattered abroad of him. And through this very counsel, to wit, by the said Bishop, your Father King John first lost the hearts of his people, after that Normandy, afterwards other lands, and in the end exhausted all his treasure, and almost lost the dominion of England, and had never peace afterwards. By the same counsel in our times, the Kingdom was troubled, and the interdict came, and finally, the Kingdom was made tributary, and the Prince of Provinces (alas for grief) is brought under tribute to ignoble persons, and wars begun, and long protracted, your father died like a banished man, neither in peace of the Kingdom, nor of mind, and so by them he incurred a very perilous death. By the same counsel the Castle of Bedford was detained against you, where you lost much treasure, and many valiant men; by means whereof in the interim you lost Rochell, to the ignominy of the whole Realm. Item, the now imminent perturbation, perilous to the whole Kingdom, comes to pass through their wicked counsel, because if your people had been handled according to Justice and the right Judgment (or Law) of the Land • this perturbation had not happened, and you should have had your lands undestroyed & your treasure unexhausted. Likewise we tell you in that allegiance whereby we are obliged to you, that your counsel is not of peace • but of trouble to the Land, because they that seek to thrive by the trouble of the Kingdom, and the disinherison of others, cannot do it by its peace. Item, because they have your Ca • tles and your forces in their hand • as if you ought to distrust your own people. Item, because they have your Exchequor, and all the grea • est Wards, and Escheates in their power, such an expectation pleaseth, and how they will answer you in the end, we believe you shall prove. Item, because by your Seal or Precept without the Seal of Peter de Rivallis, scarce any great business is done in the Realm, as if they accounted you not to be King. Item, because by the same counsel the natural borne subjects of your Kingdom are expelled out of your Court; whence we have cause to be fearful both of you and the Kingdom, when as we see you to be more in their power, than they in yours, as appears by very many examples. Item, because they have a maid out of Brittany, and your sister under their power, with many other noble girls, and women who are marriageable, with Wards and marriages, which they give to their own creatures and disparage. Item, because they confound and pervert the Law of the Land sworn and confirmed, and ratified, by Excommunication, and Justice likewise; whence it is to be feared least they be Excommunicated, and you also by communicating with them. Item, because they keep to no man, either their promise, faith, or oath, or writing, neither fear they Excommunication: whence they who have receded, from the truth are desperate • as remaining diffident in fear. Now these things we faithfully relate to you, and we counsel, beseech, and admonish you before God and man, that you would remove such counsel from you, and as it is the custom in other Kingdoms, that you govern your Kingdoms, by your faithful and sworn men of your Realm. We denounce to you in verity, that unless you correct these things, within a short time we will proceed against you, and all other contradictors by Ecclesiastical Censure • expecting nothing but the Consecration of our venerable Father, the Elect of Canterbury. These things being thus spoken, the King humbly desired a short time of truce, saying, that he could not so suddenly remove his counsel until he had received an account of the treasure committed to him; and so the conference was dissolved, all men departing, with confidence of a concord speedily to be obtained; soon after the Archbishop being consecrated upon the fifth of April, the King with his Nobles being at Westminster ; the Archbishop taking all the Bishops and other Prelates that were present with him, whereof this Bishop of Chester was one, went to the King, and shown him their counsel touching the imminent desolation and danger of the Kingdom, repeating the former inconveniences mentioned in the conference; and denounced to the King expressly, that unless he would speedily reform his error, and make a peaceable composition with the faithful men of his Kingdom, he with all the Bishops who were present, would incontinently in ipsum Regem sententiam ferre excommunicationis, pronounce a sentence of Excommunication against the King himself, and against all others contradictors of this peace, and perverters of concord. The King hearing this, humbly answered, that he would obey their counsels in all things. Whereupon a few days after understanding his error, moved with repentance, he commanded Peter, Bishop of Winchester, to go to his Bishopric, to intend the cure of souls, and that from thenceforth Regiis negotii • nequaquam interesset ; he should by no means intermeddle with the Kings affairs.
Walter de Langton Bishop of Chester lived in great authority, under King Edward the first, who favored him much; but his son Edward the second molested & disgraced him all that eyer he might. His Fatherdying in the North country, he • ommanded this Bishop to conduct his corps up to London : and when he had done so, for reward of his pains, he caused Sir John Felton Constable of the Tower to arrest him, ceased upon all his goods, and imprisoned him first, in the Tower, then in the Castle of Wallingford, of which imprisonment he was not released in two years after. In his fathers life time, he had often reprehended the young Prince for his insolent and dissolute behavior, which good admonitions he taking in evil part, wronged and disgraced him many ways, namely one time, he brak • down his Parkes, spoiled and drove away his dear, &c. The Bishop complained of this outrage unto the King his Father, who being greatly displeased therewith, committed the Prince his son for certain days. And this was the cause of the grudge between the young King and him, for which he sent him from Castle to Castle as Prisoner, seised his Lands & Tenements into his own hands, gave his moveables to Pierce Gaviston, and his Lord Treasurership to Walter Reignold. About the same time (or I think a little sooner, to wit, in the year 1 • 01.) he was accused of certain heinous crimes before the Pope, and compelled to answer the accusation at Rome in his own person. Though the proofs brought against him, were either none, or very slender, yet well knowing whom they had in hand ( Noverant ipsum prae multis bovem valde pinguem, saith Matth. Westminster ) they were content to detain him there so long, as it forced him to spend an infinite deal of money & yet was never a whit the nearer atlast: for the Pope remitted the hearing of the cause to the Archbishop o • Canterbury and yet reserved the determination of the • ame unto himself at last. The tempests of these troubles being over-blown, the rest of his time he lived (for ought I find) quietly, and being happily dismissed from the Court, attended only the government of his charge. This Bishop settling his See towards his later end at Litchfield, I find no mention at all of any Bishops of Chester after him, till towards the later end of King Henry the eight his reign, who erected a new Bishops See at Chester, distinct from that of Coventry and Leichfield, and subjected it to the province of York, by Act of Parliament, to wit, 33. Hen. 8. c. 30.
John Byrd, the first Bishop of this new erected See, was deprived in Queen Mary's days, for being married.
Cutbert Scot the third Bishop of this Diocese in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's days was displaced, and for his disobedience committed to the Fleet: whence escaping he fled into Loraine, and there died.
To pass by the other Prelates of this See, I shall give you only a touch of John Brigdman the present Bishop of it. This man in his wives life time, seemed to be a favowrer of godly Ministers, but since her decease, he hath turned a prosecutor, if not a persecutor of them, • uspending and driving many of them out of his Diocese, especially in Lancashire amidst the Papists where was greates • need of them, to pleasure the now Archbishop of Canterbury, whose great creature and intelligencer he hath been of late years: he caused divers of the city of Chester to be Pursevanted & Articled against in the High Commission Court at York, and there fined, censured, and almost ruined in their estates, only for visiting Mr. Prynne at Chester in his passage to Carnarvan, whose Pictures he caused to be publicly defaced, and the frames of them to be openly burnt at the high Cross in Chester before the Major and his brethren, in a most disgraceful manner; and caused divers of Chester to make a public impious Recantation both in the Cathedral Church and Town Hall, at Chester, only for visiting Mr. Prynne at his being there, with the license of his Keepers, who had no warrant, nor authority to keep any from him: in all which proceedings (as appears by his own letters) this Bishop was both the Informer, Accuser, Director, and Judge in some sort. To comply with the times, he erected divers stone Altars in his Diocese, one in the Cathedral at Chester used in times of Popery, which he caused to be digged up out of the ground where it was formerly buried, which Altar since this Parliament for fear of questioning he hath caused to be taken down and re-enterred: He ordered all the Ministers in Chester, not only to read prayers but likewise to prea • h in their Hoods and Surplesses, for which there is neither Law nor Canon, but his Lordly pleasure: he commanded all Sermons there, to end before nine of the clock in the morning, because the Major & Alderman should dance attendance on his Highness at the Cathedral, to which end he emplored the aid of the Archbishop of York, causing some to be troubled for not coming to the Cathedral, after they had been at their own parish Churches. He was a great stickler in the late war against the Scots, a vehement presser of the loan on the Clergy to maintain it, threatening to impose arms on those who refused it. He greatly promoted the new Canons, and late &c. Oath • which he both took, and enforced eagerly on his Clergy. He hath divers great impropriations of good value, where he alloweth little or no maintenance at all to find either a reading Curate or Preaching Minister; he hath caused divers to be excommunicated and vexed in his Consistory, for going to hear Sermons abroad when they had none at home. If any desire to know more of his Episcopal virtues, I shall refer them, to a Book entitled, A New Discovery of the Prelates Tyranny, and to the Petitions of the inhabitants of Cheshire, Chester, Lancashire, Wiggon, and others, already exhibited or ready to be preferred to the High Court of Parliament against him, and so pass to the Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield, out of which this Bishopric of Chester was derived.
The Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield.
Of the first Bishops of this See, there is little extant in our stories, but only their names, with the time of their Con • ecrations and deaths; and the Acts of some others of them, I have formerly related in Chester, so as I shall be very brief in those who remain.
Roger de Clinton the 36. Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, about the year 1147 • took upon him the Cross, went to Jerusalem to fight against the Saracens, and died at Antioch April 16. 1148.
Richard Peche, son unto Rober Peche, Archdea • on of Coventry in the year, 1162. succeeded him in this Bishopric : of this Archdeacon and Bishop perchance it was that I read this merry passage in Giraldus Cambrensis & in Camdens Brittannia p. 604. who relates it out of him. It happened that a certain Jew travelling towards Shrewsbury with the Archdeacon of Malpas (in Cheshire ) whose surname was Peche, that is, Sin, and a Dean named Devil ; when he heard by chance the Archdeacon telling, that his Archdeaconry began at a place called Ill-street, and reached as far as to Malpas towards Chester, he considering and understanding with all, as well the Archdeacons surname as the Deans, came out with this merry and pleasant conceit: would it not be a wonder (quot • he) and my fortune very good, if ever I get safe again out of this country, where Sin is the Archdeacon, and the Devil is the Dean, where the entry into the Archdeaconry is Ill-street, and the going forth of it Malpas ?
Geoffery Blithe Bishop of this See, Anno Dom. 1523. was attached for high Treason.
And to mention no more, Robert Wright the present Bishop of this Diocese set up a goodly Crucifix in a frame, with the pictures of men and women devoutly praying to it, in the Cathedral at Litchfield, over the Altar there: for oppo • ing whereof he caused the Lady Davis to be laid in • edlam ; promoted the late Innovations, and had a great hand • n composing and imposing the late • Canons, Oath, Benevolence and Lone, for which he stands now impeached by the Commons in Parliament, to whose Censure I remit him.
CHAP. VI. Comprising the Treasons, Conspiracies, Seditions, Contumacies, and Disloyalties, of the Bishops of Rochester, St. David's, Landaffe, Bangor, Asaph, Bath and Wells: With a short touch of the Bishops of Oxford, Bristol, Peterburgh, and Gloucester.
Rochester.
PVTTA the sixth Bishop of Rochester, waxing weary of his Bishopric, was half determined to leave it, when Edilred King of Mercia, upon some displeasure conceived against him, burning his Church and City, resolved and settled him in that determination. So he went into Mercia, where he accepted the Charge of a Parish Church under Saxulf Bishop there, mending his living by teaching a singing School, (for he was a great and cunning Musician.) In that kind of life he spent the rest of his time, and could never abide to hear of returning to his Bishopric. Malmesbury gives this verdict of him, Quantum idoneus oti • Eccle • iastico, taunt • m hebes & segnis, forensi negotio: Anno 983. (As Matth. Westminster, and others report) King Ethelrede be • ieged Godwin the 27. Bishop of Rochester in his own City a long time, and being warned by Saint Dunstane, he should take heed least he provoked against him Saint Andrew, Patron of that Church, yet he would not depart thence till he had wrung from the Bishop 100. l. Dunstan wondering thereat, sent this message to the King: Because thou hast preferred silver before God, money before an Apostle, and covetousness before me, violent mischiefs shall come upon thee, which the Lord hath spoken: Yet for all this he continued his siege, and would not depart thence without the Bishops submission, and unless he would likewise pay him an hundred pounds.
Gilbert de Glanuyll was consecrated Bishop of this See Septem. 29. 1185. Between this man • nd his Monks of Ro • hester was long and continual debate, by occasion whereof, he took away from them all their moveable goods, all the ornaments of their Church, their writings and evidences; yea, and a great part of their Lands, Possessions, and Privileges: wanting money to follow their suits against him, they were forced to coin the silver of Saint Paulines shryne into money. These controversies were ended no otherwise then by his death, which happened June 24. 1214. But their hatred against him was so far from dying with him, as they would afford him no manner of obsequies, but buried him most obscurely, or rather basely, without either ringing, singing, or any other manner of solemnity.
Laurentius de Sancto Martino, the 41. Bishop of this See, got a dispensat • on from the Pope to hold all his for • er • i •• ings, in • ommendam with this Bishopric. And yet alleging that his Bishopric • was the poorest of E • gland, much meaner then Carlisle, and therefore his living yet unable to maintain the po • t of a Bishop; he never ceased till he had extorted from the Clergy of his Dio • es, a grant of a f • ft part of all their Spiritual livings for five years, and appropriated unto his See forever the Parsonage of • riendsbury. • oniface the Archbishop of Canterbury used this man hardly, invading his possessions, and violen • lie taking from him without all right, divers things of old belonging • o his Bishopric. He complained unto the King, • nto whose Q • eene Boniface was Uncle. The King answered him in plain 〈◊〉 , • e • new • e should offend his wife much, if • e should become a flickler between them, wishing him to seek some other remedy; and if by importunity he enforced him to interpose his authority, he should do him more hurt then good; which Matth. • aris thus expresseth. Diebus sab • isdem, A • chi • piscopus Cantuariensis Boni • acius, Ecclesiam Roffensem pr • gr • v • n • , ejus{que} invadens possessiones, t • ntam de facto suo • o • am incurri • vitupe • i, u • Ecclesia, c •••• esse debet defense • v, per eum dicatur v • xari. Epis • opus autem Roffensis, cum Domino Regi • u • us • ltori lachrymabili •• r super tanta injuria conquerere • ur, Rex demisso vultur • spondit, Non possum eum •• ectere ad ju • titiam vel humilitatem, • e ipsum tam generosum & genus suum • àm magnific • m, praecipue Reginam, offen • a • vel contristem. Hereupon he sought unto the Pope, but he was so near a neighbo • r to the D • ke of Sav • y the Archbishops Brother, as perceiving quickly little good was to be done there, he was fain to take patience for an amends, and so sit him down; yet at last he obtained a citation from the Pope against the Archbishop, which Matthew Paris thus expresseth. Interim Episcopus Roffensis, qui int • llerabil • s ab Archi • piscopo Cantuarien • i injurias sustinuerat, querimonias lach • y • abiles coram tota curia Romana reposuit, & repositas continue • vit, Cumque causa sua cond g • am expostul • ss • t ultionem, culpa enim gravis extitit, post mult • s admonitiones tandem ad Regem factas, qui dicto Archiepiscopo cornua praestitit, & au • aci •• delinquendi, mer • itidem Archiepiscopus citari, ut pe • sonaliter • ompareret coram Papa, de • ibi • b • iciendis responsurus • & de illatis injuriis & damnis s • tisfact • r • s.
John Fisher, the 65. Bishop of Rochester was grievously questioned in Parliament in King Henry 8. his days by the house of Commons for saying, that all their doings were for lack of faith ; Of which you may see more in Canterbury Part. 1. p. 12 • .126. after which he gave credit, and countenance to the forg • d visions and Revelations of • lizabeth Barton, tending to the reproach, peril and destruction of the Kings person, honor, fame and dignity, for whicsh he with others was afterwards condemned of high treason, and executed • Not long after, this Bishop for denying to acknowledge the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters, was arraigned and condemned for high Treason, and executed on Tower Hill June 22. 1535. being made Cardinal about a month before. His head was set on London Bridge, and his body buried in Barking Churchyard • He was a great per • ecutor of God's faithful ministers, servants, Gospel, and had this deserved reward of his disloyalty both to God and his Sovereign.
Not to mention all the late Bishops of this See, many of whom were notorious in their generations; Doctor Bols, the last but one, was a very active talkative man in the high Commission, till he wearied most of his Colleagues there, who commanded him to his Bishopric ; where he was very i • dustrious in setting up popish ceremonies, Innovations, and in promoting the Book of • ports in the Lord's day, breathing out nothing but threats and suspensions against those ministers, who out of conscience refused to publish • t in proper person in their Churches; whom he intending to suspend and silence in his visitation, it pleased God, as he was riding towards it, to silence them, that himself was suddenly surprised with a dead palsy, which made him speechles for a long season; by means whereof the ministers escaped for that season; and he (never able to recover his pri • tine health) died no • ong after, leaving a successor behind him, who followeth his foot-steps, had a vote in compiling of the New Canons, and Oath, which he enforced; and hath been a great fomenter of the late Scottish wars, and differences, being now one of those Prelates impeached in Parliament by the Commons. But of those Prelates enough. I must now turn about my rudder, and take a short survey of our W • lch Bishops, beginning with those of Saint David's, once the Metropoli • anes of all that Country, and of some of our English Bishops too.
Saint David's.
GVido de Mona, the 62 Bishop of Saint David's, appointed Treasurer by Richard the 2. in the 21. year of his reign, revolting to Henry the fourth from his old Master, was made his Treasurer likewise in the 4. year of his reign, but continued fo a very short time. This Bishop (saith Walsingham ) while he lived was a cause of much mischief to the Realm ; as others of his successors have been whom I pretermit.
Landaffe.
OVdotius the third Bishop of Landaffe Anno 560. assembled a Synod of a great part of his Clergy and three Abbots, and in full Synod excommunicated his Sovereign Mou • ice King of Glamorgan for • laying Cynetu, and breaking the Cov • nant, which he had made in his presence upon the Altar of Peter the Apost • e, and of Saint Dubricius, and Telianus, and then laid their Crosses to the earth, and likewise intermitted Baptism throughout his Country. 〈◊〉 Communio Christia • a, and the Christian Communalty accursed the King and his progeny, the Synod confirming it, and saying; Let his days be few, and le • his child • en be Orph • n • s, and his wife a w • ddow. Whereupon the King with all his Country remained for two years space & more, under the said excommunication: after which this King unable any longer to sustain such a long lasting great excommunication, seeing the perdition of his own soul, and damnation of his kingdom, went to Landaffe, and craved pardon of Saint Oudotius, and pouring out tears, with his head bowed down, in the presence of three Abbots, this Bishop imposed the yoke of penance upon him, according to the quality and quantity of his offense, commending to him, that he should three manner of ways amend his fault with God, and the Church of Landaffe ; to wit, with fasting, Prayer, and Alms ; whereupon this King for the redemption of his own Soul, and for the Soul of Synetu, gave four Villages to the Church of Land • ffe, the names whereof are mentioned in that Synod. Not long after another Synod was assembled by the same Bishop for the penance and absolution of King Mor • ant, who slew Frioc his Uncle, contrary to his oath, they two having solemnly vowed that if one them should either kill or deceive the other, that he would not redeem himself, either with Lands or money, but would relinquish his Kingdom, & spen • his whole life in pilgrimage. This K. confessing his fault before the Bishop and his Synod, and craving pardon both for his perjury and Homicide • the whole Synod decreed, (least the Kingdom should be destitute of a King, and of the p • otecting buckler of their natural Lord) that he should redeem his Pilgrimage, and • xpi • te his homicide, and perjury with fastings prayers and Alms: which he swearing to do, they enjoined penance to him, according to his offense, and his quality greatness and power; whereupon he was restored to Christian Communion, of which he was formerly deprived by the Bish • p, and gave three Churches with other particulars to the Church of L • nd • ffe. After this, a third Synod was held under the same Bishop at Land • ff • , wherein Guidneth who slew his brother Merc • ion in a contestation for the kingdom, was excommunicated by this Bishop & Synod, with crosses laid down to the ground, and Cymbals overturned • under which excommunication he remained three whole years without any Communion of Christians. Af • er three years expired, he asked pardon of the Bish •• ; who granting him remission, sent him in Pilgrimage to the Archbishop of Dole in Britany, where he promised to continue a years space in exile; but returning thence within the year this Bishop refused to absolve him, and put him under the first excommunication, because he performed not his first penance. But this Bishop dying within a year after, and Berthguin succeeding him, king Morcant and Guadnor • h with many elders, went to Landaffe, and requested this new Bishop with one mou • h, (seeing • he crosses yet laid down upon the ground, together with the relics and Cymbals) that he would absolve Gu • dnorth from his excommunication, by lifting up the Cros • es, and Saints relics from the earth. After which Guednorth promising yet more to amend his life with fasting, prayer, and Alms, and shedding tears with great devotion, was thereupon absolved by the Bishop, who enjoined him plenary penance, according to the manner of his fault: he afterwards mindful of the divine saying, as water extinguisheth fire, so alms doth sin, gave three Manors with all their liberties & appurtenances to the Church of Landaffe. By this kind of indirect means, this Church got so much lands, that had it now but the tenth part thereof, Godwin assures us, it would be one of the wealthiest Churches in Christendom.
T • ud • ur King of Brechiniau • (or Breckn • ck ) son of Rese slew Elgistill, another King of that Country treacherously, after • league solemnly sworn between them • not to lie in wait one for another, and to maintain a firm peace without deceit: hereupon Gurcan the tenth Bishop of Landaffe, with his Clergy excommunicated him for his perjury and murder, by uncovering the Altars of God, casting the crosses and relics to the ground, and depriving him of all Christian communion: whereupon Te • dur unable to undergo this malediction and rigor of justice, with a contrite heart, and tears poured out craved pardon, and submitted himself to the penance imposed on him according to his quality and greatness, recompensing his wickedness with Alms, prayer, and fasting, and for his absolution he gave this Bishop Lan. Mich •• l, with all its lands, lib • rties and Commons.
King Clo • ri and L • ndguallaun made a solemn league, before Berthgwin the 14. Bishop of Landaffe, and sware to main • aine fi • me peace between them in all things, w • thout fraud or damm • ge. And if either of them violated it, he was to leave his kingdom, and to go on P • lgrimage all his life • neither should he redeem himself, nor his kingdom with gold, nor silver; A • ter which King Clotri breaking the league, slew the other treacherously, committing both homicide and p • rjury. Which • his B • shop hearing of, assembled a Synod of his Clergy at Landaff • , and in a full Synod, excommunicated the King with all • his progeny and kingdom, by uncovering God's Altars, and casting down the crosses to the earth, and left the Country without B • ptisme and the communion. Whereupon the K. unable to endure so great an excommunication, with great devotion submitted himself to the Bishop, left his Kingdom, went on Pilgrimage into foreign parts; from whence returning into his Count • y, after a long • pace, by • he intercession of King Morcant he obtained absolution from the Bishop, to whose enjoined penance he submitted; & thereupon he gave Helic, with other lands to the B • shop and his successors in the Church of Landaffe. In this B • shops time Gurcan the son of Guin • n kept his own Stepmother; for which the Bishop excommunicated him, in such manner a • he did Clo • ri, and upon his penance and absolution, the Bishop wr • stead from him a pe •• e of land called Marchinis.
In the days of Cercenhir the 18. Bish • p of Land • ff • Houel King of Glevissig contrary to his solemn oath, circumvented, and slew Gallun the son of Cidrich, whereupon the B • shop summoning a Synod excommunicated him (in such sort, as the former Kings were) almost a years space; at which time he coming bare foot to the Bishop, implored absolution with many tears, which he obtaining after public penance enjoined, gave three Manors to the Bishop and his Church. After which this Bishop excommunicated Coubius for murthering C • mauc contrary to his solemn oath, and that in a public Synod; who upon his penance and absolution gave Guliple to his Church. Aquod the son of • ou • f falling out with this Bishop, drave him and his men into the Church of Landaffe: For which he was excommunicated by him, and to be absolved was glad to give Pennoun, with the Church of Lantil • l and certain other Lands.
Loumarch the son of Carguocaun was excommunicated by Gulfridus the 20 Bishop of this See in a full Synod, for violating certain privileges, and invading the goods of his Church; but upon his humble submission on his knees to the Bishop with many tears, and his offer to acknowledge his offense, and to suffer any punishment the Bishop would impose upon him: The Bishop upon restitution of all the goods he had taken, and the gift of Treficarn pont, absolved him. Assac the son of M • rchiud having treacherously slain one Gulayguni, being excommunicated for it by this Bishop, gave Segan to his Church, to expiate the murder, and for the soul of the slain.
S •• lferth, Hegoi, and Arguistil, the sons of Belli, fell at variance in words with Nudd the 21 Bishop of this See, and proceeding at last from words to blows, committed divers outrages upon his Land and Family; but quickly remembering themselves, fearing excommunication, they asked pardon, and submitted themselves to penance. After which performed, they gave unto the Church for further confirmation of their unfeigned repentance, the territory of Julius and Aaron.
King Brochvaile the son of Mouric, and his Family fell at variance with Civeilliauc the 22 Bishop of Landaffe and his Family, to whom they offered some injury, wherewith the Bishop being moved, assembled all his Clergy together, even to the inferior degrees, intending to excommunicate Brochvaile and all his family (as forfeited to him, and execrable to God) before all the people in a full Synod, for this injury: which Brochvaile hearing of, sought for pardon and remission, which he could not obtain from the Bishop upon any terms, unless he would suffer a Canonical judgment. The cause being discussed, the Bishop was adjudged to receive from him an Image of his face both in length and breadth in pure gold, and that amends should be made by him to the condign honor of his Family and Nobility of his parentage • which sentence Borchvaile was forced to redeem, by giving the Town of Tref-Peren, with six other pieces of Land to the Bishop and his Church.
One Pater being the 25 Bishop of this See, Anno 955. A certain Country fellow meeting a Deacon with a sword by his side, asked him, what a Coward should do with Weapons, and striving to take away the sword, cut the Deacons finger, whereupon the Deacon killed him; and when he had done, took Sanctuary in the Church of Saint Iarman and Saint Febrie. Thereby six of King Gurialls household (although there wanted not many that sought to defend the man, in regard of the place) he was slain even at the very Altar of the Church. These six men were delivered at the City of Gwentonia (now Caerwent ) into the hands of Pater the Bishop, who kept them in straight prison six months, and then forced them to give all their Lands and Livings to Landaffe, besides seven pound of silver to the Church, which they had polluted.
Mouric King of Glamorgan was excommunicated by Joseph the 28 Bishop of this Diocese, for putting out the eyes of Etgum in a time of truce; to have his absolution he gave to the Bishop Paniprise. Another time he was fain to give Gulich Fabrus and four pound of silver unto the Bishop, beside other great gifts to the Canons upon this occasion: He had broken the Sanctuary of the Church of Landaffe, by taking away thence violently the wife of his enemy, and hurting some of the Bishops servants: For so doing he was publicly excommunicated by the Bishop in a Synod, and by these gifts made way to obtain his absolution.
Caratuc one of his company in the last recited action, was forced to give Henriu in Wencia.
Riugallan the son of Rum being excommunicate for an assault made upon the Bishop and his men, gave Riu Drein and the third part of the Wood of Yuisperthan, to be absolved.
Cutguallam the son of Guriat struck one in the Consistory in the presence of Joseph the Bishop, who kept him the said Catguallam in prison till he had made amends for that fault, by giving the Church of Saint Brides.
Calgucam the King of Morganuc and his family was solemnly excommunicated by Herewald the 29 Bishop of Landaffe, in a Synod of all his Clergy; who thereupon cast down all the Crosses and Relics to the ground, overturned their Bells, and stopped up all the doors of the Churches with thorns, so as they continued for a long time without divine service, and pastors day and night; the King and his Family in the mean time being sequestered from the society of all the faithful, and all, because one of the Kings followers being drunk, had laid violent hands upon Bathutis the Bishops Physician and Kinsman on Christmas day, Anno 1056. Whereupon the King, though innocent, upon his submission to the Bishop, to obtain his absolution, was enf • rced to give Henringumna, in the presence of all the Clergy & people, to this Bishop and his successors, free from all secular & regal services. After which one Gistni excommunicated for a rape committed by a Nephew and follower of his upon a Virgin, whom he took violently out of the Church of Landaffe, was forced to give Milne to the Bishop and his Successors to obtain absolution. By these instances we may partly discern by what undue means Bishops at first obtained their large Temporalties and Revenues, even by enforcing Kings and great persons to buy out and expiate their offenses by endowing their Sees with Lands and Manors, without which they could not purchase their absolution: and we likewise learn hence that Bishops in those days excommunicated none but in a Synod, with the suffrage of all their Clergy.
Edmund de Bromfeild the 48. Bishop of Landaffe, for procuring and bringing in the Popes Bulls of Provision to make him Abbot of Bury, contrary to his own express Oath, and the Statutes of the Realm, was for this his contempt and disobedience committed to the Tower by King Richard the second, where he lay prisoner a long time; neither durst the Pope yield him any assistance, to justify his own Bull.
The late Bishops of this See (as Feild and others) have been so notoriously peccant, that I need not mention them, wherefore I shall pass on to the Bishops of Bangor.
Bishops of Bangor.
MAuritius the third Bishop of Bangor most undutifully refused a long time to do homage to the King of England for his Bishopric held of him, but at last was persuaded to do it.
Robert of Shrewsbury joining with Leolin Prince of Wales, against King John his Sovereign, was taken prisoner by the King in his own Cathedral Church, and ransomed for 200. hawks; after this dying, he was buried, not in the Church-yard, but in the market place of Shrewsbury, by his own appointment.
Richard the 10. Bishop of Bangor excommunicated David ap Lhewelin, Prince of Wales, for that contrary to his O • th he took his Brother Gryffith prisoner, who was content upon the Bishops word to go to his Brother: and when he saw that course would not reform him, he never lin complaining, first to the King of England, then to the Pope, that he so incensed them, as the one excommunicated him, the other made war upon him until he delivered his said Brother into the Kings hands, who caused him to be kept in the Tower of London, till he endeavoring there to escape, by misfortune brake his neck. The Prince hereupon so wasted the Bishopric, that in the year 1248. this Bishop and the Bishop of Saint Asaph were forced to beg their bread. Whereupon this Bishop came to the Abbot of Saint Albanes, desiring that the Bosom of Mercy might be opened unto his poverty, and he abiding there until his Bishopric wasted and spoiled with continual war, should recover some better estate, might together with his Chaplain there breath and rest themselves from those calamities wherewith they had been long afflicted, in like sort as heretofore the Bishop of Hereford had done, who was honorably entertained there almost the space of twenty years.
Richard Young the 22. Bishop of Bangor, for some contempt and disobedience against the King, and confederating (as is likely) with that Rebell Owen Glendor, was imprisoned two or three years, till the Pope, Anno 1404. translated him to Rochester by his Bull.
Lewis the 23. Bishop of Bangor Anno. 1408. joined with the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord Bardolfe and others, in open Rebellion against King Henry the fourth. The Earl was slain in battle in the field, the Lord Bardolfe mortally wounded, and their heads set upon London Bridge. The Bishop was likewise taken prisoner in the battle, but obtained pardon from the King, because he had no Arms upon him when he was taken, though the incendiary of the other two, and as great a Traitor as they; but the Abbot of Hayles was hanged, because he had borne Arms in that Rebellion. So happy are Traytorly and Rebellious Bishops, as to scape scot free in their Treasons and Rebellions, when all other sorts of men have execution done upon them.
Arthur Bulkly Bishop of Bangor, and John Lewis Vicar of Llain-geynwina, were attainted in a Praemunire at the prosecution of William Whorewood the Kings Attorney, for suing for the right of Patronage and Tithes of the said Church, and for several sums of money due on bond for Tithes, in this Bishops Ecclesiastical Court, which had no cognizance of them being temporal, and belonging only to the Kings Civil Courts, to the derogation of the imperial Jurisdiction of the King and his Crown, and subversion of the Laws and Statutes of the Realm. And hereupon judgment was given against them according to the Statute. This Bishop sold away five fair Bells out of the Steeple of his Cathedral Church, which ma • d the Music there.
Should I rip up the scandalous lives and Actions of some of the late Pilate's of this See, one of whom published The Practice of Piety, (which some say he never writ) though neither he nor any of his successors, did ever much practice it in their lives, or should I recite the vile complaints of late against one of them in 2 or 3 late Parliaments, I should be over tedious, and pollute my paper with such beastly actions, as would cause chaste eyes to blush, and turn their aspect from them: Wherefore I shall pass them over in silence, (he being gone to answer them before the supreme tribunal) informing you only, that he imposed Armies upon his Clergy, and provided an Armory for them to be kept in within his Cathedral at Bango • : And so I post on to Assaph Diocese.
Saint Assaph.
John Trevaur Bishop of Saint Assaph pronounced the sentence for deposing King Richard the second, in which instrument he is first named, as appears by this ensuing Copy of it. In the Name of God, Amen. We John Bishop of Saint Assaph, chosen and deputed special Commissaries by the three states of this present Parliament representing the whole body of the Realm, for all such matters • by the said estates to us committed; We understanding and considering the manifold crimes, hurts, and harms done by Richard King of England, and misgovernance of the same by a long time, to the great decay of the said Land, and utter ruin of the same shortly to have been, had not the special grace of our God thereto put the sooner remedy; And also further more adverting, that the said King Richard by acknowledging his own insufficiency, hath of his own mere volunta • y and free will, renounced and given over the rule and governance of this Land, with all rights and h • nours unto the same belonging, and utterly for his merits hath judged himself not unworthily to be deposed of all Kingly Majesty and Estate Royal: We, the Premises well considering by good and diligent deliberation, by the power, name, and authority, to us (as aforesaid) committed, pronounce, decer • e, and declare the same King Richard, before this to have been, and so to be unprofitable, u • a • le, unsuffi • ient, and unwor • hy of the Rule and Government of the foresaid Realms and Lor • ships, and of all rights and other the appurtenances thereto belonging. And f • r the same causes we de • rive him of all Kingly dignity and worsh • p, and of all Kingly worship in himself. And we depose him by our sentence definitive: forbidding expressly to all Archbishops and Bishops, and all other Prelates, Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Barons, and Knights, and all other men of the foresaid Kingdom and Lordships, Subjects and Leiges whatsoever they be, that none of them from this day forward, to the foresaid Richard, as King and Lord of the foresaid Realms and Lordships, be neither obedient nor attendant. Immediatly as this sentence was in this wise passed, and that by reason thereof the Realm stood void without head or governor for the same, The Duke of Lancaster rising from the place where before he sat, and standing where all the house might behold him, laid claim to the Crown, to which the Lord's assented.
After which the Archbishop of Canterbury ( Arundel ) having notice of the minds of the Lord's, stood up and asked of the Commons, if they would assent to the Lord's, which in their minds thought the claim of the Duke made to be rightful and necessary for the wealth of the Realm and them all. Whereto the Commons with one voice cried, Yea, yea, yea: After which answer, the said Archbishop going to the Duke, and kneeling down before him on his knees, addressed to him all his purpose in a few words: which ended, he rose, and taking the Duke by the right hand, led him unto the Kings Seat, the Archbishop of York assisting him; and with great reverence set him therein. When he was thus placed in his Throne, the Arch • . of Canturbury began a brief Collation, taking for his Theame these words written in the first Book of Kings, the ninth Chapter, Vir dominabitur in p • pulo, &c. handling the same, and the whole tenor of his tale to the praise of the King. Thus was this King deprived by the Bishops means, who were chief actors in deposing him, and setting up King Henry ; yet some of them (especially York ) were the authors of that evil counsel, which was the cause of his deprivation. And no wonder, since in his reign (as Holinshed writes) such were preferred to Bishoprics ; and other Ecclesiastical livings, as neither did, nor could teach, nor preach, nor know anything of the Scripture of God, but only to call for their tithes and duties; so as they were most unworthy of the name of Bishops, being lewd and most vain persons disguised in Bishops apparel. Furthermore, there reigned abundantly the filthy sin of Leche • y and Fornication, with abominable adultery in the King, but chiefly in the Prelacy; whereby the whole Realm, by such their evil example, was so infected, that the wrath of God was daily provoked to vengeance for the sins of the Prince and people, and took so sharp an edge, that it shred the King off from the Scepter of his Kingdom, and gave him a full cup of affliction to drink. After which, this Bishop was sent Ambassador into Spain, to show the King the rightfulnesse of Henry the fourth his Ti • le to the Crown of England ; and soon after his return thence, Anno 1404. (as Th • mas Walsing • am reports) perceiving Owen Glendor, that Welch R • bell, to prosper in his wa • res against King He • ry the fourth; Conversus est in virum pravum factus transfuga ad Owenum, he turned a lewd Traytour and Rebell, flying away from the King to Owen. What became of him upon Owen's defeat, I find not. Thus this B • shop was a Traitor and Rebell to two several Kings; and which was worst of all, to him whose title he thus took upon him publicly to defend but a little before. Such faith and loyalty is there in lordly Prelates.
I shall not trouble you anymore with our Welch Bishops ; only let me acquaint you for a farewell; that the present Bishops of Asaph, Bangor, and Landaffe, are now complained against in Parliament, and impeached by the Commons House for the late Canons, Oath, malevole • t benevolence, and other crimes; for which I suppose they will ere long receive their doom.
The Bishops of Bath and Wels.
GISO the fifteenth Bishop of Bath and Wels, had many conflicts with Harold, before and after he came to the Crown; so that he was forced to fly the Land all his time.
Ioseline the one and twentieth Bishop of this See, joined with Stephen Langhton, that Arch-rebel against King John, and had an hand in interdicting the Realm, and excommunicating the King; for which he was glad to fly the Land for five years, the King seizing upon his goods and temporalties; whereupon the Monks and Prelates raised many vile reports of the King, which you may read in Matth. Westminster.
Robert Stillington, the nine and thirtieth Bishop of Bath and Wells, though highly advanced by K • ng Edward the fourth, sided with that Usurper Richard the third, and was a man specially employed in his Coronation; he was a great enemy to King Henry the seventh, being sent Embassador to the Duke of Britain for apprehending him, whiles he was Earl of Richmond, Anno 1487. H • e was accused of high Treason, for yielding assistance to Lambert the counterfeit Earl of Warwick, and some such other treacheries; whereupon, having a guilty conscience, he fled to the University of Oxford, hoping that the privileges of the same might be some shelter and defense unto him; whereof the King having advertisement, sent one Edward Willoughby, his Chaplain, to the Chancellor of the University, to require the Bishop to be delivered to his Officers, as being one to whom the Privileges of the University could not extend (being at the time no Student there) so far at least as to protect him in a matter of Treason, unto which no privilege ought to yield any patrociny. After two or three refusals, at last by the connivence and permission of the Chancellor, he was there arrested and committed prisoner to the Castle of Windsor, where he lay prisoner four years space, till his decease, 1491.
Hadrian de Castello the two and fortieth Bishop of this See, though he conspired not against the King, yet being at Rome, and there made a Cardinal he entered into a conspiracy with Cardinal Alfonso Petruccio, and others to murder Pope Leo the tenth, out of an ambitious conceit that surely he should be elected Pope i • Leo were once dead; a Witch having foretold him that a certain old man named Adrian, borne of mean parentage, as he was, should be advanced to the Papacy: This conspiracy coming to the Popes ears, Petruccio was thereupon apprehended and executed: The Pope coming into the Consistory, promised pardon to all the other Cardinals, who should then and there immediately confess their faults: Hadrian hereupon, and some other, falling down on their knees before him, acknowledged what they had done, and humbly besought him of mercy. He promised to be as good as his word. Howbeit, Hadrian • earing the worst, shortly after stole secretly away, and was neither seen or heard of ever afterward, and thereupon deprived of his Bi • hopricke.
William Barlow, the six and fortieth Bishop of Bath and Wells, incurred a Praemunire, for presuming to visit the Dean and Chap • er of Wells being a Donative, for which he was glad to buy his peace, as appears by Brooke, Praemunire. Sect. 21.
Guilbert Bourne the seven and fortieth Bishop of Bath and Wells, in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, was deprived of his Bishopric for refusing to subscribe and take the Oath of Alleageance, and then committed to the custody of Master Cary, Dean of the Queens Chapel.
The Bishops since his time, I shall pretermit for brevity, and descend to William Pierce the present Bishop of this Diocese. This man having been Vicechancellor in the University of Oxford, wherein he was over-busy and turbulent in persecuting good men, and in causing Pareus his Commentary on the Romans to be publicly burnt in an ignominious manner; was for his good service made Bishop of Peterborough, and from thence translated to Bath and Wells ; where his tyranny, oppression, impiety, and practices have been so excessive, that the whole County of Somerset, with sundry particular persons, both Ministers and people there, weary of his insupportable government and vexatious oppressions, have exhibited divers Petitions against him to the high Court of Parliament now assembled, upon the full hearing whereof before a special Committee for that purpose; the Committees have drawn up this following Impeachment against him, reported to the Commons House, and now ready for a transmission to the Lord's; by perusal whereof you may in part discern what a good Prelate and careful Bishop he hath been, or rather a Wolf in a Bishops Rochet.
Articles of Accusation and impeachment by the Commons House of Parliament against William Pierce, Doctor of Divinity, and Bishop of Bath and Wells.
THat he hath by his own arbitrary power, against Law, since he was Bishop of Bath and Wells (being about ten [unspec 1] years space) of purpose to keep the people in ignorance and hinder the Salvation of their Souls which he should promote; in and about the years of our Lord, 1633.1634.1635. and since, suppressed all Lectures within his Diocese, both in Market Towns end elsewhere, as well those that the ministers kept in their several C • res, as others that were maintained by several yearly stipends, given by the Founders, out of their piety and devotion, for such good uses, or by the volentary assistance of neighbor ministers, some of which Lectures had continued for 50.40.30. and 20. years, without interruption, and were countenanced by his predecessors, who used to preach at some of them in their turns.
That insteade of encouraging, he hath suspended, excommunicated and otherwise vexed the said Lecturers; glorying in his so doing, and thanking God, that he had not a Lecture left in his Diocese ; the very name whereof he said he disliked, and affirmed unto Master Cunnant a minister who desired the continuance o • a Lecture, that he would not leave one within his Diocese; the Bishop alleging, that though there was need of preaching in the infancy of the Church in the Apostles time, yet now there was no such need; and thereupon required the said minister upon his Canonical obedience, not to preach: and in like manner he dealt with many other Godly Ministers within his Diocese. [unspec 2] And in particular he suspended Master Devenish the Minister of Bridgewater, for preaching a Lecture in his own Church on the market day there, (which Lecture had continued from Queen Elizabeth's time till then;) and refused to absolve him, till he had promised never to preach it more; upon which promise, the said Bishop absolved him with this admonition of our Savior, most profanely applied, Go thy way, sin no more, l • st a worse thing happen to thee. And not content to put down Lectures in his own Diocese, he hath endeavored the suppression of them in others, by conventing some ministers of his Dioces • e before him (as namely one Master Cunnant and Mr. Strickla • d ) and threat • ing to suspend them, for preaching their turns at Lectures in other Dioceses near them.
That in opposition to preaching, and the Spirit • all good o • the people's Souls, he hath in and about the years aforesaid most impiously, and against Law, put down all afternoon Sermons on • he Lord's day, throughout his Diocese, and charged the Ministers both publicly in his visitations, & privately, no • to preach at all on the Lord's day on the afternoon, upon any occasion under pain of suspension : after which charge he suspended one Mr. Cornish a Minister, only for preaching a fun • rall Sermon on a Lord's day Evening.
That divers godly Ministers of his Diocese, being restrained from preaching, did thereupon take great pains, to Catechis •• the people in the principles of Religion, on the Lord's day in the afternoon, in larging themselves upon the questions and answers of the Catechism in the Common prayer Book, for the people's better instruction, using some short prayers before or after that exercise: of which the said Bishop having intelligence, in and about the years aforesaid, convented the said ministers before him, reproving them sharply for the same, threatn • ng to punish them if they persisted in that way, which he said, was a Catechising Sermon-wise, and AS BAD as if they preached ; charging them, that they should ask no questions, nor receive any other answers from the people, but such as were contained in the Catechism in the Service book : which some not observing, were convented thereupon before th • said Bish • p, and punished, as namely Master Barret Rector of Barmicke, who was enjoined penanc • for transgressing the Bishop • said order • and likewise Humphry Blake, Church-warden of Bridge • water, was enjoined penance by the Bishop, for not presenting Master Devenish Minister there, for that he expounded upon the Church Catechism on the Lord's day in the afternoon • , and made a short prayer before he began the same • the Bishop alleging, that it was against his order, and command, as is above said.
That he hath in the years aforesaid both by precept and example, most profanely opposed the due sanctification of the Lord's day, by approving and allowing of profane Wakes, and Revels on that day, contrary to the Laws and Statu • es of this Realm: for which purpose he Commanded afternoon-Service on the Lord's day not to be long, that so the people might not be hindered from their Recreations ; pressed and enjoined all the Ministers in his Diocese in their proper persons, to read the book of sports, in their several Parish Churches, in the midst of divine Service at morning prayer on the Lord's day, contrary to the words, and purport of the said book, which some ministers (as Master H • mphry Chambers, and Master Thomas ) refusing to do, he thereupon suspended them both from their office and Benefice, and kept them excommunicated for divers years, notwithstanding the said book was by the Bishops Order published in their Churches by others, he convented the minister of Beerecrockeham before him, for having two Sermons on the said Parish Revell day, alleging that it was a hindrance to the said Revell, and to the utterance of the Church Ale, provided to be spent on that day. He convented and punished one Master Thomas Elford a Minister, for preaching at the Parish of Montague, upon the Revell day, upon the Prophet Ioels exhortation, to f • sting, weeping, and mourning • charging him, that not only his Sermon, but his very Text was • scandalous to the Revell, and gave offe • ce to the meeting. And for the same reason, the said Bishop commanded the Church-ward •• of the Parish of Barecom • e, to blo • out of the Church wall, this Text of Scripture therein written, taken out of Isaiah 58.13.14. If thou turn away thy • oo • from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my Holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the Holy of the Lord Honorable, and shall • honor him, not doing thy own ways, nor finding thine own pleas • re • nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord • and I will • ause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed th • e with the heritage of Jacob thy Father, for the m •• th of the Lord hath spoken it. And he likewise cau • ed this clause in Doctor Bisse his monument in that Church, formerly Pastor there, to be rased out; He was an enemy to heeathenish Revels. To conntenance which Revels, the said Bishop (in opposition • o the orders of the Judges of Assi • e, and Justices of Peace of Somerset-shire, for the suppressing of Sports and Revels, and their Petition to the King, to that purpose) did call before him divers Ministers of his Diocese, and presented unto them a writing [unspec 4] in approbation and commendations of the said sports and Revells: whereunto many of the said Ministers subscribed their names, by the Bishops persuasions: which writing the said Bishop sent up to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, who after the receipt thereof suppressed the Justices Petition. And shortly after the book for sports and Revels on the Lord's day was published.
That he hath within the years forementioned both by his example and command, contrary to the Laws of the Land, introduced into all or most Churches in his Diocese sundry Innovations in the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, and other new inventions of his own, tending to Popery and Superstition: as namely, setting up of Altars, and enjoining the seats about them to be taken away, saying, none shall sit equal with or above God Almighty : bowing and cringing to the Altars, and reading the second and third service at the Altar) and enjoined the strict observation of them under the heaviest Censures of the Church; in so much that the Communion Table of Stretton in his Diocese, which he had caused to be railed in Altarwise, being • rought down again to its former place, and not turned to the East, thereupon no Communion was there permitted to the Parishioners on Palme-Sunday and Easter day 1637. the Minister having received an Order from the said Bishop, not to administer the Communion until the Table was again set up Altarwise : and caused divers to be punished for not standing up at the Gospel and Gloria Patri. And he hath likewise forced divers Parishes, as Taunton, Shepton Mallet, and others, to their intolerable cost, to set up Organs, where there were none at all, or not a long time before; causing the Church-wardens to levy money towards the buying of them, upon the Parishioners, against their wills, and punishing them in his Ecclesiastical Court, that would not pay towards them, and that he hath put the Country of Sommerset to excessive expenses, by reason of such Innovations as aforesaid.
That he hath within the time fore-specified contrary to Law vexed and molested in his Ecclesiastical Courts divers of the Clergy and Laity of his Diocese for trivial and small matters; excommunicated and vexed divers Church-wardens, for not [unspec 5,] railing in the Communion Table, and placing it Altarwise against the East wall of the Chancel; and by name, the Church-wardens of Beckington ; whom he not only excommunicated, but likewise caused them and others to be unjustly indicted at the open Assizes held in the Country in Lent, 1636. as for a Ryot in hindering the removing of the Table in that Church, putting the said Parish to the expense of 180 • . pounds or more, and not absolving the Churchwardens from their excommunication, till they had done such open and ignominious penance, as the said Bishop enjoined them, in three eminen • Parish Churches within his Diocese, as likewise at the Market Cross at Wells. The performance of which penance wrought so far upon James Wheeler one of the said Church-wardens, that thereupon he fell into a Consumption through grief, and so died, saying often before his death, that the performance of the said penance being so ignominious, and against his Conscience, was the cause of his death ; and by his vexatious suits in his Ecclesiastical Courts, he hath raised his Registers office, in former Bishops time not worth above • 0. pound per annum, to the value of 3. or 400. pounds or more by the year.
That the said Bishop hath within the forenamed years unduly [unspec 6] and against Law, pressed the Oaths Ex officio upon divers inhabitants of Wells without complaint or accusation, and likewise the Oath of Deans Rurall, with other unlawful Oaths, both upon the Clergy and Laity within his Diocese, and other places; and suspended and excommunicated divers of them that refused to take the said Oaths: and that not only in his Consistory Court, but in his own private Chambe • , there being none but a Register with him.
That he hath in or about the times fore-recited for his own [unspec 7] Lucre and gain extorted divers sums of money against Law, as of one Fort, one of the Churchwardens of South-Pederton 20. pound. And also of one Mr. Franklyn the sum of 3. pound (besides the sum of 10. pounds given in Fees, and rewards to the Bishops servants) for instituting him into the Parsonage of Standerweeke. And hath likewise in the years aforesaid, and in the year 1639. exacted the sum of 6. shillings 8. pence or more, of divers Church-wardens and Parishes within his Diocese, and namely of the Church-wardens of Dunkerton, only for not ringring the Bells when he passed through the bounds of their seveall Parishes, in his Visitation, though privately without giving them any notice of his coming that way. One Long his Surrogate openly averring in Court, that by the 16. Decre • all, they might justly take 10. pound for this offense.
[unspec 8] That he hath within the years forenamed against Law de • erred and denied Institutions upon presentations to Benefices, practicing in the interim under hand to confer the same upon his Son, Servants or other dependants, and to deprive the Patrons of their Rights; and hath even by force, against all Law and equity, con • erred some of the Benefices upon his Son, Servants and dependants, viz. upon his Son, the Parsonage of Buckland, and endeavored by the like for • e to confer the Parsonage of Standerweeke upon his said son, and other Parsonages upon his Servants and allyes, & did against Law and by force confer the Vica • idge of Hynstridge upon his servant Flamsteed.
[unspec 9] That he hath in or about the foresaid years tampered with witnesses examined by and before him upon Oath, to make them testify untruths, and hath falsified their depositions, setting down his own words and what he would have them depose, ins • eede of what they testified; as namely in the Case of the Church-wardens of Beckington, and in that of Mr. Ieanes Minister of Beercrocombe.
[unspec 10] That he is a Common vexer, persecutor and molester of worthy and painful Ministers, and a countenancer of those who are negligent, scandalous, and profane, as namely he hath within the years fore-mentioned, vexed and persecuted Mr. Chambers, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Croake, Mr. Newton, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Cunnant, Mr. Roswell, with many other godly and painful Ministers of the Diocese, & countenanced his Chaplain Mr. Eglesfield, • awler, Mr. Long, with other very vicious Ministers, and Mr. Huish and others superstitiously affected.
[unspec 11] That the said Bishop contrary to Law did in the year 1640. severely exact, and impose upon divers of the Clergy within his Diocese, the new Oath perscribed by the sixth Canon of the late pretended Synod, and caused and enforced them to take the said illegal Oath, himself kissing the Seal of the Commission which authorized him to exact the said Oath of his Clergy, and kneeling down upon his knees took the said Oath first, and then administered it to others; saying, that he was glad in his heart that this Oath was imposed upon all the Clergy of England, for now the true Children of the Church would be known from the spurious and bastards. And further he hath de • yed to confer Orders upon such who refused to take the said Oath, as namely, upon one Mr. Gibbon • . And hath enforced the said Oath upon divers he hath ordained Ministers since the making thereof.
That the said Bishop hath been a great fomentor and incourager [unspec 12] of the late divisions and wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, conventing and urging the Clergy of his Diocese in the years of our Lord 1638. & 1639. to contribute a liberal benevolence towards the maintenance of the said wars, using this speech as one motive to induce them to this contribution; that it was Bellum Episcopale, and saying, that what ever cause the King had expressed in hi • Declaration, yet in truth this war was for Vs, meaning Vs the Bishops. And whereas some of the Clergy denied the payment of so large a Benevolence • s the said Bishop demanded, in regard of their poverty, and because they were still in their first fruits, when they were free from Subsidies, the said Bishop threatened by his power to put more Arms and horses upon them, saying, that if they would not serve the King with their purses, they should serve him with their Arms. And thereupon compelled them to pay the sums he demanded of them against all Law: as namely, Mr. Roswell, Mr. Joan’s, Mr. Abbot, and others. And not contented herewith, the said Bishop pretending that there were divers poor Vicars and Ministers in his Diocese that were no • able to pay the Benevolence, • o as he could not raise the sum he expected, thereupon directed his Letters to divers of his wealthier Cle • gie causing some of them to pay a second contribution.
13. That the said Bishop not content with this first Benevolence, hath since that in the year of our Lord 1642. compelled divers of his Clergy to pay all or part of the six illegal subsidies or Benevolences imposed by the late pretended Synod, without confirmation of Parliament, threatening to excommunica • e and deprive them ipso • facto who failed paymen • of it at the days prefixed by the Synod, and sent out a process to Master Newton Minister of Tau • ton (even whiles the said) Town • was much visited by the Pestilence) long before the said Subsidy; or Benevolence was due, to enjoin him to pay it punctually at the day, or else he would inflict on him the penalties prescribed by this Synod; and used these speeches, that if they did not pay the said Subsidy or Benevolence, they should be ground to powder.
And the said Commons by pro • esta • ion s •• ing to themselves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other accusation or impeachment against the said Bishop; And also of replying to the answers that he the said Bishop shall make unto the said Articles, or to any of them, and of offering proofs also of the premisses or any of them, or any other impeachment or accusation that shall be exhibited by them (as the cause shall according to the course of Parliaments require) do pray that the said Bishop may be put to answer to all and every t • e premisses. And that such proceedings, examinations, trials, and judgments may be upon every of them had and used, as is agreeable to Law and Justice.
By these Articles of impeachment you may easily discover what a profane, impious, turbulent Prelate this Bishop is, even such a one, whom no age (I think) in many particulars is able to parallel; whose prodigiously profane speeches and actions proclaim to all the world, that our present Prelates impieties have made them fit for judgment; yea to be cast out and trampled under feere of men, as the very excrements and off-scouring of all things.
I have now run through all our ancient Bishoprics, with that of Chester lately revived, and given you a brief account of the extravagant actions of some of those Lordly Prelates who possessed them; I shall now in the close of this Chapter give you but a touch of some of the late Bishops of Oxford, Bristol, Peterborough and Gloucester (which Bishoprics were erected out of dissolved Monasteries by King Henry the eight towards the end of his Reign) and so conclude.
Oxford.
TO pass by the first Bishops of this See, none of the best, there have been three successions of Bishops in Oxford, since I left the University; Houson, Corbet, and Bancroft ; all of them Patriots of Innovations, Erronious, Popish, Arminian Doctrines, superstitious Ceremonies, profane Sports, Revels, and Bacchanals on the Lord's day, scandalous in their lives, notoriously given to the flesh, enemies to frequent preaching, and the true Practice of Piety. Of the two first of them I have given a touch in Durham, and Norwich, page 519. to which I shall refer you, and for the last of them, a Non-preaching Prelate, who (for ought I can learn) never preached above one or two Sermons (if so many) all his life time; he had a finger in the late Canons, Oath, lone, in pressing whereof he was not negligent; and had not death arrested him (with the other two) I doubt not but the Parliament had been troubled with many complaints against them all, which now being buried together with them, I will not revive.
Bristol.
THE Bishopric of Bristol was first possessed by Paul Bush, who was deprived in Queen Mary's days for being married. John Holy-man a Papist succeeded him, after whose death the See continued void some four years, Anno 1562. Richard Cheyny Bishop of Gloucester, and John Bullingham his successor, held Bristol in Commendam, so as it stood void o • a Bishop (otherwise than as it was held by Commendam • one and thirty years. Richard Fletcher next enjoyed it till he was translated to Worcester, Anno. 1593. After which it stood vacant ten years to 1603. and then John Thorneborough Bishop of Limbrick in Ireland and Commendatory Dean of York was translated to it. This Bishop and some of his successors had great contests with the Major, Aldermen, and Citizens of B • istoll, whom he would force to come every Lord's day morning, and solemn Holiday, to the Cathedral Sermon, to dance attendance, and do their homage to their Lordships; which they for some years refused, till at last after sundry complaints to the King and Council, the Bishops and they according, the Major and Citizens yielded to come to the College, now and then on solemn days, if the weather were fair, and sometimes in the Summer season.
Robert Wright, one of the late Bishops of this See, had a great contestation with the Dean and Chapter of Bristol, and Master George Salterne, Steward of the City, for opposing him in setting up Images in the Cathedral and other Churches, which gave great offense to the people: he was a great Innovator and maintainer of Superstitious Ceremonies at Bristol to humor Canterbury, by whose means he was translated to Coventry and Litchfield, where you may read more of him.
Bishop Cook who succeeded him, was a more moderate and ingenuous man at first, but became too obsequious to Canterburies ways and Innovations afterward.
Robert Skinner, the present Bp of this See, promoted to it by Can •• rburies means, (whose great creature he is) hath been very violent in railing in, and turning Communion Tables Altar-wise, (himself with his own hands, and his men turning some:) in magnifying the book for sports on the Lord's-day (which he hath used to give others good example) in bowing to Altars, to the bread and wine at the administration, and at the naming of Jesus; he threatened to punish a Church-warden for perjury in not presenting the Minister for Preaching twice on the Lord's day, commanding some able ministers to Preach but once a fortnight, and not to preach on holy-days. He affirmed in his last Visitation, That conceived prayers before and after Sermons were never used till Cartwright, that factious fire-brand brought them up. He hath been a great Patriot of Arminianism, and styled the Doctrine of the Saints • inall perseverance in grace, A Doctrine of Devils; enjoining a minister to recant it, else he would vex him in the high Commission, and running violently at him, said, He would have no such Vipers preach such Doctrine in his Diocese: upon which ground he prohibited a Schoolmaster to teach children Mr. Perkins his Chatechisme; and said of his book entitled, A golden Chaine, that he might style it as one had done, A chain of damnation. He hath reviled divers ministers calling them Vipers, Dunces, Devils, Traitors, Dogs, Scottish-hearted-Raskals, and the like, for teaching Orthodox Doctrine, and preaching out of their Cures in his own Diocese; and commanded the ministers of Bristol not to suffer any strangers to preach in their Churches, unless they first asked his leave, and shown him the Notes of their Sermons. He caused the Kings Arms to be taken down in a Church in Bristol, only because it stood over the Altar. He took the late &c. Oath at his Visitation upon his knees, and imposed it upon others, assuring them, that if they did not take it, the Church would not suffer her self to be at a loss. He hath forced ministers to pay in the Benevolence money granted by the late pretended Synod, and constrain • d them to pay for their very acquitances. He caused a minister to be brought up by a Pursuivant before the Council Table, for omitting some words of the prayer against the Scots, and praying God to discover more & more the Kings enemies in this Kingdom; he hath excommunicated divers for denying to take an Ex Officio Oath; threatened to pul down a house built by a Tenant of the Dean and Chapter, near his Palace, in such furious manner, that the Tenants wife soon after with the fear fell distracted and died: Neither will he permit another of their Tenants who hath an house at the West end of the Cathedral to place a Tenant in it, saying, He will not suffer so great a Prophanation ; threatening to put the Dean and Chapter into the High Commission, and there to fine them more than they had for the house, if they admitted of a Tenant; alleging he could not look the Arch-Bishop in the face as long as • hat house stood: he was an active instrument in compiling the late Canons, Oath and Benevolence, for which he now stands impeached by the Commons. He hath much disaffected, and censured late Parliaments, and after the dissolution of the last Parliament, was so confident we should never see another, as he openly said, We should go whoop when he saw another and should say the King was brought to a very low ebb. He threatened to interdict a Faire kept in the Parish of S. James in Bristol, if they would not set up a pair of de • ayed Organs in that Church. But of him enough.
Peterborough.
John Chambers, a Doctor of Physic, and last Abbot of Peterborough, became the first Bishop of it. It seems the office was not then thought very spiritual, that a Doctor of Physic and an Abbot could supply it.
David Poole, a Doctor of Law and Dean of the Arches, succeeded him, and was deprived the first year of Queen Elizabeth for Popery, and denying her Supremacy.
Will • am Pierce, one of the late Bishops of this Diocese, was a very turbulent man both to Ministers and people, playing the same pranks there, as he hath since more plentifully exercised in his Diocese of Bath and Wells, whither he was translated; of his misdemeanors and impeachment for them by the Parliament, you have already heard.
Doctor Lyndsie, who succ • eded him (a great creature and servant of La • d and Neal ) was an earnest promoter of the book of pastimes on the Lord's day, a great champion for the Arminians, and all the late Innovations in doctrine, ceremony or worship introduced among us, a bitter enemy to preaching, Lecturers, Lectures and godly people, whom he opposed all he might: Being translated to Hereford, he would there needs visit the Cathedral, Dean and Chapter (being a donative) by his own Episcopal power, and would turn the Communion Table there Altarwise; the Dean and Chapter in defense of their privileges with-stood him, and would neither turn their Table, nor suffer him to visit: whereupon he fell into such a raging choler and passion as presently put him into a fit of the stone, whereof he died within few days after.
John the present Bishop of this S • e stands now impeached by the House of Commons, for the last Canons, Oath, and Benevolences made and granted in the late pretended Synod.
Gloucester.
THe Bishopric of Gloucester erected in King Henry the eight his reign, wa • first possessed by John Wakeman, Abbot of T • ukesbury, and by others since, some popish persecutors, as James Brookes in Queen Mary's days, the Popes Commissioner who passed sentence of condemnation against Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer at Oxford, and represented the Popes person there; in which regard these eminent M • rtyrs would neither bend their knees, nor once move their caps unto him, whereat he was much offended. Cranmer taxeth this Bishop, for being perjured both to the King and Pope, and violating his oath to both. The succeeding Bishops of this See, I shall wholly pretermit, and give you only a short account of Godfrey Goodman, the present Bishop of this Diocese.
This Prelate hath been ever • eputed a Papist in opinion, if not in practice. In his book entitled, The fall of man, he maintains some Popish Errors, and in Parliament ti • e 3. Ca • oli, broached no less then five several points of flat Popery in one Sermon preached at White- • all before his Majesty, and that impertinently, neither of them falling within the compass of his text: of which complaint being made in Parliament, the King enjoined him publicly to recant those Errors in a Sermon at White-hall ; but he instead of recanting, defended them again; whereupon the King threatened to make him recant in another manner, and to turn him out of his Bishopric: but the then Duke of Buckingham, and the other Prelates procured his peace, and translated him from Rochester (where he then sat Bishop) to Gloucester. In which Diocese proceeding in his former courses, he turned Communion Tables, railed them Altarwise, set up an Altar or two in his own private Chapel with Tapers on them, (one of which Altars, many say, he dedicated to the Virgin Mary ) besides he set up diverse Crucifixes and Images in the Cathedral at Gloucester and elsewhere; and after the Popish manner, consecrated diverse Altar-clothes, pulpit Clothes, which other vestments for the Cathedral, whereon Crucifixes were embroydred, to the great scandal of the people. And as if this were not sufficient to proclaim his Popery to the world; he hath bestowed much cost in repairing the High-cross at Windsor, where he was a Prebend: On one side whereof there is a large statue of Christ in colors (after the Popish Garbs in foreign parts • hanging on the Cross, with this Latin inscription over it, Jesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, in great guilded Letters; On the other side, the picture of Christ rising out of the Sepulcher, with his body half in, and half out of it. And to manifest that he is not ashamed of this scandalous work, it is thereupon engraven, That this was done at the cost of Godfry Bishop of Gloucester, one of the P •• bends there. Besides he suspended one Master Ridler minister of Little Dean, some 8 miles from Gloucester,