did yeeld in those many points of Popery 1. Supremacy 2. The marriage of some Ministers 3. The Sacrament in both kinds 4. Removing Images 5. Justification But now for his sharp persecuting or rather revenging himselfe on Cranmer and Ridley that had in King Edwards daies deprived him his too great cruelty cannot be excused Lastly the plots he laid to entrap the Lady Elizabeth his terrible hard usage of all her followers I cannot yet scarce think of with charity nor write of with patience My father onely for carrying a Letter to the Lady Elizabeth and professing to wish her well he kept in the Tower 12 moneths and made him spend a thousand pounds ere he could be free of that trouble My mother that then served the said Lady Elizabeth he caused to be sequestred from her as an heretick insomuch that her own father durst not take her into his house but she was glad to sojourne with one Mr. Topcliff so as I may say in some sort this Bishop persecuted me before I was born Yet that I speak not at all in passion I must confesse I have heard some as partially praise his clemency and good conscience and namely that he was cause of restoring many honourable houses overthrown by King Henry the eighth and in King Edwards minority The Duke of Norfolke though Mr. Fox saith that Gardiner made him stay long for his dinner one day yet both he and those descended of him were beholding to him with the house of Stanhops and the Lord Arundell of Warder and I have heard old Sir Matthew Arundell say that Bonner was more faulty then he and that Gardiner would rate at him for it and call him asse for using poor men so bloodily and when I would maintain the contrary he would say that my father was worthy to have lain in prison a yeer longer for the saucy sonnet he wrote to him from out of the Tower which sonnet both because it was written in defence of Queen Elizabeth and because if I be not partiall it is no ill Verse for those unrefined times and toucheth the matter I enforce I will here set down presupposing that in the eleven moneths before he had sent him many Letters and Petitions full of reason that could not prevaile for his liberty The distressed prisoner writeth this Rime 1. At least withdraw your cruelty or force the time to work your will It is too much extremity to keep me pent in prison still Free from all fault voyd of all cause Without all right against all lawes How can you doe more cruell spight Then proffer wrong and promise right Nor can accuse nor will acquight 2. Eleven moneths past and longer space I have abid your divellish drifts While you have sought both man and place and set your snares with all your shifts The fault lesse foot to wr ap in wile With any guilt by any guile And now you see that will not be How can you thus for shame agree To keep him bound you can set free 3. Your chance was once as mine is now to keep this hold against your will And then you sware you know well how Though now you swearve I know how ill But thus the world his course doth passe The Priest forgets a Clerke he was And you that then cry'd justice still And now have justice at your will Wrest justice wrong against all skill 4. But why doe I thus coldly plaine as if it were my cause alone When cause doth each man so constraine as England through hath cause to moane To see your bloody search of such Whom all the Earth can no way touch And better were that all your kind Like hounds in hel with shame were shrind Then you had might unto your mind 5. But as the stone that strikes the wall sometimes bounds back on th' hurlers head So your foule fetch to your foule fall may turn and noy the brest that bred And then such measure as you gave Of right and justice look to have If good or ill if short or long If false or true if right or wrong And thus till then I end my Song But to shew a pattern what partiality can paint in his praise and what ill will can pervert to reproach I will adde an Elegie in English also written by one Mr. Prideaux in commendation and the same answered in execration of the same Bishop 1. THe Saints in Heaven rejoyce this earth and we may waile Sith they have won and we have lost the guide of our availe 2. Though death hath loosed life yet death could not deface His worthy work his stayed state nor yet his gifts of grace 3. As Gardner was his name So Gardned he his life With justice and with mercy both to 'stroy the weeds of strife 4. A Steven in Religion stout a Bishop by his acts A faithfull man most free from fraud as witnesse be his facts 5. A Judge most just in judgement seat of parties no regard An Eye to see an Eare to heare a hand that shunn'd reward 6. A heart to help and not to harm his will was wisdomes law A minde that malice could not move such was of God his awe 7. A faith in friendship firm and fast a mount the right to raise A Spright ' not pall'd with slanderous bruits nor puft with pride by praise 8. Not light of credit to reports revenge he never sought But would forgive and did forget the wrongs that were him wrought 9. A truth so tri'd in trust as tongue could never taint Nor earst was heard in guilefull wise a lie with lips to paint 10. Though Natures child by birth yet vertues heir by right Which held his height so madestly as measure master'd might 11. Ambitions climing cliffe could never move his minde Nor fortune with her fawning cheer his heart did ever blind 12. Nor Misery which most he felt or prison might him pall But bare his minde in levell so as change could be no fall 13. In all these turns of joy and woe he turned to the best And held him to the tried truth which now hath won him rest 14. From foes deface and envies bell his end hath made him free And pluckt him from this wicked world too worthy here to be 15. Who can give tears enough to plaino the losse and lack we have So rare a man so soon bereft when most we did him crave 16. When age and yeers had made him ripe and surely had him set To know himselfe and weeld the world and right with mercy met 17. And when of envy and of hate the conquest he had wonne And falsehood forc'd to fly his fort and right his race to run 18. And when of glory and of grace he wonne the palm and price And conquered all affections force with wisdoms good advice 19. And in the office that he bare and service of his Queen So choice a man to serve her call scarce anywhere was seen 20. Then death
verified indeed in the Kings Majesty that now is who was then unborn and hath since so happily united these Kingdoms yet least that which I would make in him a Prophecy others will take in me for flattery I will proceed to the next or rather I should say to another for of the two next I need add nothing my Authour having testified by both their Epitaphs that they lived and died well Doctor Thomas Cooper I intend therefore to speak next of Dr. Cooper because of Bishop Herne and Bishop Watson I cannot add any thing upon sure ground for of the former times I have either Books of stories or relation of my Fathers that lived in those dayes but or these that lived in the first twenty yeeres of the Queens Raign when I was at school or at the University I could hear little yet at my first coming to the Court I heard this pretty tale that a Bishop of Winchester one day in pleasant talk comparing his Revenue with the Arch-bishops of Canterbury should say your Graces will showe better in the Rack but mine will be found more in the Manger upon which a Courtier of good place said it might be so in diebus illis But saith he the Rack stands so high in sight that it is fit to keep it full but that may be since that time some have with a provideatur swept some provender out of the Manger and because this Metaphor comes from the Stable I suspect it was meant by the Mr. of the Horse To come then to Bishop Cooper of him I can say much and I should do him great wrong if I should say nothing for he was indeed a reverent man very well learned exceeding industrious and which was in those dayes counted a great praise to him and a chief cause of his preferment he wrote that great Dictionary that yet bears his name his Life in Oxford was very commendable and in some sort Saint-like for if it be Saint-like to live unreprovable to bear a cross patiently to forgive great injuries freely this mans example is sampleless in this age He maried a Wife in Oxford for that speciall just cause I had almost said onely cause why Clergymen should mary viz. for avoiding of sin Melius est enim nubere quam uri yet was that his very hard hap that she proved too light for his gravity by many grains or rather many pounds At the first he winkt at that with a Socraticall and Philosophicall patience taking or rather mistaking the equivocating counsel of Erasmus Ecchoe Quid si mihi veniat usu quod his qui incidunt in uxores parum pudicas parumque frugiferas Feras At qui cum talibus morte durior est vita vita wherein I observe in the two Ecchos how in the first Feras signifies either the verb suffer or that Nown wild beasts or shrews In the latter vita signifieth the Nown life or the verb shun or eschew so he good man construed Feras Vita suffer during life and I should take that vita Feras shun shrews But this Fera whom his Feras made Feram committed wickedness even with greediness more then was in power of flesh and blood to bear wherewith being much afflicted having warned his Brother privatly and born with him perhaps 70. times seven times In the end taking him both in a place and fashion not fit to be named that would have angred a Saint he drave him thence not much unlike as Tobias drove away the spirit Asmoâ—eus for that was done with a Roste and this with a spit It was high time now to follow the Counsel Dic Ecclesiae so as all Oxford knows her Paramor was bound from her in a bond of one hundred pound but they should rather have been bolts of an hundred pound The whole University in reverence of the man and indignity of the matter offered him to separate his wife from him by publique authority and so to set him free being the innocent party But he would by no means agree thereto alledging he knew his own infirmity that he might not live unmarried and to divorce and marry againe he would not charge his conscience with so great a scandall After he was Bishop mad Martin or Marprelate wrote his book or rather Libell which some playing with Martin at his own weapon answered pleasantly both in Ryme and Prose as perhaps your Highnesse hath seen or I wish you should see for they are short and sharp But this Bishop with authority and gravity confuted him soundly whereupon Martin Madcap for I think his cap and head had like proportion of wit replying and anabaptized his bastard book by the name of Work for the Cooper and had not the wisdome of the State prevented him I think he and his favourers would have made work for the Tinker And so much of Bishop Cooper though I could adde a report that a great Lord dying in his time bequeathed him a great Legacy but because I have not seen his last testament I cannot precisely affirm it William Wickham This Bishop my Authour professeth to reverence for his names sake and his predecessors sake and I much more for his own sake and his vertues sake About the yeere 1570. he was Vice-provost of Eaton and as the manner was in the Schoolmasters absence would teach the schoole himselfe and direct the boyes for their exercises of which my selfe was one of whom he shewed as fatherly a care as if he had been a second Tutor to me He was reputed there a very milde and good natured man and esteemed a very good Preacher and free from that which St. Paul calleth Idolatry I mean covetousnesse so that one may say probably that as the first William Wickham was one of the richest Prelates that had been in Winchester a long time and bestowed it well so this was one of the poorest and endured it well He preached before the Queen at a Parliament I think the last time that ever he preached before her and indeed it was Cygnea vox sweetest being neerest his end which if I could set down as he delivered were well worth the remembring But the effect was this that the Temporalities of Bishopricks and Lands of Colledges and such like were from the beginning for the most part the graces gifts and Almes of Princes her Majesties progenitors that for some excesses and abuses of some of them they had been and lawfully might be some quite taken away some altered some diminished and that accordingly they were now reduced to a good mediocrity for though there were some farre greater Bishopricks in France Spaine and Germanyâ— yet there were some also lesse and meaner even in Italy But yet he most humbly besought her Majesty to make stay of them at least in this mediocrity for if they should decay so fast in thirty yeeres to come as they had for thirty yeeres past there would hardly be a Cathedrall Church found in good repaire within England
once I thought to have said somewhat of Bonner because I may remember him living in the late Queens time unbishopped and went sometimes abroad but I was so young then as I could judge nothing and he was so hated that every ill-favoured fat fellow that went in the street they would say that was Bonner But me thinks now by that I have heard of him I could liken him to Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse who being cruell and peremptory in prosperity was both patient and pleasant in adversity For example that Tyrant being expelled his Realm and living a poore pedant was one day with men of mean sort drinking in a Tavern some Diogenes espying him came to him with reverence opening and shaking his upper garment for so they used in those daies that came into the Kings chambers to shew they had no weapons Dionysius perceiving the scorn was nothing troubled but bad him come and drink with him and shake his clothes at the going out that his host might see he carried nothing with him So Bonner having twice lost his Bishoprick walking with his Tippet in the strete one begg'd it of him in scoffe to line a coat No saith he but thou shalt have a fooles head to line thy cap. And to another that bad him good morrow Bishop quoudam he straight replied Farewell Knave semper I have been told also that one shewed him his own picture in the Book of Martyrs in the first edition on purpose to vexe him at which he laught saying a vengeance on the foole how could he get my picture drawn so right and when one asked him if he were not ashamed to whip a man with a beard he laught told him his beard was grown since but saith he if thou hadst been in his case thou wouldst have thought it a good commutation of pennance to have thy bum beaten to save thy body from burning but this is too much of this sloven I come now to Bishop Elmer whom in my own particular I loved very well and yet performing truly the taske I have undertaken I shall shew perhaps no great signe of it He was aÌ„ man but mean of stature yet in his youth very valiant which he forgat not in his age When he first became a preacher following the popular phrase and fashion of the younger Divines of those times which was to inveigh against the superfluities of the Churchmen he is remembred namely to have used these words in a Sermon beforeÌ„ a great Auditory Wherefore away with your Thousands you Bishops and come down to you Hundreds c. but this was but a heat of his spirit of which not long after by reading and conference he was throughly cured in so much as being asked by one of his own ranke after he was Bishop of London what he meant to preach of the brainsick fashion he answered with the words of St. Paul Cum essem parvulus loquâ—bar ut parvulus sapiebam ut parvulus But certain it is no Bishop was more persecuted and taunted by the Puritans of all sorts then he was by libels by scoffes by open railing and privy backbiting It is vulgar yet a passage not unworthy remembring that past between one Mr. Maddoxe and him For when the Bishop had recovered him about some matter concerning Paritanisme and he had answered the Bishop somewhat untowardly and thwartly the Bishop as he was ingenious ever said unto him thy very name exprefseth thy nature for Maddox is thy name and thou art as mad a beast as ever I talked with The other not long to seek of an answer by your favour Sir said he your deeds answer your name righter then mine for your name is Ellmar and you have marr'd all the Elms in Fulham by lopping them He used for recreation to bowle in a Garden and Marton Marprelate thence takes this taunting scoffâ— that the Bishop would cry Rub rub rub to his bowle and when it was gone too farre say The divell goe with it and then quoth he the Bishop would follow Thus they rubb'd one another till they were all gall'd sometimes and the Bishop was so weary of the place that he would gladly have removed to Ely and made great suit for it and was put in some hope of it I have seen a Letter or two of his to his friend subscribed thus Yours in love but not in London yet would he not take it with those hard conditions that were proposed lest Mr. Maddox and his like might call him Ellmarr so as it was noted as an ill fortune of his to have died Bishop of London which eight before him in an hundred yeers had not done but been either preferred or deprived He was diligent in preaching at his cure where he was first beneficed and when his Auditory grew dull and unattentive he would with some pretty and unexpected conceit move them to attention Among the rest was this He read a long Text in Hebrew whereupon all seemed to listen what would come after such strange words as if they had taken it for some conjuration Then he shewed their folly that when he spake English whereby they might be instracted and edified they neglected and hearkned not to it and now he read Hebrew which they understood no word of they would seem so carefull and attentive When there was talk of dangers rumours of warres and invasions then he was commonly chosen to preach in the Court and he would doe it in so chearfull a fashion as not onely shewed he had courage but would put courage into others Here is much doubt saith he of Malum ab Aquilone and our Coleprophets have prophecied that in exaltatione Lunae Leo jungetur Leaenae The Astronomers tell of a watry Trigon But as long as Virgo is in that Ascendent with us we need not fear of nothing Deus nobiscum quis contra nos and for this the Queen would much commend him yet would she not remove him But though he were stout and wise and rich yet had he beside his conflicts with those called Puritans also some domesticall crosses He had a Daughter a modest Gentlewoman and very well brought up whom he gave in mariage to one Mr. Adam Squire a Minister and Preacher and learned but a very fantasticall man as appeared partly the first day for as I have heard he would needs preach at his own Mariage upon this Text It is not good for Adam to be alone This Text he so pursued after he had been some years maried that though his Wife were away yet Adam would not be alone This course bread jealousie jarrs and complaints and the Bishop as he had good cause reprehended his Son in Law he thinking to defend or at least to revenge himself by recrimination accused her to have received a love letter from a Knight but the Squire himself had indited that and this was so cunningly handled by him and with such probability that her fault was as suspitious as his was
nine dayes yet in a while he found means to pacifie her so well as she promised to come and I think did come to a house he had at Chelsey For there was a stayre and a dore made of purpose for her in a bay window of which pleasant wits descanted diversly some said that was for joy to shew he would as the Proverb is cast the house out at window for her welcome some more bitingly called it the Impresse or Emblem of his entry into his first Bishoprick viz. not at the doore but at the window But certain it is that the Queen being pacified and hee in great jollity with his faire Lady and her Carpets and Cushions in his bed-chamber he died suddenly taking Tobacco in his chaire saying to his man that stood by him whom he loved very well Oh boy I die whereupon many bolts were roved after him and some spitefully fether'd which both for charity sake as wel as brevity I wil omit but this blunt one not knowing out of whose Quiver it first came but fitting a gray goose wing I wil produce as his most vulgar Epitaph Here lies the first Prelate made Christendom see a Bishop a husband unto a Ladee The cause of his death was secret and hid He cry'd out I die and ev'n so he did He was buried in the Church the Dean and Chapter of Pauls not being so scrupulous as they of York were the 9. of Hen. 1. who because their Archbishop died suddenly buried him without the Church-porch notwithstanding he had been their great benefactor Bishop Vaughan Mr. Richard Vaughan is the next I have to speak of being the last man nam'd in my Authors Book and of him he hath but two lines onely declaring him to have been the Bishop of Chichester Upon the remove of my Lord of Canterbury that now isâ— he succeeded him in London as is not unknown to your Highnesse His beginning of preferment was under the Lord Keeper Puckering being his examiner of such as sued for the benefices in my Lords gift in which though some complaine he was too precise yet for my part I ascribe to that one of his greatest praises For this I know that a Preacher being a Noblemans Chaplaine and therefore qualified for two Benefices came to him â—recommended in good sort and brought with him a Gentleman of both their acquaintance that sometime had been an University man to speak for his approbation Mr. Vaughan examined him of no very deep points and found him but shallow and not very ready in the Roman Tongue his friend having been fain to help him up in two or three foule stumbles both of language and matter whereupon he dismist him without all hope of the Benefice and after told the Gentleman seriously that if he would have it himselfe he would allow him sufficient but the suitor by no means He was in those daies very prompt and ready in speech and withall factious he was an enemy to all supposed miracles insomuch as one arguing with him in the Closet at Greenwich in defence of them and alledging the Queens healing of the Evil for an instance asking him what he could say against it he answered that he was loth to answer arguments taken from the Topick place of the Cloth of estate but if they would urge hiâ— to answer he said his opinion was she did it by vertue of some precious stone in possession of the Crown of England that had such a naturall quality But had Queen Elizabeth been told that he had ascribed more vertue to her Jewels though she loved them wel then to her person she would never have made him Bishop of Chester He grew heavy and corpulent of a sudden not so much with too much ease as with too little exercise Corpus quod corrumpitur aggravat animam soon after his remove to London he fell into that drousie diseasâ— of which he afte died growing thereby unfit for the place that requires a Vigilantius and not a Dormitantius He was held a milde man and was well spoken of in the City which sometime hapneth not to them that deserve the best To conclude being taken with an Apoplexie he may be properly said to have slept with his forefathers Doctor Ravis Within a few moneths there succeeded him Doctor Ravis Bishop of Gloucester who is not formerly mentioned in this book because Mr. Goldborow his predecessor in Gloucester was then living His preferment to Gloucester makes me remember a story that some record of Scipio who being made Generall of the Roman Army was to name his Questor or Treasurer for the wars whom he thought fit being a place in those daies as is now in these of great importance one that took himselfe to have a speciall interest in Scipios favour was an earnest suitor for it but by the delay mistrusting he should have a deniall he importuned him one day for an answer Think not unkindness in me said Scipio that I delay you thus for I have been as earnest with a friend of mine to take it and yet cannot prevaile with him Noting hereby that offices of charge and conscience are fittest for such as shunne them modestly rather then such as seek them greedily And even so did my Lords of the Councell deale with Mr. Ravis who being then Dean of Christ-Church which lightly is not held but by some choise man of the University being a place of good valew and reputation was requested by them to take this Bishoprick when many that sued to have it were put by But as he was not willing to goe thither so they of Gloucester were more unwilling he should goe thence he was in a short space in so good liking of all sorts insomuch as some that can scaut well brook the name of a Bishop yet can be content to give him a good report For my part I have observed a great change in Gloucester from that it seemed nine yeers since about the Earle of Essex going into Ireland for at that time neither their Bishop seemed to care for them lying at a Prebends in Worcester which methought was very inconvenient nor they seemed much to care for themselves all their buildings both publique and private looking old and ruinous whereas of late yeeres their Bishop keeping his house neere them and being daily with them they have built them a new Market-place and are now building a faire Hall for justice which commendable and comfortable disposition of the people there and elsewhere though it be principally ascribed to the joy and comfort that all wel affected persons took of his Majesties happy entrance and peaceable government and of the succession established in his hopefull issue yet is not the leaft to be imputed to the discretion and diligence of the Pastors that waken and stirre up their charity and make them more sensible of Gods good blessings bestowed on them and the rather by this good Bishops means The Lord of Shrewsbury hath very Nobly and
that fatall fce the line of life did lose And in the belly of the earth as earth shee did him close 21. The Prince may plaine his death the Realm his lack may rue All men may say O Winchester most worthy wight adue 22. The poor may plaine and pine whose lacks he did relieve His Servants may lament their Lord which Lordly did them give 23. The Bishops may behold a Bishop then bereft A perfect Priest a shield of faith a mirrour of them left 24. His foes if any were that first did wish him gone In length of time and lack of life too late his loss will mone 25. O Pastor past this Pilgrims pain in earth thine Acts do live In skies thy vertues written are all penns thee praise shall give 26. Which after all these heaps of kap a happy life hast led And in the happiest hap of all in fame and love art dead The same answered verse for verse by an Ill-willer of the said Bishop 1. THe Devils in Hell do dance this Realm and we may joy Since they have got and we forgone the cause of our Annoy 2. Though death hath wipt out life yet death cannot outrace His wicked works usurped state nor faults of his deface 3. A Gardner such he was as spoiled so our plants That Justice withered mercy dy'd and we wrong by their wants 4. A Stev'n in name a Fox in fact a Bishop but in Weeds A faithless man full fraught with frauds as deem him by his deeds 5. A partiall Judge in Judgement seat of parties great respect A blinded eye a closed eare a hand with bribe infect 6. A heart to harm and not to help his lust was laid far low A mind with malice over-whelm'd of God nor man no awe 7. A fained fickle friend and false that right could never bid A courage every storm cast down and praise puft up with pride 8. Of fowle reports and slanderous bruts he nourisht up the brood His wrongs to pardon or to passe revenge and rage withstood 9. A tri'd untruth in trust As tongues well try'd have told A mouth that breath'd more odious lies then It ' upbraid am bold 10. Scant Natures Child by birth sure Satans sonne in right Which rule maintain'd with sword fire and measur'd all by might 11. Ambitious clyming Cliffe had ravisht so his mind As he was sotted drunk therein and fortune made him blind 12. The smell of prisons misery felt his pride did greatly pall He bare his staffe so staggeringly as each change seem'd a fall 13. In all these turns of joy and woe he turned with the best And never left the surer side till breath did leave his brest 14. From Widow course and Orphans crie his end him cannot save Though that have rid kim of his raigne unworthy rule to have 15. Who can give thanks and joy enough that we have scapt this syre This monstrous man this bloody beast when most we did desire 16. When yeeres had fram'd him fit for Hell and pride so high had set As God nor man nor self he knew and might with mischiefmet 17. And when the envy and the hate he wan of every wight And falshood florisht in his Fort and wrong had wrong outright 18. And when he gloried most in pomp in honour and in health And by affection conquered all and wallowed all in wealth 19. And in the Office that he bare to rule above the Queen So cruel and so merciless scarce ever man was seen 20. Then God that most just Judge lifes line to part was pleas'd The Earth his Carrion corps hath caught the Devil his soulhath seiz'd 21. The Prince his death may please this Realm his life doth rue All men may well his birth-day ban this cursed wretch that knew 22. The poor may plain and pine for none be would relieve His men may joy his death was such his Goods were his to give 23. Good Bishops may beware this Ravener them bereft This popish-priest this shield of wrong a warning for them left 24. His friends if any were that wisht him longer ruigne With length of time might cause have caught too late his rule to plain 25. O thou devourer of the good thy wrongs in earth do dwell Thy cruel thirst of guiltless blood now must thou quench in hell 26. Which in the world of deadly hurts most burtfull life didst lead And now with Englands common jay in shame and hate art dead Which of these wrote truest I will not take upon me to judge left I should be thought partiall but that saying appeares true Scribit in Marmore laesus Therefore I will conclude against all partiall Poets with two verses of Horace Falsus honor juvat et mendax infamia terret Quem nisi mendosum mendacem Doctor John White He was born of a worshipfull house and in the Diocess of Winchester and became after Warden of Winchester thence for his great learning and vertuous life prefer'd to the Bishoprick of Lincoln and after upon the death of Stephen Gardner made Bishop of Winchester wherefore of him I may say his fame did well answer his name and so would all men say how contrary soever to him in Religion but for one black Sermon that he made yet for the colour is may be said he kept decorum because that was a Funerall Sermon of a great Queen both by birth and mariage I mean Q. Mary But the offence taken against him was this His Text was out of Eccles. 4. 2. Laudavi mortuos magis quam viventes faliciorem utroque judicavi qui nec dum natus est And speaking of Queen Mary her high Parentage Her bountifull disposition Her great gravity Her rare devotion praying so much as he affirmed that her knees were hard with kneeling Her Justice and Clemency in restoring Noble Houses to her own privat losse and hindrance And lastly her grievous yet patient death He fell into such an unfaigned weeping that for a long space he could not speak Then recovering himself he said she had left a Sister to succeed her a Lady of great worth also whom they were now bound to obey for saith he melior est Canis vivus Leone mortuo I hope so shall raign well and prosperously over us but I must say still with my Text Laudavi mortuos magis quam viventes for certain that is Maria optimam partem elegit thus he at which Queen Elizabeth taking just indignation put him in prison yet would proceed no further then to his deprivation though some would have made that a more haynous matter He was a man of austere life and much more mortified to the World than his Predecessor Gardiner who was noted for ambitious but vet to his Prince very obsequious But if Doctor White had had a true propheticall spirit he might have urged the second part of his Text Sed faeliciorem utroque judicavi qui nec dum natus et for that may seem
good report from the places where he had lived shewed himselfe well natured and courteous to the kindred of his Predecessor had a farre greater fame of Learning and Merit and which the Queen liked best of all was single and a widdower Nay I may compare them yet further he married also soone after he was setled and the Queene was nothing well pleased with his marriage Howbeit in all indifferent censures this marriage was much more justifiable then the other for age for use for end he being not too old nor she too young being daughter to a worshipfull Knight of the same Country and a great House-keeper and drawing with her a kinde of alliance with Judge Popham that swayed all the temporall government of the Country These respects though I will not strive greatly to praise in a Bishop yet the common sort will allow no doubt for wise and provident so as the Queenes displeasure your times being somewhat more propitious and favourable to Bishopricks since Bishop Wickbams Sermon was the easier pacified without so costly sacrifice as a whole Mannour and she contented her selfe onely to breake a jest upon the name of the Bishop saying to Sir Henry Barckley it was a dangerous name for a Bishop to match with a Horner Since which time he hath preached before her more then once and hath received good Testimonies of her good opinion and God hath also blest him many wayes very greatly to see his children well brought up well bestowed and to have an unexpected Revenue out of the Entralls of the Earth I mean the Leaden Mines of Mendip greater then his Predecessor had above ground so as this Bishop seemes to be blest with Josephs blessing Benedictionibus caeli sur sum benedictionibus Abyssi jacentis deorsum benedictionibus uberis vulvae with blessing from heaven above blessing from the deepe that lyeth beneath blessings of the breasts and of the wombe which fortunate increase of living hapning to a provident Man that was ever Homo frugi it is supposed hath brought him to a great ability In so much that his Church of Bath seemes to conceive some hope that he will have have compassion of her ruines at the least as Sir Arthur Hopton a good Knight of the Bath was wont between earnest and sport to motion unto him to give toward it but the Lead to cover it which would cost him nothing but he would reply againe well said gentle Sir Arthur you will coffe me as you scoffe me which is no great token that he liketh the motion Yet at his being at Bath he promised them very faire which they are bound to rem ember to remember him of sometime by their friends One trifling accident hapned to his Lordship there that I have thought of more consequence I tell him that I never knew him Nonplust in Argument but there There was a crafts man of Bath a Recusant Puritan who condemning our Church our Bishops our Sacraments our Prayers was condemned himselse to dye at the Assizes but at my request Judge Adderton reprieved him and he was suffered to remain at Bath upon Baile The Bishop confer'd with him in hope to convert him and first my Lord alledged for the authority of the Church St. Augustine the Shoomaker answered Austin was but a man he produced for antiquity of Bishops the fathers of the Councell of Nice he answered they were also but men and might erre why then said the Bishop thou are but a man and mayest and doest erre No Sir saith he the spirit beares witnesse to my spirit I am the child of God Alasse saith the Bishop thy blinde spirit will lead thee to the Gallowes If I dye saith he in the Lords cause I shall be a Martyr The Bishop turning to me stirr'd as much to pitty as impatience This man said he is not a sheepe strayed from the Fold for such may be brought in againe on the Shepheards shoulders but this is like a wild Buck broken out of a Parke whose pale is throwne downe that flies the farther off the more he is hunted Yet this man that stopt his eares like the Adder to the charmes of the Bishop was after perswaded by a Lay-man and grew comfortable but to draw to an end in one question this Bishop whom I count an oracle for learning would never yet give me satisfaction and that was when I askt him his opinion of witches He saith he knowes other mens opinions both old and new writers but could never so digest them to make them an opinion of his owne All I can get is this that the Divel is the old Serpent our enemy that we pray to be delivered from daily as willing to have us thinke he can doe so much as to have us perswaded he doth nothing To conclude of this Bishop without flattery I hold him a rare man for preaching for arguing for learning for living I could onely with that in all these he would make lesse use of Logick and more of Rhetorick Of EXETER Doctor William Cotton WHen I reflect my thoughts and eye upon that I have written formerly and see that I am like to equall or rather exceed my Author in quantity of Volume taking the proportion of the longest Kings raigne to that of Queen Elizabeth I am the lesse troubled to thinke that for lack of sufficient intelligence I shall be constrained to doe as he also hath done with divers of those former Bishops namely to obscure and omit the good deserts of some and to conceale and hide the demerits of others which if I fortune to doe yet will I neither crave pardon of the one nor thanks of the other being to be excused of both by an invincible ignorà nce Howbeit if in these I have or shall treat of I have been so plain and liberall as thereby I may move the spleen of some Bishop to write against me as Bishop Jovius did against Petro Aretino whom notwithstanding some Italians call Unico divino whose Epitaph Paulus Jovius made thus the man being long after alive Qui giace l' Aretino l' amoro Tosco Che besthemia ognivno fuor che dio Scusandoi con ill dire non lo cognosco Which one did thus put into English Here lies Aretine that poysonous Toad Whose spightful Tongue Pen all Saints beshrew him Did raile on Priest and Prince and all but God And said for his excuse I doe not know him I say if any should follow this humour of Jovius yet shall he not thereby put me into the humour of Aretine that answered him For I reverence all their places and many of their persons I know how high their calling is that may say pro Christo legatione fungimur I know that next to Kings Bishops are most sacred persons and as it were Gods on earth howbeit also some of them have the imperfections of men and those not prejudiciall to the acts of their office For my part I would I could
may and perhaps ought to be in verse as good Linguists affirme Moses and Davids Psalms to be originally yet I am almost of opinion that one ought to abjure all Poetry when he comes to Divinity But not derogating herein from the travels of my betters and the Judgement of mine Elders I proceed or rather post to my next stage OF GLOCESTER Dr. Thomson AT Glocester I shall at this time make a very short bait the last Bishop thereof being but lately removed to London and the present Bishop scant yet warme in his seat yet this I must say that I have heard some students of good judgement that knew him in Oxford affirme that in his very young yeares he gave a great hope and good presage of his future excellency having a rare gift ex tempore in all his Schoole exercises and such a happy wit to make use of all occurrents to his purpose as if he had not taken the occasions as they fell out by accident but rather bespoken such pretty accidents to fall out to give him the occasions I have often heard him before Queen Elizabeth and it was not possible to deliver sounder matter nor with better method for which cause he was greatly respected and reverenced at the Court But for his latter Sermon before the two most magnificent Kings your Highnesse Father and Unckle I cannot praise him no for I am a Cambridge man but I can envy him that in two judgements omni exceptione majoribus did carry the commendation of the pure Latine Language peculiar as I thought unto Cambridge to her younger sister of Oxford and thus much for him whose vertues no doubt will give matter for some further Relation under some other title hereafter Of PETERBOROUGH Dr. Thomas Dove I should doe both this worthy Prelate and my selfe much wrong if I should not commend him for many good parts being one whom I have long known to have been greatly respected and favoured by the late Queen and no lesse liked and approved in the more learned judgement of his Majesty How beit the ground on which I would build his chiefe praise to some of the Aristarchy and sowre censures of these daies requires first an Apologie For I remember that even in Cambridge about twenty five yeers since and I am sure he remembers it too a question arose among the Divines scarce fit for the Schooles lesse fit for the Pulpit yet was it both handled and determined in the Pulpit whether Rhetoricall Figures and Tropes and other artificiall ornaments of speech taken from prophane authors as sentences adages and such like might be used in Sermons and not rather the plaine naked truth delivered out of the word of God The precise fort that would have the Word and Church and all goe naked saving some Apron perhaps of Fig-leaves were not onely earnest but bitter against the use of all such humane or as they call them prophane helps calling them paintings fitter for Strumpets then for chaste Matrons But the graver and more Orthodox were of the other opinion and namely my learned Tutor Doctor Flemning by appointment of the heads of the Colledges in an excellent Sermon determined the controversie That seeing now the extraordinary gift first of tongues then of miracles was ceased and that knowledge is not now Infusa but Acquisita we should not despise the helpe of any humane learning as neither St. Paul did who used the sentences of Poets and hath many excellent Tropes with exaggerations and exclamations in his Epistles for chastity doth not abhor all ornaments for Judeth did attire her head as curiously as Jesabel c. About twelve yeeres after this the very same question in the same manner was canvased at Oxford and determined in the Pulpit by Dr. House against Doctor Reynolds who held the other opinion But upon occasion of this Sermon at which my brother that had been his scholler and my selfe hapned both to be present he retracted to us his opinion or rather disclaimed as my Lord of Duresme that now is but then Dean of Christ-church doth well remember This opinion then being sound that Eloquence may serve as an handmaid and Tropes and Figures as Jewels and Ornaments to this chaste Matron Divinity I must say as I began that his Sermons are as well attended and adorned in this kind and as plentifully as any of his predecessors have been or his successours are like to be and that they were wont so to be long since sufficeth this testimony that her Majesty that last raigned when she first heard him said she thought the holy Ghost was descecded again in this Dove Of BRISTOL Dr. John Thornbury BRistoll being a Bishoprick of the later erection namely but 66. years since no marvaile it never had any Bishop thereof Cannonized for a Saint yet it cannot be denyed since to have had one Holyman and if copulation with a Bishop might make them holy it hath had also in his short time more then one holy woman Ispent a roving shaft on Fletchers second Marriage I would I could as well plucke out the Thorne of Doctor Thornburies first Marriage out of every mans conscience that have taken a scandall of his second For my part whatsoever I think in my private it becoms us not to Judge our Judges the Customes and Lawes of some Countries differ from other and sometimes are changed and mended in the same as this case of divorce is most godly reformed in ours and as Vincentius Lirinensis saith well of St. Cyprian who had before the Councell of Carthage defended rebaptizing The Author of this errour saith he is no doubt in heaven the followers and practifers of it now goe to hell so I may say of this Bishop his remarriage may be pardoned Et in hoc saeculo et in futuro but he that shall so do again may be met with in hoc saeculo But it was the Bishop of Limbrick in Ireland and not the Bishop of Bristoll in England that thus married what doth this lessen the scandall I suppose it doth For I dare affirme that most of that Diocesse are so well catechised as they thinke it as great a scandall for their Bishop yea rather greater to have one wife as to have two and though for Lay mens Marriage their Priests tell them it is a holy Sacrament in them which they count a Sacriledge in a Bishop and they conferre to them out of St. Paul {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} there is a great Sacrament yet their people and some of their Peers also regard it as slightly and dissolve it more uncivilly then if it were but a civill contract for which they draw not onely by their bastardies and bigamies many apparent scourges of God the heavenly Father but also a peculiar pennance unto their Nation of one fasting day extraordinary from their holy father the Pope But setting aside this misfortune rather then fault which is God and the King pardon him for who
intended to name Stapletons stay and for that cause invited the Arch-bishop in good kindness to see it and requested him for the more credit and as it were blessing to the house that his grace would give it the foresaid name But when the Arch-bishop had fully beheld it and in his Judgement found it fitter for a Lord Treasurer of England then for a Knight of York-shire He said to him would you have me call this intended House Stapletons Stay Nay rather let me say to you stay Stapleton for if you go forward to set up this House it will pull you down How often a man loses a friend with a jest and how grievous it is for a mans vanity to be crost in the humour This speech of my Lords that I should think intended friendly uttered faithfully and applyed even fatherly unto him he took in so deep disdain and despite that howsoever he smothered it for the present from that time forward he sought a mean to revenge it And wanting neither wit to devise nor courage to execute his design he found out or at least he supposed he had found a stratagem not onely to wreak this scorn on the good Bishop that mistrusted nothing but also to make the old mans purse pay for the finishing of the new house He acquaints him with an Officer in my Lords house some malecontent that had been denyed a Lease These two devise that when my Lord should lie next at Doncaster where the Hostess of the house having been formerly I suppose Mistriss Sands Maid was bold sometimes to bring his Lordship a Cawdle to his Beds side for in charity I may surmise no worse Sir Robert should also by chance come and host at the same house This bad Wife and her good man are made partakers and parties of this stratagem her part was but a naked part viz. to slip into my Lords Bed in her smock mine Hoast must sodainly be jealous and swear that he holds his reputation though he be but a poor man more dear then that he can indure such an indignity and thereupon calls Sir Robert Stapleton brings him to the Bishops Chamber in his Night-gown takes them in bed together with no small exclamation The Knight that acted his part with most art and leaft suspition takes great pains to pacifie the Hoast conjures all that were admitted to secresie and silence and sending all to their Lodgings without tumult asketh of my Lord how this came to passe The Bishop tells him with a great Protestation that he was betrayd by his man and his Hoast little suspecting the Knight to be of the Quorum The Knight sooths him in all he said condoles the great mischance is sorrowfull for the danger and carefull for the honour of the Bishop and specially the Church Proh superi quantum mortalia pecior a caecae Noctis habent ipso sceleris molimine Miles Creditur esse pius The distressed Archbishop distrusting no fraud in him asketh his advise in this disaster and following his counsel from time to time gives the Hoast a peece of money the false Officer a Farm and the Knight for his travail in this matter many friendly recompences But when he found after all this smoothing and soothing that he grew so bold at last to presse him beyond all good manner for the good Mannour of Soothwell then he found that in sooth all was not well and was even compell'd too late to that he might much better have done much sooner viz. To complain to the Lords of the Councel and to his ancient and dear friend the Earl of Leicester for whose Father he had almost lost his life by whose help he got them call'd to the Star-chamber Ore tenus where they were for this conspiracy convicted fined and imprisoned The fame or rather the infamy of this matter specially before their conviction was far and diversly spread according as the Reporters favoured or disfavoured either and the friends of each side had learned their tale so perfect that many long time after held the first impression they had received notwithstanding the censure and sentence in the Starr-chamber Part whereof being that the Knight should publickly acknowledge how he had slandered the Arch-bishop which he did in words conceived to that purpose accordingly yet his friends gave out that all the while he carried a long Whetstone hanging out at the Pocket of his sleeve so conspicuous as men understood his meaning was to give himself the lie which he would not in another matter have taken of any man But thus the Bishop had a Conquest which he had no great comfort of and lived but few years after it and the Knight had a foile that he would not seem much daunted with and lived to have part of his fine releast by his Majesties clemency but yet he tost up and down all his life without any great contentment from Wiltshire into Wales and thence to the Isle of Man a while to Chelsey but little to York-shire where his stay should have been so that of this story I could collect many documents both for Bishops and Knights but that I shun prolixity in a matter no way pleasing Howbeit because one P. R. or R. P. for he can turn his name as Mountebank turns his Capp in his Epistle before the Resolution a Book much praised by Sir Edwin Sand hath a scoffe after his manner at this Hostess of Doncaster I would pray him but to peruse the Life of St. Bernard not that of their lying Legend but that which unworthily perhaps goeth among his most worthy works written by William Abbot in five Books There he shall find in the third Chapter of his first Book how that same maidenly Saint was subject to the like manner of scandall first of a young woman lying by him in naked bed half a night when himself was not 30 year old and yet we must believe he toucht her not and next of his Hostess also offering three timesin one night to come to his Bed and he crying out each time Latrones Latrones Theeves Theeves which our Bishop had much more cause to have cryed and had he but remembred it as I doubt not but he had read it he might peradventure have dissolved the pack with it To utter mine own conceit franckly if Parsons conjecture were true that by humane frailty this Prelate had in his younger dayes been too familiar with this woman which is said to passe but as a veniall sin among those of his Profession yet was the Knights practise very foul and the Lords censure very just that condemned him for I heard Judge Anderson a learned and stout Judge condemn one for a Rape upon the Oath of a Woman notwithstanding the man affirmed and the Woman denyed not but she had often in former times yielded her self to his lust because it seemed she had repented that course of life in betaking her to a Husband So my Lord if he had once