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
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
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
nos which the Emperour applying to his own Cogitation thought the Priest to have some prophetical spirit fromthat time forward esteemed him greatly and made him a Bishop Thus that Bishop though he could not set so good a face on it yet perhaps he got as good a Bishoprick But to come to our Bishop whom my self knew in Cambridge a Master of Art and a proper active man and plaid well at Tennis and after that when he came to be Batchellor of Divinity he would tosse an Argument in the Schools better then a Ball in the Tennis-court A grave Doctor yet living and his ancient alluding to his Name in their disputation called him Erudite Benedicte and gave him for his outward as well as inward Ornaments great commendation He became after Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh who was very curious and no lesse fortunate in the choyce of his Chaplains and they no lesse happy in the choyce of their Patron as Mr. Day after Bishop of Winchester the Bishop I now speak of Doctor Neale now Dean of Westminster and divers others Chichester I Finde in former ages many unlearned and unfit men by favour recommended to Bishopricks but of a man recommended by the King and refused by the Clergy onely for his want of Learning I think there is but one Example and that was one Robert Paslew in the time of Hen. 3. which Prince is no less to be commended for admitting the refusall then they for refusing but yet in speaking of learned Bishops this Church may say their last have been their best Doctor Watson your Highness can remember his Majesties Almoner he was a very good Preacher preferred by the Queen first to the Deanry of Bristol where he was well beloved and after to Chichester where he was more honoured if not more beloved for the course of his life and cause of his death I might in some sort compare him to Bishop Vaughan late of London he grew somewhat corpulent and having been sick and but newly recovered adventured to travel to wait in his place and so by recidivation he dyed Doctor Andrews His Majesty having a great desire to prefer Doctor Andrews then Dean of Westminster made speciall choyce of him to succeed him as well in the Bishoprick as the Aumnership and I suppose if Hen. the 3d his Chaplain had been so good a Schollar he had not been refused for his Learning This Bishop your Highness knoweth so well and have heard him so oft as it may be you think it needless to hear more of him But I will be bold to say your Highness doth but half know him for the vertues that are not seen in him are more and greater then those that are seen I will therefore play the blab so far that your Higlmess may know him better He was born in London and trained up in the School of that famous Mulcaster and for the speciall towardness was found in him in very young yeares he was not onely favoured but had liberall exhibition given him by a great Councellor of those times as I shall note hereafter The course of his study was not as most mens are in these times to get a little superficiall fight in Divinity by reading two or three of the new writers and straight take Orders and up into the Pulpit Of which kind of men a Reverent Bishop yet living said as properly as pleasantly when one told of a young man that preached twice every Lords day beside some exercising in the Week dayes it may be saith he he doth talk so often but I doubt he doth not preach And to the like effect the late Queen said to the same Bishop when she had on the Fryday heard one of those talking Preachers much commended to her by some body and the Sunday after heard a well labour'd Sermon that smelt on the Candle I pray said the let me have your bosom Sermons rather then your lip-Sermons for when the Preacher takes pains the Auditor takes profit But to come to Doctor Andrews that gathered before he did spend reading both new Writers and old Writers not as tasting but as disgesting them and finding according to our Saviours saying {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the old to be more profitable at last his sufficiency could be no longer conceal'd But as an industrious Marchant that secretly and diligently follows his Trade with small showe till his wealth being grown so great it can be no longer hidden is then call'd on for Subsidies and Loans and publique services so did this mans excellencies suddenly break forth His Patron that studied projects of policy as much as precepts of piety hearing of his fame and meaning to make use thereof sent for him as I have credibly heard and dealt earnestly with him to hold up a side that was even then falling and to maintain certain state points of Puritanisme But he had too much of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in him to be scar'd with a Councellors frown or blown aside with his breath answered him plainly they were not onely against his Learning but his Conscience The Councellor seeing this man would be no Fryer Pinhie to be taught in a Closet what he should say at Pauls dismist him with some disdain for the time but afterward did the more reverence his integrity and honesty and became no hinderer to his ensuing preferments Of these one was a Prebend in Pauls belonging to him they call the Confessor or Confessioner a place notoriously abused in time of Popery by their tyranny and superstitition but now of late by a contrary extream too much forgotten and neglected while he held this place his manner was especially in Lent time to walk duly at certain hours in one of the Iles of the Church that if any came to him for spirituall advice and comfort as some did though not many he might impart it to them This Custom being agreeable to Scripture and Fathers expressed and required in a sort in the Communion Book not repugning the 39 Articles and no lesse approved by Calvin in his Institutions yet was quarrel'd with by divers upon occasion of some Sermons of his as a point of Popery The like scandall was taken of some though not given by him for his reverent speaking of the highest Mystery of our Faith and heavenly food the Lords Supper which some are so stiffe in their knees or rather in their hearts that they hold it Idolarry to receive that kneeling But whatsoever such barked at he ever kept one tenor of life and Doctrine Exemplar and unreproveable Two speciall things I have observed in his Preaching that I may not omit to speak of One to raise a joynt reverence to God and the Prince to spirituall and civill Magistrate by uniting and not severing them The other to lead to amendment of Life and to good works the fruits of true Repentance Of the first kind he made a Sermon before the Queen
long since which was most famous of this Text Thou leddest thy people like Sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron Which Sermon though courteous ears are commonly so open as it goes in at one ear and out at the other yet it left an Aculeus behind in many of all sorts And Henry Noel one of the greatest Gallants of those times sware as he was a Gentleman he never heard man speak with such a spirit And the like to this was his Sermon before the King of two silver Trumpets to be made of one peece Of the second kind I may say all his Sermons are but I will mentition but his last that I heard the fifth of the last November which Sermon I could wish ever to read upon that day When the Lord turned the Captivity of Sion c. And I never saw his Majesty more sweetly affected with any Sermon then with that But to conclude I perswade my self that whensoever it shall please God to give the King means with consent of his confederate Princes to make that great peace which his blessed word Beati Pacifici seemeth to promise I mean the ending of this great Schisme in the Church of God procured as much by ambition as by superstition This reverent Prelate will be found one of the ablest not of England onely but of Europe to set the course for composing the controversies which I speak not to add reputation to his sufficiency by my judgement but rather to win credit to my judgement by his sufficiency And whereas I know some that have known him so long as I have yet have heard and believe no lesse of his Learning then I speak find fault that he is not so apt to deliver his resolution upon every question moved as they could wish who if they be not quickly resolved of that they aske will quickly resolve not to care for it I say this Cunctation is the mean between Precipitation and Procrastination and is specially commended by the Apostle St. James as I have heard him alledge it Sit omnis homo {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} tardus ad loquendum tardus ad iram Rochester Doctor Barlow THis Bishoprick having been noted in Hen. the 3d his time to have been one of the poorest of England hath I suppose the less been impoverished in the spoyling times The grand spoylers being of the mind of some Taylors that when their allowance of stuffe was most scant they would make the Garment the Larger ThisCity in these last 100 years hath had 14 Bishops of which one was a Cardinall two were Arch-Bishops and I take it but one hath dyed Bishop and that was the last before this whose Name was Young but lived to be very old and desired not to remove His Successor Doctor Bar low is one of they oungest in age but one of the ripest in learning of all his predecessors since Bishop Fisher that had ill luck with his learning to die upon Tower-Hill There are so many printed testimonies of his sufficiency as I need say the lesse of it but it is like he shall not abide there long Of all his Sermons he preached before Queen Elizabeth which were many and very good One that she liked exceedingly was of the Plough of which she said Barlows Text might seem taken from the Cart but his talk may teach you all in the Court He made a Sermon not long after that at Pauls which man especially Puritans did much mislike and for that cause call it alledging to his name the Barley Loaf not marking how much honour they give it in their scorn by example both of the old Testament and new In the old Testament the Barley Loaf signified Gedeons sword ordained to destroy the wicked In the new by the blessing of our Saviour that fed more thousands of honest men then this offended Of OXENFORD Doctor Underhill FRom Rochester I should go a long pilgrimage to St. Davids in Wales save I must bait a little out of my way at four new Bishopricks erected by King Henry the eighth of famous memory and therefore I hope not ordained to be dissolved of a Henry the ninth of future and fortunate expectation I say I will but bait especially at Oxford lest I be baited if I stay too long for I know this discourse is to some as Unguis in ulcere This Bishoprick being but 66 yeers since erected had two Bishops in 26 yeeres and then continued voyd 21. yeeres what time of pure devotion to the Leases that would yield good Fines a great person recommended Doctor Underhill to this place perswading him to take it as in the way to a better but God knowes it was out of his way every way For ere his First Fruits were paid he died as I heard at Greenwich in much discontent and poverty yet his preferrer to seem to doe some favour to the University of Oxford for recompence of the spoyle done on the Bishoprick of Oxford erected a new solemne lecture there at his own charge which Doctor Reynolds did read at which Lecture I hapned once to be present with the Founder where we were taught Nihil non as elsewhere I have at large shewed to your Highnesse But though the many-headed beast the multitude was bleared with this bounty yet the Schollers that were more Nasuti oculati Cordati did smell and see and say that this was but to steale a goose and stick a feather And indeed this was the true Theorique and Practique of Puritanisme One impugning the authority of Bishops secretly by such Lectures the other impoverishing their Livings openly by such Leases After the Bishop Underhill was laid under the earth I think the Sea of Oxford would have been drowned in the Sea of Oblivion if his Majesty whose soule abhors all sacriledge had not supplied it with the good Father that now holdeth it Doctor John Bridges a man whose Volumes in Prose and Verse give sufficiend testimony of his industry though for mine own part I am grown an unfit praiser of Poetry having taken such a surfeit of it in my youth that I think now a gray head and a verse doe not agree together and much lesse a grave matter and a verse For the reputation of Poetry is so altered by the iniquity of the times that whereas it was wont to make simple folke believe some things that were false now it makes our great wise men to doubt of things that be true When the Creed was first put into English verse as it is now sung in the Church the descending of Christ into Hell was never questioned but since it hath been sung 50 yeere or more His Spirit did after this descend into the lower parts To them that long in darknesse were the true light of our hearts The doubt that was made of the latter of these two verses hath caused the truth of the former to be called in question Wherefore though I grant that Psalms and Hymns
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
which inconvenience he said would soon spread from the Clergy to the Temporalty that would have cause with Hippocrates Twins to laugh and weep together This as he spake zealously so the Queen gave eare to it graciously and some good effect was supposed to follow it for which they both now feel their reward and thus much of Wickham William Day It was said that a pleasant Courtier and Servitor of King Henry the eighth to whom the King had promised some good turn came and prayed the King to bestow a Living on him that he had found out worth 100 li by the yeere more then enough why saith the King we have none such in England yes Sir said his man the Provostship of Eaton for said he he is allowed his diet his lodging his horse-meat his servants wages his riding charge his apparrell even to the points of his hose at the Colledge charge and 100 li. per annum besides How true this is I know not but this I know that Mr. Day having both this and the Deanry of Windsor was perswaded to leave them both to succeed him that had been once his Vice-provost of Eaton in the Church of Winchester He was a man of a good nature affable and courteous and at his table and in other conversation pleasant yet alwaies sufficiently containing his gravity When he was first Deane of Windsor there was a singing man in the Quire one Woolner a pleasant fellow but famous for his eating rather then his singing and for the swallow of his throat then for the sweetnesse of his note Master Deane sent a man to him to reprove him for not singing with his fellows the Messenger thought all were worshipfull at least that did then weare white Surplices and told him Mr. Deance would pray his worship to sing thank Mr. Dean quoth Woolner and tell him 1 am as merry as they that sing which answer though it would have offended some man yet hearing him to be such as I have described he was soon pacified He brake his leg with a fall from a horse that started under him whereupon some waggish schollers of which my selfe was in the quorum would say it was a just punishment because the horse was given him by a Gentleman to place his sonne in Eaton which at that time was thought had been a kind of sacriledge but I may also say Cum eram parvulus sapiebam ut parvulus He had in those daies a good and familiar fashion of preaching not mincing the word as some doe with three words to feed 3000 people that goe away all sometimes as empty as they came nor as others that are Nodosi drawing their auditory with them into deep questions and dangerous passages that howsoever they suppose they come of themselves much admired they leave their auditors many times more then halfe mired but this was a good plain fashion apt to edifie and easie to remember I will repeat one lesson of many that I remember out of Sermons of his which I can imagine yet I heare him pronouncing and it was concerning prayer It is not saith he a praying to God but a tempting of God to beg his blessings without doing also our own endeavours shall a scholler pray to God to make him learned and never goe to his book shall a husbandman pray for a good harvest and let his Plow stand still the Pagans and the heathen people would laugh at such devotion In their fabulous Legion they have a tale of Hercules whom for his strength they counted a God how a Carter forsooth had overthrown his Cart and sate in the way crying help Hercules help Hercules at last Hercules or one in his likenesse came to him and swadled him thriftily with a good cudgell and said thou varay lazie selly fellow so he used to pronounce callest thou to me for help dost nothing they selfe arise set to thy shoulder heave thy part and then pray to me to help thee and I will doe the rest And thus much of our good old Provost who being made a Bishop of a Register of the Garter becoming now Prelate of the Garter enjoying this dignity a very short time turned his day into night though no night can oppresse them that die in the Lord By the way I think this worthy the noting that whereas in Anno Dom. 1486. being the first of King Henry the seventh it was found that three Bishops successively had held this Bishoprick six score yeeres save one namely Wickham Beauford and Wainfleet Now in Queen Elizabeths raigne there had been seven Bishops in forty yeeres five in seventeen yeers and three in four yeeres Doctor Thomas Bilson My Author following his own resolution of forbearing to speak of men now living or but lately dead and I holding my purpose to speak frankly and truly as farre as my understanding will serve me both of dead and living I am now comming to speak of the present Bishop of VVinchester of whom I finde in this book but foure lines and if I should give him his due in proportion to the rest I should spend foure leaves Not that I need make him better known to your Highnesse being as on just occasion as I noted before one of the most eminent of his ranck and a man that carried prelature in his very aspect His rising was meerly by his learning as true Prelates should rise Sint non modo labe mali sed suspicione errantis not onely free from the spot but from the speech of corruption Hee ascended by all degrees of schooles first wherein to win knowledge himselfe next whereby to impart it to others having sometime taught the schoole that doth justly boast of the name of VVinchester where if I mistake not he succeeded the excellent scholler and schoolmaster Doctor Johnson that wrote that forecited Poem of VVickham and having praised all his predecessors in pretty Disticks he wrote this at the last in modesty of himselfe Ultimus hic ego sum sed quam bene quam male nolo Dicere de me qui judicet alter erit And accordingly his successor gave this judgement Ultimus es ratione loci re primus Johnson Sed quis qui de te judicet aptus erit Tam bene quam nullus qui te praecesserit ante Tam male posteritas ut tua pejus agat Wherein Mr. Johnson became truly fortunate according to the saying Laudari a laudato viro laus est maxima Him fame doth raise whose praiser merits praise From Schoolmaster of VVinchester he became Warden and having been infinitely studious and industrious in Poetry in Philosophy in Physick and lastly which his genius chiefly call'd him to in Divinity he became so compleat for skill in Languages for readinesse in the Fathers for judgement to make use of his readings as he was found to be no longer a souldier but a Commander in chiefe in our spirituall warfare being first made Bishop of Worcester and after of
yet did she ever gratefully acknowledge both his courage fidelity show'd in her cause used no man of his Religion so graciously Of Arch-bishop Grindall I have spoken before and in his due place given him his due praise now I am to adde a word or two of Arch-bishop Young that in the third yeare of Queen Elizabeth was made Arch-bishop He was first Bishop of Saint Davids and either next or very soon after Bishop Farrar who among other articles that were alleaged against him had one that I thinke was never alleaged against Clergy-man or Lay-man before and that was for riding on a Scottish saddle but this Bishop walked more warily then that Bishop did ride so as this came to live in a state when t'other died at a stake and how great soever his honour was in being both Arch-bishop and President he left one president that too many are apt to follow which was the pulling downe of a goodly Hall for the greedinesse of the Lead that covered it Plumbi faeda fames A drossie desire and unworthy part with which he stained the reputation of learning and religion that was before ascribed to him and although by meanes of some great friend this was lesse spoken of in his life time then after yet if I have beene rightly informed even by that he was made no great gainer True it is he purchased great things of the Earle of Arundell and how his heires thrive with it I do not heare but there is a perilous verse Demale quaesitis vix gaudet tertius baeres For my owne part I must confesse that where I finde that same destroying and reviving spirit that in the Apocalyps is named in Hebrew Abaddon sounds in my English care and heart a bad one I suspect there is little true vertue or godlines harbour'd in that breast But if he were finely beguiled of all this Lead by his great friend that would be bold with him I imagin that none that heares it will much lament it at a venture I will tell your Highnesse the tale that I heard from as good a man as I tell it of onely because he named not the parties I cannot precisely affirme it was this man but I dare affirme this man was as worthy of it A great Lord in the Court in those daies sent to a great Prelate in the North to borrow 1000 livre. of him The Prelate protested on his faith I think not a justifying faith that he was not able to doe it but if he were he would be very willing acknowledging great favours of the said Lord and sending some present enough perhaps to pay for the use of 1000 li. The noble man that had a good espyall both North and South hearing of a certaine Ship loaden with lead belonging to this Prelate that came to be sold at London even as it came to land sends for the Prelates Agent shows him his Lords Letter and Protestation under his hand proves the ability demonstrable by the Lead and so by treaty or terrour or treachery of the servant made him betray his Master for 1000 li Doctor Edwin Sands As those that saile from Flanders or Ireland to London or Bristoll being past the tempestuous and broken seas and now in sight of the Harbour yet even their fear to miscarry sometime by mistaking the Channell are oft so perplext as one bids to set saile againe another advises to cast Anchor so is it now with me drawing toward the end of this my short and voluntary voyage I remember a ship of London once that having past the Goodwin Sands very safe and sayling on this side Black-wall to come up to Ratcliefe struck on the black Rock at the point below Greenwich and was almost cast away I have as your Highnesse sees past already the Godwins if I can aswell passe over this E'dwin Sands I will goe roamer of Greenwich Rock not forgetting to vaile as becomes me in passing by and if the spring Tide serve come to Anchor about Richmond For I am entring now to write of an Archbishop who though he dyed twenty yeares since in that Anno mirabili of 88. yet he lives still in his off-spring having a sonne of his name that both speakes and writes admirably whose profession though it be not of Religion as his fathers was yet never did his fathers preaching shew better what to follow then his writings shew what to shun if my Pen therefore should wrong his father his Pen no lesse might wrong me I must appeale therefore for my justification in this point to the most indifferent censurers and to yours especially sweet Prince for whose fake I write for ifI should let passe a matter so notorious as that of this Archbishop of Yorke and Sir Robert Stapleton it were so willfull an omission as every one might accuse me of and if I should speake of either partially and against my owne conscience and knowledge I should much more accuse my selfe Here then is the Scylla and Carybdis that I saile betweene and if I faile of my right course I shall be driven to say as a filly preacher did upon an unlike occasion and much lesse to his purpose when he hapned unawares to have a more learned Auditory then he expected Incidi in ancillam cupiens vitare Caribden But the Story that I make this long introduction unto is shortly this About 25. yeares since there was great kindnesse and had long continued between Archbishop Sands and Sir Robert Stapleton a Knight of Yorkeshire whom your Highnesse hath often seen who in those dayes for a man well spoken properly seen in Languages a comely and goodly Personage had scant an equall and except Sir Philip Sidney no superiour in England for which Reasons the Arch-bishop of all his Neighbours and Countreymen did make a speciall account of him About the year 83. also he was High-Sheriffe of York-shire and met the Judges with seven score men in sutable Liveries and being at this time likewise a Widdower he wooed and won and wedded soon after one of the best reputed Widdows in the West of England In this felicity he sailed with ful sails but somewhat too high and no lesse the Arch-bishop in like prosperity of wealth and friends and Children yet seeming above all to joy in the friendship of this Knight who answered in all good correspondence not onely of outward complement but inward comfort but well said the Spanish Poet Nulli te facias nimis sodalem Gaudebis minus minus dolebis Too much Companion make your self to none Your joy will be the lesse and less your mone These two so friendly Neighbours and Consorts swimming in this Calm of content at last hapned to fall foul one on another by this occasion The Knight in his great good fortunes having as great defigns among other things had laid the foundation of a fair house or rather Palace the model whereof he had brought out of Italy which house he