Pen would never have given it what may we think of him now that for preaching may say with St. Paul I have laboured more then ye all for reading lets no Book passe which for Authour matter or wit hath any fame who hath so happy a memory that no occasion slips him whether premeditate or sudden either in publick or private to make use of that he hath read But it is worth the hearing which he answers to this calumniation as well as commendation which answer being in a long and learned latine Sermon Ad Clerum I will not wrong so much to abbreviate in this place but only for that same point Qui in concionibus domininatur his sharp and modest return I could not let passe being but a line Neque enim nostrū ministeriū est dominatio neque dominatio vest ministeriū For neither is our Ministery any Lordly Authority nor your Lordly command a true Ministery But his Reading Learning preaching is so well known to his Highness as I do but lose labour in recounting either generall or particular prayses thereof I will descend now to some personall matters which though commonly they are more captious for the writer yet are they withall more pleasing and acceptable to the Reader He was born of honest rather then honourable parents in the City of Bristol which City standing in two Counties Somerset and Gloucester might move both Counties hereafter to challenge him for their Countreyman as divers Cities of Greece did Homer if himself would not somtime clear it by saying that he is a Somersetshire man or to write it as he spake sportingly a Zomersetshire man showing a towardliness in his very infancy to learning he was set very young to school at Wells but over-running his School-masters Doctrine with his docility he went quickly to Oxford yet ere he went he had a marvellous misfortune for even as if Sathan had foreseen that he should one day prove some excellent instrument of his service that must bruise the Serpents head he forgot not to attempt his part Insidiari calcaneo procuring him in a plain easie way so terrible a fall as brake his foot and small of his legg and ankle almost to pieces But if the strong man procured this harm a stronger granted the remedy for he was soon after so soundly cured as there remained after no sign or scar no effect or defect either for fight or use of this rupture After his coming to Oxford he took all his degrees so ripe in learning and so young in age as was half a miracle There it seems also the Colledges strove for him he removed so oft till he rested in that for which he was ordained a principall Vessel Christs Church during his abode there being Dean of ChristsChurch it was hard to say whether he was more respected for his great Learning Eloquence Authority countenance given by the Queen and the great Ones or beloved for his sweet conversation friendly disposition bounty that even then showd it self and above all a chearfull sharpness of wit that so sawced all his words and behaviour that well was he in the University that could be in the Company of Thoby Matthew and this name grew so popular and plausible that they thought it a derogation to their love to add any title of Doctor or Deane to it but if they spake of one of his men as he was ever very well attended they would say Mr. Matthew or Mr. Thoby Matthews man yea even since he was Bishop and Archbishop some cannot leave that custom yet Among some speciall men that enjoyed and joyed most in his friendship and company in Oxford and in remembrance of it since they were sundred was Doctor Eedes late Dean of Worcester one whose company I loved as well as he loved his Thoby Matthew He for their farewell upon his remove to Durham intending first to go with him from Oxford but one dayes Journey was so betrayed by the sweetness of his Company and their old friendship that he not onely brought him to Durham but for a pleasant penance wrote their whole Journey in Latine verse which Poem himself gave to me and told me so many pretty Apophthegmes of theirs in their younger years as might make a Book almost by it self And because I wrote onely for your Highness pleasure I will hazard my Lords displeasure to repeat one or two of his of one two hundred that Doctor Eedes when he lived could remember being Vice-chancellor in Oxford some slight matters men coming before him one was very importunate to have them stay for his Councel who is of your Councel saith the Vice-Chancellor saith he Mr. Leasteed alas said the Vice-Chancellor no man can stand you in less stead no remedy saith the other necessity hath no Law Indeed quoth he no more I think hath your Councellor In a like matter another was to be bound in a bond very like to be forfeited and came in hast to offer it saying he would be bound if he might be taken yes saith he I think you will be taken what 's your name Cox saith the party and so prest as the manner is to come into the Court make him more room there said he let Coxcome in Such facetious passages as these that are as delightfull to the hearer as a fair course at tilt is to the beholders where the staffe breaks both at the point and counterbuffe even to the hand such I say a man might collect a volum of not at the second hand but at the first that had been so much in his company and so oft at his board as I have been but that I must keep good manners remembring the Greek Proverb {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Odi memorem compotorem And if your Highness had a fancy to hear more of them Mr. Doctor Dromond can as well relate them as my self both of us having met in his graces dish sometimes and tasted of this sawce Yet this kind of pleasantness that I repeat as one of his prayses himself will most seriously check in himself sometime as his fault and infirmity which he confesses he is inforced to use sometime as a recreation of his wearied spirits after more painfull and serious studies and though in these conceits the wit might seem to labour as much as in these gravest and had need to carry as it were a good bent to send them so smartly as they come from him ordinarily yet methinks it may be fitly compared to a bow that will endure bending the contrary way and thereby come to cast the better in his right bent or by a more homly comparison to a true and tough Laborer in our Countrey that having sweat at hard labour all the week asketh no better refreshing then to sweat as fast with dancing about the May-pole or running at Base or wrestling upon the Holiday Wherefore let himself call it his fault as I have heard him oft and say he knows
neere Pensance in your Country of Cornwal called Mam amber of which he writes page 136. hath the very like quality Of LANDAFF Doctor Francis Godwin It is doubtlesse a wonderfull antiquity that my Authour produceth of Landaff that it professed Christianity and had a Church for Christian Religion in the yeer of our Lord 180. But alas for a man to boast of great Nobility and goe in ragged clothes and a Church to be praised for great antiquity and make ruinous showes is in mine opinion according to the vulgar proverbe a great boast and a small roast But by this Authors relation it appeares this rost was so marred by an ill Cooke as by a worse Kitchen for in the yeare 1545. being the 37 yeare of Henry the eight Doctor Kitchen being made of an idle Abbot a busie Bishop wading through those hazardous times that ensued till the first yeare of Queene Elizabeth to save himselfe was content to spoile his Bishoprick Satan having in those dayes more care to sift the Bishoppricks then the Bishops else how was it possible for a man of that ranke to sing Cantate domino canticum novum four times in fourteen yeares and never sing out of tune if he had not lov'd the Kitchen better then the Church Howbeit though he might seeme for name sake to favour the Kitchen yet in spoyling that sea hee was as little friend to the Kitchen as the rest spoyling the woods and good provisions that should have warm'd it which gave occasion to Doctor Babbington now Bishop of Worcester to call it Aph without Land and Doctor Morgan after to remove to Saint Assaph from thence not for name sake but for his own name sake that is More-gaine At what time the present Bishop I now speake of being then Sub-Deane of Exeter Doctor Francis Godwin having that yeare newly published this worke she gave him presently this Bishoprick not full two moneths vacant and would as willingly have given him a much better in her owne disposition as may well appeare in that she gave Doctor Cooper the Bishoprick of Lincolnâ— onely for making a Dictionary or rather but for mending that which Sir Thomas Eliot had made before Of this Bishop therefore I may speake sparingly yea rather spare all speech considering that every leafe of his worthy worke is a sufficient testimony of his vertuous mind unfatigable industry and infinite reading for even as we see commonly those Gentlemen that are well descended and better bred are most carefull to preserve the true memory and pedigree of their Ancestors which the base and ignorant because they could not conserve will seeme to condemne So this worthy Bishop collecting so diligently relating so faithfully the succession and lives of so many of our Christian most reverend Bishops in former ages doth prove himselfe more by spirituall then carnall birth to come of those Ancestors of whom it was long before prophecyed by the princely Prophet In stead of thy Fathers thou shalt have Children whom thou shalt make Princes in all places Though the policy of these latter times hath sought to make our Fathers all but Children and younger brothers as they say and to disinherit them of their patrimonie he deserveth therefore a pen much better then mine and equall to his own to doe that for him he hath done for others Before his going to Ex eter I had some acquaintance with him and have heard him preach more then once at our Assizes and else where his manner was to be sharpe against the Vices most abounding in that time Sacriledge Symony contempt of God in his Ministers and want of Charity Amongst other of his Sermons preaching once of Dives and Lazarus the said that though the Scriptures had not expressed plainly who Dives was yet by his clothes and his face he might be bold to affirme hee was at the least a Justice of Peace and perhaps of Oyer Terminer too This speech was so ill taken by some guilty conscience that a great matter was inforc'd to be made of it that it was a dangerous seditious speech and why forsooth because it was a deare yeare but see how a mans enemies sometimes doe him as much good as his friends their fond accusation his discreet justification made him both better known more respected by them that were able to doe him most good Since this he hath lived in so remote places from my occasions first at Exeter and then beyond sea in Wales that I am become almost a stranger to his person but yet I am growne better acquainted with his writings both in Latin and English and namely by this his Catalogue which having read first with great contentment to my self I have since for your Highness pleasure perused again and presumed to adde some notes and a table by way of Alphabet for the more readie finding of most memorable matters beside a supply of such as were in his edition wanting of whom finding himselfe to be one that comming in so worthily was unworthy to be left out I give him here in his due place his more due commendation which if I should fortune upon some envie to have forborn or upon judgement to have omitted as a praise needlesse where the whole worke is his praise he might worthily have said as much of me as I wrote of a certaine Poetaster some yeares paft who left me out of the bead-roul of some riming paper blotters that he call'd Poets Of Poets Balbus reckoning up a table doth boast he makes their names more honourable And nere vouchsafing me to name at all he saies he knowes he grieved me to the gall I galled simple soule no thou art gulled to thinke I prize the praise of such a dull-head Whose verse 〈◊〉 guilty of some bâ—dge or blame Let them seeke testimonialls of their fame Then learn untaught then learn ye envious Elves No Books are prais'd that praise not most themselves And thus much be said for the Province of Canterbury and the Bishops of the severall Diocesses thereof There follows now to say somewhat also of the Province of Yorke which I shall indeavour to accomplish with like brevity and fidelity Of the Arch-bishops of Yorke and first of Doctor Thomas Young Concerning the Arch-bishops of Yorke that have been in the former ages whose lives are particularly-related by this Author it seèmes to me a matter worthy some note that there have been of them for devotion and pietie as holy for blood and nobilitie as high of wealth and ability as huge as any not onely of England but of Europe Now that every age may have his excellency I will say of this our age I meane for some fifty yeares past in which there hath bin seven Arch-bishops of Yorke that these have been as excellent in courage in learning and eloquence for Doctor Nicholas Heath whom her late Majesty found both Arch-bishop and Chancellor though she did take or rather receive both from him
peace at home give heart to the enemy abroad Among the surveyors of these first Leaders that past so many pikes the first in time and the highest in place was Doctor Matthew Parker who as by this Author is noted having lost all his Livings for his marriage now being made Archbishop of Canterbury dissembled not his marriage as Cranmer in King Henry the eighths time was found to doe which because some have taken occasion to note with too black inke to exclude him from the reputation of a rubricated Martyr and have cited the testimony of his sonnes widdow yet living that she was carried in a trunk and by misfortune almost stifled by being set by an ignorant Porter with her head downward which tale goes very current among the Papists I can truly affirme that this is a meere fiction for I have examined the Gentlewoman her selfe being of kin to my wife and a Rogers by name and she hath sworn to me she never reported nor ever her selfheard of any such misfortune But now though this Arch-Bishop Parker dissembled not his Marriage yet Queen Elizabeth would not dissemble her dislike of it For whereas it pleased her often to come to his house in respect of her favour to him that had been her Mothers Chaplain being once above the rest greatly feasted at her parting from thence the Arch-bishop and his Wife being together she gave him very speciall thanks with gratious and honourable termes and then looking on his Wife and you saith she Madam I may not call you and Mrs. I am ashamed to call you so as I know not what to call you but yet I do thank you It is true she misliked Marriage in Bishops and was not very forward to allow that in some of the Layety for I knew one of good place about her that had contracted himself to a rich Widdow and yet would not adventure to marry her till he had gotten the Queen to write for that which he had obtained before to the intent that the Queen reputing that as her benefit might not dislike with her own act But for Clergy men caeteris paribus and sometime imparibus too she prefer'd the single man before the married Of Arch-bishop Edmond Grindal Of Mr. Edmond Grindal whereas my Authour writes he was blind I have heard by some that knew somewhat in those dayes that he kept his house upon a strange occasion the secret whereof is known to few and the certainty is not easie to find out but thus I was told that There was an Italian Doctor as I take that of Physick that having a known Wife a Lyar yet bearing himself on the countenance of some great Lord did marry another Gentlewoman which to do now is by most godly Laws since made fellony This good Arch-bishop not winking at so publick a scandall convented him for that and proceeded by Ecclesiasticall censures against him Letters were presently written from this great Lord to the Arch-bishop to stop the proceeding to tolerate to dispense or to mitigate the censure but the Bishop remained still unmoved and unmoveable when no subjects intreaty could be found to prevail they intreat the Soveraign to write in the Doctors behalf but this John Baptist not only persisted in his Non licet habere eam but also in a reverent fashion required an account of her Majesties faith in that she would seem to write in a matter that if sh were truly informed was expresly against the word of God The Queen in a gracious disposition was purposed to have yielded an account in writing but the great Lord not onely disswaded her from that as too great an indignity but incensed her exceedingly against him whereupon he was privately commanded to keep his house where because he was sometime troubled with sore eyes his friends gave out he was blind But if he were blind that was like to the soothsayer Tiresias that foresaw and told Pentheus ruine as Qvid writes Et veniet nec enim dignabere numen honore Meque sub his tenebris nimium vidisse quereris For that Lord that so persecuted this Prelate about his Physitians two wives dying twenty years since left two Wives behind him that can hardly be yet agreed which was his lawfull Wife and so much for Arch-Bishop Grindall Doctor Whiteguift Upon the decease of Arch-bishop Grindall the State desirous to have a learned and discreet person in so eminent a place and the Queen resolved to admit none but a single man choyce was made of Doctor Whiteguist then Bishop of Worcester a man in many respects very happy and in the best Judgements very worthy He was noted for a man of great learning in Cambridge and he was grown to his full ripeness of reading and judgement even then when those that they called Puritans and some meerely define to be Protestants scar'd out of their wits did begin by the plot of some great ones but by the Pen of Mr. Cartwright to defend their new discipline Their indeavour as was pretended was to reduce all in show atleast to the Purity but indeed to the poverty of the primitive Churches These Books of Mr. Cartwright not unlearnedly written were more learnedly answered by Doctor Whiteguift Both had their reward For Mr. Cartwright was by private favour placed about Coventry where he grew rich and had great maintenance to live on and honoured as a Patriarck by many of that Profession Doctor Whiteguift was made Bishop of Worcester and there having a great good report of Houskeeping and governing the Marches of Walles he was as my Authour hath told called unto Canterbury While he was Bishop of Worcester though the revenew of that be not very great yet his custom was to come to the Parliament very well attended which was a fashion the Queen liked exceeding well It hapned one day Bishop Elmer of London meeting this Bishop with such an orderly Troop of Tawny Coats and demanding of him how he could keep so many men he answered it was by reason he kept so few women Being made Arch-bishop of Canterbury and of the privy Councel he carried himself in that mild and charitable course that he was not onely approved greatly by all the Clergy of England but even by some of those whom with his pen he might seem to have wounded I mean these called Puritans of whom he won divers by sweet perswasions to conformity In the Star-chamber he used to deliver his sentence in a good fashion ever leaning to the milder censure as best became his Calling He was a great stay in Court and Councel to all oppressions of the Church though that current was some time so violent as one mans force could not stop that He founded an Hospitall in or nigh Croyden and placed poor men therein in his own life time and being grown to a full age that he might say with St. Paul Bonum certamen certavi cursum confeci c. he was so happy as to give to his
speak much good of all and no ill of any and say for mine excuse I doe not know them Accordingly of the Bishoprick and Bishop of Exceter I can say but little namely that it is since Bishop Harmans time as my Author noted pag. 337. reduced to a good mediocrity from one of the best Bishopricks of England so as now it is rather worthy of pitty then envy having but two Mannors left of two and twenty and I will adde thus much to your Highnesse that as in publique respect your Highnesse should specially favour this Bishop in whose Diocesse your Dutchy of Cornwall and your Stanneries are so the Duke may uphold the Bishop and the reverend Bishop may blesse the Duke Of NORWICH Concerning Norwich whether it be the praise of the Bishops or the people or both I know not or whether I have here a partiall relation But by that I have heard I shall judge this city to be another Utopia The people live all so orderly the streets kept solemnly the Trades-men young and old so industrious the better sort so provident and withall so charitable that it is as rare to meet a begger there as it is common to see them in Westminster For the four Bishops that were in Queen Elizabeths time I know nothing in particular but that they lived as Bishops should doe Sine querela and were not warriours like Bishop Spencer their predecessor in Henry the fourths time nor had such store of Gold and Silver as he had that could leavy an Army But for the present Bishop I knew him but few yeeres since Vicechancellor of Cambridge and I am sure he had as good Latine as any of his Predecessors had and accounted there a perfect Divine in both which respects he is to be thought very fit for the place being a Maritine Town and much frequented with strangers very devoutly given in Religion and perhaps understands Latine as well as English WORCESTER Doctor Gervase Babington WOrcester hath been fortunate in this last age to many excellent Bishops of which but two in an hundred yeeres have died Bishops thereof the rest having been removed Also in lesse then fourteen yeeres that had one Bishop became Pope namely Clement the seventh another that was a Protestant as Hugh Ladymer Of the seven therefore that were in Queen Elizabeths time I shall in this place speak but of one and that is him now living who by birth is a Genman of a very good house for Learning inferiour to few of his rank Hee was sometime Chaplaine to the late Earle of Pembrooke whose Noble Countesse used this her Chaplaines advice I suppose for the translation of the Psalmes for it was more then a womans skill to expresse the sence so right as she hath done in her verse and more then the English or Latine translation could give her They first were means to place him in Landaffe neere them where he would say merrily his true Title should be Aff for all the Land was gone thence He came back over the Sea to the Sea of Exeter and thence on terra firma to Worcester a place where both the Church and Town are at this day in very flourishing estate and the Church especially in good Reparations which I take ever for one good argument of a good Bishop for where the sheep be ragged and the folds rotten there I straight suppose is no very good shepheard yet as every generall Rule hath commonly some exceptions so hath this in some places in England and many more in Wales of which I shall in their due place note somewhat in the insuing Treatise And thus much of Worcester Of HEREFORD John Scory OF this twice Bishop Scory I have heard but little yet it hath been my fortune to read something that will not be amisse to acquaint your Highnesse with that you may see how Satan doth sift the lives and doings of English Bishops with the Quills sometimes of strangers and Forraigners For whereas this our English modest writer onely reports how he was first Bishop of Chicester being but Batchelour of Divinity and deprived for no fault but that he continued not a Batchelor whereupon he fled for Religion as the phrase was till comming home in the yeare 1560 he was preferred to Hereford the French writer stayeth not there but telleth how that being setled there though he professed to be a great enemy to Idolatry yet in another sence according to St. Paul he became a worshipper of Images not Saints but Angels belike he feared some future tempest and therefore â—his hâ— to provide better for himselfe then he had at Chichester so as what with pulling downe houses and selling the Lead and such loose ends what with setting up good husbandries what with Leases to his Tenants with all manner of viis et modis he heaped together a great Masse of wealth He that hath store of mettle must have also some drosse and no marvaile if this Bishop then according to his name had much Scoria with this Treasure A Noble and Honourable councellour and thenLord President of Wales hearing so frequent complaints made of him for oppressions extortions symonies and the like caused a bil to preferred into the Star-chamber against him in which bill was contained such matter as was enough not onely to disgrace him but to degrade him if it had been accordingly followed His Sollicitour of his causes brings him a Copy of the bill and in reading it with him seemed not a little dismaid in his behalfe much like to the servant of Elisha that came trembling to his Master and told him how they were beleagred with a huge Army But this Bishop though not indewed with the spirit of a Prophet yet having a spirit that could well see into his profit bids his Sollicitour who was his kinsman perhaps his sisters brothers sonne to be of good comfort adding it may be the very words of Elisha for there are more of our side then against us But when his Gehezi for the comparison suits better to the man then to the Master could see as yet no comfortable vision The good Bishop did not open his eyes to let him see as Elisha did the Chariots of fire on the tops of the mountaines but he opened his own bags and shewed him some legions or rather chiliads of Angells who entring all at once not into a herd of Swine but into the hoard of a Lady that then was potent with him that was Dominus fac totum cast such a Cloud into the Star-chamber that the bill was never openly heard of after This or the like and much more to the like effect writes this French Author of the said Bishop of Hereford though the Treatise it selfe was not specially meant against the Bishop but against a temporall Lord of a higher ranck that was not a little netled with the same In so much as many travelling Gentlemen and among other this Bishops son was called in question for the