nor put them to charge in calling them together. I beseech you, be not weary of well-doing; but with authority and counsel help to amend that is amiss. Thus, after commendation, I am bold boldly to write, wishing good to my country, and furtherance of God's glory. God be merciful to us, and grant ut libere currat evangelium! Vale in Christo. Cras profecturus Dunelmum, volente Deo, Tuus In the same year also he wrote his letter to the earl of Leicester, pleading for some indulgence on behalf of the refusers of the habits. The affinity between this letter, and the Epistola Consolatoria mentioned in Tanner's list, is explained in a note on p. 658 of the present volume; and no further remark is necessary here, except to notice the apparently unwarrantable suspicion of Baker, that Pilkington was not the author of it! "If," says he in his MSS., "his letter to the earl of Leicester, written after he was bishop of Durham, were really his, a man would have as hard an opinion of him, as he seems there to have of the ceremonies." But as it is, "quoted by the puritans," he supposes it may have emanated from them: only, he adds, "so far we may suppose the charge to be true, that he was a favourer of the party; otherwise there could be no ground or pretence to fasten such letters upon him"." Afterwards, in delineating his character, he speaks of him as "Papismi osor, in Puritanos pronior." It is not an easy thing to form a correct and candid judgment of the conduct of exalted individuals in difficult circumstances. The remark especially applies to the state of things in the reign of Elizabeth. 1 Strype's Life of Parker, Book 11. ch. 26. 2 Pag. 163 of Baker's MS. History of St John's College, transcribed from his MSS. in the British Museum, and preserved in St John's College Library. It is related by Fuller, that bishop Pilkington and his family narrowly escaped with their lives, in the northern rebellion of 1569; when the insurgents, having gained a temporary success, entered Durham, celebrated mass in the cathedral, and tore and trampled under foot the protestant Bible. He was peculiarly obnoxious to them, both as a protestant and a married prelate; and fled into the south, with his wife and infant daughters, who, according to the same authority, were obliged to assume the disguise of beggars' clothes. A wretched, but faithful picture of the country at the close of this insurrection, is given in a letter of the bishop's to Sir William Cecil: "Jesus help. Right honorable. According to yor L. apointment, I have sent mie manne to know bi your gudd meanes the Q. Maties pleasure, for mie reparing homeward. Now mie L. Sussex is comen, I trust some gudd order shall be taken for the cuntre; iff mie presence might doe anie gudd, I wold attend as y°r wisdom shall think mete or apoint me. The cuntre is in grete miserie; and as the Shireff writes, he can not doe justice bi ani number off juries, off suche as be untouched in this rebellion, unto thei auther quited by law or pardoned bi the Q. Matie. The number of offendors is so grete, that few innocent are left to trie the giltie: and iff the forfeted landes be bestowed on such as be straungers, and, will not dwell in the cuntre, the peple shall be withoute heades, the cuntre desert, and no number off freeholders to doe justice bi juries, nor service in the warres. What cumfort it is to goe now into that cuntre, for him that wold live quietlie, yor wisdom can easilie judge. Butt God is present ever with his peple, and his vocation is not rasshly to be forsaken, nor his assistance to be dowted on. His gudd will be done. And iff I goe downe in displeasure, my presence shall doe more harme than gudd. The Lord grant you his spirit of wisdom to provide peace for this afflicted realme! 4 Januarii. Yors ever, Ja. Δυνολμ.” "To the Rt Honorable Sir Wm Cecyll Knt., Cheef Secretaric to our Soveraigne Ladie the Quene's Majestie." The immense forfeitures of the leaders in this rebellion reverted, of right, to the bishop, as prince Palatine within his diocese: but the queen seized them without much regard to his pretensions. Upon his suing her majesty for restitution, the parliament interfered, and passed an act vesting them pro hac vice in the crown. The popish party were unceasing in their machinations to undermine the protestant establishment in England; and in the university of Louvain, to which many English had retired for the prosecution of their studies, principles were instilled into their minds directly tending to this end. Certain conclusions there maintained, which declared it to be "unlawful for the civil magistrate to have anything to do in ecclesiastical matters," having about this time been brought to the knowledge of bishop Pilkington, he transmitted them at once to the secretary of state, Sir William Cecil, adding his own judgment of them as follows: "I have sent your honour such conclusions as be disputed at Lovain, and sent over hither. Wise men do marvel, that polity can suffer such seed of sedition. Although for trial of the doctrine it were not amiss to hear the adversary, what he can say; yet that doctrine being received, and the contrary suffered to be spread abroad, to the troubling of the state, in my opinion is dangerous. God turn all to the best! But surely evil men pick much evil out of such books, even against the polity'." The bishop founded a free grammar school at Rivington, "for the bringing up, teaching, and instructing children and youth in grammar and other good learning, to continue for ever;" and endowed it with lands and rents of considerable value in the county of Durham, which the trustees lately exchanged for others in the immediate neighbourhood of Rivington. The school adjoins the church, which was built by his father; and in which there is a rude painting on wood, representing the bishop's parents and their twelve children kneeling, with a curious inscription. The queen's letters patent for the foundation were signed on the 13th of May, 1566, and the school was opened in the course of the same year. Bishop Pilkington died at Bishop-Auckland, on the 23rd of January, 1575, aged 55, leaving his wife, and two daughters, Deborah and Ruth, surviving him: his only other children, Isaac and Joshua, died young in his life time. A copy of his will is preserved: it bears date the 4th of February, 1571, and is in these words: "To be burried with as few popish ceremonies as may be, or vain cost. My books at Auckland to be given by my brother Leonard, according to my notes, to the school at Rivington, and to the poor collegers, and others. Alice Kingsmill, my now known wife, and Deborah and Ruth my daughters, executors. If my wife die, I require the Ladie Constance Kingsmill, or George her son, to be executor, and have the bringing up of my children. Item. I require Edmund, archbishop of York, Thomas Langton, and my brother Leonard, to be supervisors of all my goods be north of Trent. And of my goods be south, I make supervisors my good lord the earl of Bedford and Richard Kings 1 Strype, Annals, 11. i. p. 382. mill. I wold my wife wold give some token to Sir William Kingsmill and her other brothers and sisters, according to her ability." Two codicils were afterwards added on the 21st of January, 1575, two days before his death. He was buried at Auckland; but his remains were afterwards removed to Durham Cathedral, and interred in the choir before the high altar: where a monument was erected to his memory, to which were affixed brass plates with the following inscriptions, (besides an epicedium by John Foxe,) long since effaced; but of which copies are preserved in Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, and Willis's Cathedral Antiquities. 1. D. Jacobo Pilkingtono Episcopo Dunelm. dioc. Marianâ tempestate religionis ergo inter alios Eruditione, judicio, pietate, disputatione, concione, justitia et hospitalitate, viro sui seculi clarissimo. Aliciæ ex equestri Kingsmillorum Sigmentoniæ in com. Hampton. marito; ac Josuæ, Isaaci, Deboræ, et Ruthæ, liberorum parenti sanctissimo. Aucklandiæ Episc. 23 Januarii 1575. Elizab. Regin. 18, morienti, et ibi condito: posthac Dunelmi 24 Maii sepulto anno ætatis 55. Domini Jesu servo posuit Robertus Swiftus, suus in Ecclesiasticis cancellarius et alumnus. |