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CHAP. assemblies: who did commonly make it their business in their sermons to prove and evince the present proceedings Anno 1560. in religion, and, as occasion served, to lay open the errors and corruptions of that religion and worship that was now lately rejected.

Anno 1561.

archbishop

CHAP. XXI.

Archbishop of York confirmed. Three other bishops consecrated. The church filled with her bishops. Papists' objections against them. Richard Cheney's complaint. Fox's Martyrology comes forth: vindicated. Peter Martyr invited over. Archdeacon Wright's sermon at Oxford. Bullinger's sermons upon the Revelations come forth translated: and Calvin of Relics. His judgment, approving some rites used in the English liturgy; and of episcopal government.

As yet the see of York remained without an archbishop; Yong made William May, archbishop elect, deceasing before his conseof York. cration, as was said before. But now was Thomas Yong translated from St. David's, and confirmed, Feb. the 25th, chief pastor of that archiepiscopal see: though a certain diary sets the confirmation at March 2, and to be done in Vitell. F. 5. the bishop of London's palace. He was charactered to be

a virtuous, godly man; but yet there was a former blot that 248 stuck upon him still, that he the chanter, and one Constantine, register of the church of St. David's in king Edward's reign, raised up a great many enemies, and abundance of trouble against Farrar, their bishop, (who died a martyr under queen Mary,) chiefly because he would visit his church. Constantine was dead, but Yong, yet alive, was not forgotten for this behaviour. But to cover it as much as might be, now he was to be so highly advanced, one Prat, a reverend friend of Mr. Fox's, (who in a letter to him, dated in January 1560, had signified Yong's intended preferment,) desired, that as he had mentioned this matter in his Latin History, so he would leave it out in his English Martyr

XXI.

ology, which he was now preparing; and to pass it over in CHAP. silence, or else to write of it in such sort, as no man might be defamed; whereby the religion might sustain hurt, or Anno 1561. papists take occasion to accuse us of persecution, a thing laid so closely by us to their charge: especially since both Yong and Constantine were reconciled to that bishop before his death; coming to him and asking him forgiveness; and so were again united in brotherly love.

bishop of

Regist.

Tho. Baker,

In this province of York was placed James Pilkington, Pilkington D. D. (whom we have had occasion to mention before,) for consecrated to govern the see of Durham. He was of a good family in Durham. the north; and had learned brothers that were divines also, Dur. fol. viz. Leonard and John: the latter, being professor of di-57, 58. vinity, he made his chaplain, and soon preferred to a pre-s.T.B. bend in his church, October 2, 1561, and collated him to the archdeaconry of Durham, December 5, two years after. He also preferred to a prebend in his church another very learned man and an exile, viz. Thomas Lever, S. T. B. for- Tho. Lever. merly of St. John's college, and sometime master, (as was the bishop himself.) He was also master of Sherborn hospital in the diocese; which place he held to his death: but of his prebend he was deprived, (I suppose,) for refusal to comply with the ecclesiastical orders prescribed. The said bishop also gave a prebend in his said church to another eminent exile of the same stamp, viz. John Fox, (for I make little doubt it was the same John Fox that was the John Fox. martyrologist,) being entitled in the register of Durham, Artium magistri et sacri verbi Dei professoris. It was the same prebend that was held by another memorable man, Thomas Sparke, suffragan bishop of Berwick. Fox's collation was dated September 2, 1572; but he resigned it the next year. But another prebend, viz. of Shipton, in the church of Sarum, he and his posterity enjoyed even to our days.

St. David's;

In May 1561 was Richard Davis translated from St. A bishop of Asaph to St. David's: and Thomas Davis, LL. D. of Oxon, and of St. a Welshman, aged forty-nine, was consecrated, May 26, bi- Asaph; and shop of St. Asaph: and William Downham, of Hereford

of Ch.ster.

CHAP. shire, aged fifty, an Oxford man, was consecrated bishop of XXI. Chester on the 4th day of May. Now were both the proAnno 1561. vinces filled with their bishops.

The new

Reproof, P. 18.

And thus was the church replenished with a new set of and the old bishops, professors of the gospel, and most of them sufferers bishops compared. for it: men of good learning and true godliness, though in outward appearance contemptible, in comparison with those that filled the sees before. They were not so well learned in canon law, in matters of contention about worldly con249 troversies, (I use the words of dean Nowel,) in bearing of temporal office and authority, in income, courtly behaviour, and worldly pomp, as were those bishops; yet in all kinds of learning, manners, and qualities, by St. Paul in the office of a bishop required, there were found as many learned bishops, and as able and willing to do the duty of good and godly bishops, [per se non per alium,] among them even at this day, as ever were among the papists, or in England, since the first bishops were created in it. And he trusted, likewise, that the clergy next under the bishops should not be found any whit inferior in learning, nor honesty of life, to theirs.

Papists' obI will not conceal the cavils made by papists against jections a- them. For the adversaries had divers objections against our present bi- archbishop and his brethren the bishops; which were now

gainst the

shops.

Institut.

321, 322.

made in the beginning of this reign, (as the lord Coke, whose words I use, shews us,) and by consequence against the bishops ever since. "First, That they were never conPart. 4. p.secrated according to the law, (see Dier Mich. 6 & 7. Eliz.) "because they had not three bishops at least at their conse"cration; nay, never a bishop at all, as was pretended. "Because that they, being bishops in the reign of king Ed"ward VI. were deprived in the reign of queen Mary, and "were not, as was pretended, restored, before their presence "at the consecration. These pretences being in truth but "mere cavils, tending to the scandal of the clergy, being one of the greatest states of the realm, (as it is said in the "statute of the 8th Eliz. cap. 1,) are fully answered by the "said statute, and provision made by the authority of that

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parliament, for the establishing of the archbishop and bi- CHAP. shops, both in præsenti and in futuro, in their bishoprics. "Of this statute, archbishop Parker, in his book De Antiq. Anno 1561. De Antiq. "Britann. speaking of himself, saith, Ann. Dom. 1559, "Cantuar. episc. electus est a decano et capitulo eccles. me"tropolit. Cantuar. Posteaque codem anno 17 Dec. adhi"bitis quatuor episcopis, &c. lege quadam de hac re lata requisitis consecratus est. Another objection was made "against them; for that the commission being never en"rolled, whereby the bishops made in queen Mary's time "were deprived before the fourth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth; or the record of the approbation [de"privation, perhaps] of them cannot be found. And there"fore it was pretended, that the archbishops and bishops "made by queen Elizabeth, living the former, should be no lawful bishops. But by the statute of the 39th Eliz. cap. 8, the archbishops and bishops are adjudged lawful, "as by the said act appeareth. And by these two statutes, "these and all other objections against our bishops are an"swered." These are the words of that great lawyer.

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In April, Richard Cheney, a learned man, made a com- Rich. Cheplaint to secretary Cecil concerning a wrong sustained by Dey complains to the late royal visitation. He was incumbent of a parish the secrecalled Halford, in Warwickshire, of ten pounds per annum, tary. [in the king's books, as it seems;] whereof he allowed his priest ten pounds per annum, and he lived on the rest, (as he wrote,) that is, on the remainder, which was little more. But being in that visitation absent from his said living, charitably preaching about in the country, in the great want of preachers at this time; the harvest being, as he said, great, but the labourers few, yea very few; whether it were his absence, or something else, which the visitors took notice of 250 and offence at, but he was worse by forty pounds since the queen came in, than he was before. This man, being archdeacon of Hereford under king Edward, was one of the convocation in the first year of queen Mary; and with five more did boldly dispute in that synod against transubstantiation, with the learnedest men there that held that doc

CHAP. trine. In his younger days he was often at court, I suppose XXI. a preacher there; but now in his age chose a country reAnno 1561.tirement. "I began first in my youth,” said he, in a letter

to Cecil, "at the court, but I intend to make an end in "mine age at the cart, at my circumcised benefice." He was a good Grecian, and affected the true, though new way of pronouncing it, which Mr. Cheek, the Greek lecturer, first set on foot in Cambridge. He had friends which offered to procure him a bishopric, or a prebend in Westminster; but he declined both, affecting rather a private life. He was lately called up to preach at the court: where Cecil afterwards spying him, went, after his courteous way, towards him, and saluted him, offering him his hand. This gave Mr. Cheney a fair encouragement to write to him, and to let him know what damage he had lately sustained in his poor preferment. And so writ to him in April, after a facetious style, which was his way, hinting therein his wrong, and present poor estate. His letter, in memory of the man, No. XXIII. I have reposited in the Appendix.

Cecyl re

him to the

But this complaint of his made such an impression upon commends Cecyl's tender heart, that he sent Cheney's letter to the archbishop. archbishop, and these kind words endorsed upon it: “I be"seech your grace consider of this poor man's merry, simple

Preferred.

Fox's Mar

tyrology

comes forth.

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request. Indeed it is not his shame to lack: and there"fore, for God's sake, let him be helped. I cannot with "leisure do for him: but whatsoever your grace will devise "for me to do, I will not forbear.

"Your grace's at commandment, W. Cecil."

The same year, Eaton college wanting a provost, (the former having been deprived at a visitation,) the archbishop put the secretary in mind to recommend him to the queen for that preferment, styling him "a good, grave, priestly "man." But failing of that, he was preferred the next year to the bishopric of Gloucester, as we shall see in due place.

About this year did the laborious John Fox set forth the first edition in English of his great book of Acts and Monuments, in one thick volume. Wherein he hath done such

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