most redounded to the profit of the queen and her courtiers. Upon which grounds, as all the bishop's sees were so long kept vacant, before they were filled, so in the following time, they were kept void one after another, till the best flowers in the whole garden of the church had been culled out of it, p. 292, 293.

"There was another clause in the said statute, by which the patrimony of the church was as much dilapidated, Seda plena, as it was by this in time of vacancy. For by that clause, all the bishops were restrained from making any grants of their farms and manors for more than twenty-one years, or three lives at the most, except it were to the queen, her heirs and successors (and under that pretence to any of her hungry courtiers) they might be granted in fee, farms, or for a lease of ninety-nine years, as it pleased the parties. By which means Credition was dismembered from the See of Exon, the goodly manor of Sherborn from that of Salisbury; and many fair manors were alienated forever, from the rich sees of Winchester, Ely, and indeed was not?" p. 29.3.

After this, the same author gives a particular account of the terrible spoil and waste of the lands of several other bishopricks, either by long vacancies, or other illegal means. I shall only recite to you what he says of Oxford.

As for Oxon, (says he) it was kept vacant from the death of Mr. King, the first bishop of it, Dec. 14, 1557, till the 14th of Oct. 1567, at which time it was conferred on Dr. Curwin,

archbishop of Dublin; who having held it but a year, it was again kept vacant twenty years together, and then bestowed on Dr. Underhill, in Dec. 1592. It was once more kept void till the year 1603. So that this church was filled little more than three years in forty-six. The revenues remaining in the hands of the Earl of Essex, by whom the lands were so spoiled and wasted, that they left nothing to the last bishops but impropriations. By means of which havock and destruction all the five bishopricks erected by Henry VIII. were so impoverished and destroyed, that the new bishops were necessitated to require a benevolence of their clergy to furnish their episcopal houses." p. 328. 329.

Thus you see this eminent reformer and foundress of the church of England kept not her hands so very clear, as you imagined, from being dipped in the plunder of the church's patrimony. And as they were not guiltless in this respect, so were they most deeply imbued in innocent blood; especially after the sanguinary laws made by her; which during her life were executed with the utmost rigour, as may be seen in Stow. So that I may say, without the least wrong done to her character, that (excepting the vice of incontinence, with which I cannot charge her) she inherited the very worst of her father's qualities. And it is remarkable, that the most wicked and profligate persons of that age were the most in her favour; such as Leicester, Walsingham, and others; of whom the author

of the Short View of the English history writes, that having already tasted of the sweetness of confiscations, they designed to make the English Roman Catholics desperate by ill usage, in hopes they would rebel, and forfeit their estates. But when truth could not be found against them, Walsingham, by counterfeit letters and confessions extorted by pains and terrors of the rack, tumultuated the people with chimerical dangers, only to prepare them for the murder of the queen of Scotland.

The same author gives this short general character of Leicester, viz. that he was one of the worst of men, p. 269, and had all the ill principles of his father, Northumberland, p.

273.

But Dr. Heylin has left us a fuller account of him, p. 239, 240, where he tells us that the queen, in her visit to Cambridge, Anno 1564, coming acquainted with Sir Robert Dudley, made him Earl of Leicester, and gave him a great sway in all affairs, both of court and council; and then goes on thus:

"Advanced to this height, he engrossed to himself the disposing of all offices in court and state, and of all preferments in the church.A man so unappeasable in his malice, and insatiable in his lust-so sacrilegious in his rapines-so false in his promises, and treacherous in point of trust; and finally, so destructive of the rights and properties of particular persons, that his little finger lay heavier on the English subjects, than the loins of all the favourites of the two last kings."

This was that noble person, whom queen Elizabeth was so charmed with, and loaded with so many favours, that he even conceived no small hopes of being one day admitted to her bed, and a partnership in the crown. In order whereunto, he broke the neck of his wife down stairs (says the author of the Short View, p. 273) to make room in his bed, when he should have the happiness to accomplish his design on the queen. Yet this wicked wretch, and others as profligate as himself, were but bosom confidents and chosen counsellors, whom she advised with, and was directed by, in the most weighty concerns, both of church and state. In so much that the above named author sticks not to say that she had the most wicked ministry that ever was known in any reign, p. 273. And what other consequence can we draw from it, than that she was no enemy to wicked counsels and practices? Since instead of frowning upon those, who were the avowed promoters of wickedness and immorality, she rewarded them with preferments, and honoured them with her. peculiar confidence and friendship. This was a strange conduct in one who pretended to so much zeal for God's worship; and plainly shews, that tenderness of conscience was no distinguishing part of her character; which indeed stands upon record blackened with such a stain of infamy, as cast an irreparable scandal upon the church and reformation, whereof she was the supreme head and architect.

It is very certain, that if instead of pretending to reform the church, she had laboured to