THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND ACTS OF THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, EDMUND GRINDAL, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. BOOK II. CHAP. I. Grindal's nomination for York. His concern for the re- 157 Howard rest to be THE archbishopric of York had now lain vacant ever Anno 1569. since June 1568. Tho. Young the Archbishop then de- Henry ceasing. For this high promotion much interest was made. makes inteAnd among the rest, the Lord Henry Howard, brother to Archbishop the Duke of Norfolk, aspired to it. A person he was of of York. good learning, great parts, and as great conceit of himself, and withal very active, but Popish. And being laid aside in this attempt of him and his friends, he became, perhaps for that reason, the more busy against the government. II. BOOK For in the year 1571, he was, with others, suspected to be concerned about the Scotch Queen, and committed to the Anno 1569. custody of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and grew vehemently Popish; and was thought to be the nobleman who in a conspiracy anno 1584. was to have been elected by Papists King of England, and married to the Queen of Scots, (for which ambition his brother the Duke had suffered before,) and the election to be confirmed by the Pope. This man, in the year 1583, wrote a vainglorious book against all prophecies, and dedicated it to Sir Francis Walsingham the Secretary. But though this person could not arrive to this, or any other preferment under Queen Elizabeth, yet by King James I. he was made Earl of Northampton and Lord Privy Seal. But however, for to serve his turn, he concealed his religion; yet he died a Papist. Grindal stands fairest. Parker's opinion. 158 This man therefore being waved, Grindal, a northern man by birth, stood fairest for York; and in the latter end of this year was designed for it, by the favour of Secretary Archbishop Cecil, and the approbation of Parker the Archbishop, who was consulted about it; and signified that he liked well of his removal; for he reckoned him not resolute and severe enough for the government of London, since many of the Ministers and people thereof (notwithstanding all his pains) still leaned much to their former prejudices against the ecclesiastical constitution. But withal he told the Secretary, that my Lord of London would be very fit for York; "who were," as he styled them, “a heady and stout people; witty, "but yet able to be dealt with by good governance, as long "as laws could be executed, and men backed." But this business of the remove hung in suspense till April 1570. when I find him sending his servant Richard Ratcliff to the Secretary, to attend upon him from time to time, and to solicit for the prosecution of the matter intended toward him; and referring the whole to the said Secretary's order, as his leisure and opportunity should serve. Anno 1570. The last act of good service which (as I meet with) our care about Bishop did in his diocese before his translation, was the rereforming formation of the hospital of the Savoy, almost brought to the abuses voy. 1. Monum. p. 445, &c. utter ruin by an ill master. It had been a very charitable CHAP. foundation for the comfort, relief, and harbour of great numbers of poor travellers. An antiquarian shews at large, Anno 1570. how it was built at first by Peter Duke of Savoy; over- of the Sathrown by the rebels of Kent, being then the Duke of Lan- Weever's caster's house; founded anew by King Henry VII; suppressed the 7th of King Edward VI. [but given, I find, by him to the city, for the use of Christ Church Hospital ;] and founded again by Queen Mary, in the 4th of her reign; when the ladies of the Court, and madams of honour stored the same with beds and furniture. Mention is also there made of the rules, orders, and statutes thereof, extracted out of the grand charter, as it is extant in the Cotton library. Of this royal foundation, and of the great abuses of it by Thurland the present Master, a bill of complaints was brought to our Bishop in April, 1570. Which he signified to the Secretary, wishing for some careful inspection into the causes of it; saying, that if matters were as true as they were by some of the Fellows of that house affirmed to be, it were very good some reformation were had. In short, Procures a soon after, he procured, by means of the Secretary, (a per- to visit it. son forward to any good thing of that nature,) a commission from the Queen to visit this hospital; himself, now Archbishop of York, Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, Tho. Huick, Doctor of Laws, and William Constantine, also Doctor of Law, Surrogate, deputed by Tho. Watts, Professor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Middlesex, with divers others, Commissioners: who after mature hearing and examination of the cause, deprived the said Thurland from the hospital. And the definitive sentence was read by the said The Master deprived; Archbishop of York, July the 29th, 1570. The crimes and why. charged and proved against him, as they are expressed in the said sentence of deprivation, were many and gross as non-residence, fornication and incontinency; an evil and fraudulent administration of the goods of the house, neglect of the poor, selling of the moveable goods, leasing out the lands, contrary to the tenor of the statutes, and alienation of them; keeping the common seal in the hand of some of 159 commission II. BOOK his servants, and sealing therewith certain obligations without the knowledge of the Chaplains, and that for borrowing of Anno 1570. money for his own use; and sealing also divers grants without the knowledge or consent of the Chaplains, to the great loss and prejudice of the house: also dissipating, wasting, and dilapidating the goods and rents of the house: whereby he had incurred the damnable guilt of perjury. A particular account of these crimes under seventeen articles, as they were brought in to the Bishop by the Chaplains, and proved, Numb. I. may be found in the Appendix. Nay, so scandalous was this Thurland, for making away the lands and revenues of the hospital by long leases, that after his death there rose up a lease, as made by the said Master in the second year of the Queen, for two hundred years, of all the whole manors, lands, houses, rents, and revenues belonging to the hospital, to Perwich and Cosin, paying the rents they then went at: which lease in the year 1583. came to some contest at law. But it appeared to be made many years after date, and sealed by Thurland, without the knowledge of the Chaplains, (having the seal in his own custody,) to the use of one Wetheral of Lincoln's Inn, in whose keeping it was at his death. And this Wetheral left behind him a note, that Perwich and Cosin should assign a moiety of this lease to James Wetheral his brother; who sued them in the Chancery for the same. The abuses found by This is enough to shew how worthy this Master was of deprivation; and how good a work this of our Bishop (among many others) was. But to return to the visitation, wherein how things were the visitors. found, I will more particularly set down from an original. "As touching the state of the lands and revenues of the "said hospital at the time of the deprivation of the said "Thurland, it was presented and found before the said "visitors, that the said Thomas Thurland the space of "eleven years together continued Master, and received the "whole revenues of the said house, and kept the statutes of "the same from the perpetual Chaplains, and got into his "hands the common seal, and kept it to his own private use |