title.

diocesan's absence, to consecrate churches and churchyards, and to reconcile them, to assist at ordinations, and confer orders, to confirm children, and the like. Sometimes these suffragans had no titles at all to any Bishops place, but were bishops at large. Such an one, named without Richard Martin, is met with in an old register at Canterbury, who was guardian of the gray friars there. By his last will, made 1498, he gave a library to the church and convent. He was parson of Ickham, and vicar of Lyd in Kent; and writ himself in the said will, bishop of the Somner's universal church by which the antiquarian supposed Antiq. of nothing else was meant, but that he was a bishop in name, endued with orders, but not with jurisdiction episcopal, having no particular charge to intend, but generally officiating as bishop in any part of the Christian churchz. This I have writ, that the reader may not be put to a stand when he shall in these commentaries meet with some of these titular bishops.

:

But proceed we now to the bishops that were this year consecrated.

DIOCESAN BISHOPS.

[Among the diocesan bishops consecrated under the year 1535, place Hugh Latymer, consecrated bishop of Worcester, and John Hildesly, or Hilsey, a friar of the order of preachers, first of Bristow, and afterwards of Oxford, consecrated bishop of Rochester next after John Fisher, executed for treason. These two I had omitted in their places, not meeting with them in Cranmer's register. The former I suppose was consecrated with Shaxton in April, as the latter might be with Fox and Barlow in September, his temporalties having been restored to him in the beginning of October. This Hilsey was a great assistant to archbishop Cranmer, and a learned man. He wrote a book of prayers, with epistles and gospels, (in English, I suppose,) which he dedicated to the lord Crumwel; by whose command it was published*.]

z [See Somner's Antiq. of Canterbury, p. 105. ed. Lond. 1640.]

*From the errata and emendations of the first edition.

Nic. Shax

ton.

Edward
Fox.
William
Barlow.

George
Browne.

A memorial of the

vices of

archbishop Brown in

April the 11th, Nicholas Shaxton was consecrated bishop of Sarum, in the king's chapel of St. Stephen, by our archbishop, John, bishop of Lincoln, and Christopher Sidoniensis assisting.

September the 15th was the act of confirmation and election of Edward Fox, elect of Hereford, and of William Barlow, prior of the priory of canons regular of Bisham, of the order of St. Augustin Sarum, for the bishopric of St. Asaphc. The consecration of these two last is not inserted in the register.

March the 18th, the act of confirmation and election of George Browne, D.D. provincial of the order of Friars Augustin in the city of London, for the archbishopric of Dublin. Consecrated March the 19th by the archbishop at Lambeth, Nicholas, bishop of Sarum, and John, bishop of Rochester, assisting.

Of this last mentioned bishop I shall take some further good ser- notice, having been the first protestant bishop in Ireland, as Cranmer was in England; a great furtherer of the reformation in that land, being a stirring man, and of Ireland. Life and good parts and confidence. He was first taken notice death of of by Crumwel, lord privy seal, and by his sole means George Browne, preferred to this dignity in the church of Ireland; upon printed in Dublind. the observation that was taken of him, when he was pro38 vincial of the Augustin order in England, advising all people to make their application only to Christ, and not to saints; whereby he was recommended unto king Henry, who much favoured him. When the king's supremacy was to be brought in and recognised in Ireland, which was the same year wherein he was made archbishop; he

a [See Le Neve's Fasti, p. 260. ed. Lond. 1716.]

b [Id. p. 111.]

c [Id. p. 22.]

d [Historical Collect. of the Church of Ireland, &c. Life of Dr. G. Browne, p. 2. ed. 1681.]

was appointed one of the king's commissioners for the procuring the nobility, gentry, and clergy to reject the pope, and to own the king for supreme head of the church. In which commission he acted with that diligence, that it was to the hazard of his life; such opposition was made to it in that realm. At which time, in an assembly of the clergy, George Dowdal, archbishop of Armagh, made a speech to them, and laid a curse upon those, whosoever they were, that should own the king's supremacy. Within five years after this, this archbishop Browne caused all superstitious relics and images to be removed out of the two cathedrals in Dublin, and out of the rest of the churches in his diocese ; and ordered the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed to be set up in frames above the altar in Christ's church, Dublin. In king Edward VIth's reign, he received the English Common Prayer-Book into that realm, upon the king's proclamation for that purpose, after much opposition by Dowdal: and it was read in Christ's church, Dublin, on Easter-day, 1551. He preached also a sermon in Christ's church for having the Scripture in the mother tongue, and against image-worship: and for this his forwardness and conformity in religion, and the perverseness of the other archbishop of Armagh, who had violently resisted all good proceedings, the title of primacy was taken from him, and conferred upon the archbishop of Dublin: and Dowdal was banished, or, as others say, voluntarily left his bishopric. And then Goodacre, sent from England with Bale for the see of Ossory, succeeded. In queen Mary's days, Dowdal was restored; and, being a great man in this reign, expulsed archbishop Browne from his see for being a married man: who, two or three years after, was succeeded by Hugh Corwin, (a compiler in all reigns), and Browne soon after died.

Thomas
Manning.

Regist.
Cran.

SUFFRAGAN BISHOPS.

The first of these standing in the register of the archbishop was the suffragan of the see of Ipswich. The bishop of Norwich, according to the direction of the late act, (wherein the bishop was to nominate two for suffragan to the king, and the king was to name one of them to the archbishop, to receive consecration), humbly signified to the king, that he was destitute of the aid of a suffragan; and so prayed him to appoint either George, abbot of the monastery of St. Mary's of Leyston, or Thomas Manning, prior of the monastery of St. Mary's of Butley, to be his suffragan; without mentioning for what place. And on the 7th of March, in the 27th of his reign, he sent to the archbishop to make the latter suffragan of Gipwich: who was accordingly consecrated by the archbishop, and invested in insigniis episcopalibus; 39 Nicholas, bishop of Sarum, and John, bishop of Rochester,

John Salis

bury.

assisting. The date not specified; but probably on the same day with the consecration following, there being the same assistants.

The said bishop of Norwich sent to the king, recommending to him to be suffragan Thomas de Castleacre, of the Cluniac order, and John Salisbury, prior of St. Faith's of Horsham, of the order of St. Benet, both priors of monasteries in Norwich diocese. The king sent to the archbishop to consecrate John, the prior of St. Faith's, for suffragan of Thetford. Accordingly, he consecrated him March the 19th, Nicholas bishop of Sarume and John bishop of Rochesterf assisting.

d [See Burnet's Hist. of Reformat. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 206. ed. Oxon. 1829.]

e [Nicholas Shaxton.]
f [John Hilsey.]

CHAPTER X.

THE AUDIENCE COURT.

court

struck at.

THE good archbishop almost every year met with new Ann.1536. opposition from the popish clergy. The late act for abo- The archbishop's lishing the pope's authority, and some acts before that, audience for restraining of applications to Rome, served them now as a colour to strike at one of the archbishop's courts, viz. that of the audience, (a court which the archbishops used to hold in their own houses, where they received causes, complaints, and appeals; and had learned civilians living with them, that were auditors of the said causes, before the archbishop gave sentence); pretending that he held it as the pope's legate: urging also the great troubles and inconveniences it caused, both to the clergy and the laity; and that every man must, by virtue of that court, be forced up to London, from the farthest part of the land, for a slanderous word, or a trifle. And that they thought it convenient, if it were the king's pleasure to continue that court, that he would settle it upon some other, and not upon the archbishop, that so it might appear the original of that court was from the king, and not from the pope. And lastly, that it would not be safe to constitute the archbishop the pope's legate, because it would infringe the power of the vicar-general. This was drawn up in way of petition and complaint, either to the king or parliament, by a combination of some of the convocation, as I suspect; the paper being writ by the hand of the register of the lower house of convocation. The great wheel, we may be sure, that set a moving this device, was Winchester b, his never-failing adversary.