AN. REG.3, 1560.

137 309

ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 3,

ANNO DOM. 1560, 1561.

Death of Francis II. of France.

1.

WE

E shall begin this third year of the Queen with the death of Francis the Second, King of the French, who deceased on the fifth day of December, when he had scarce lived to the end of his seventeenth year, and had reigned but one year and five months, or thereabouts1. His death much altered both the counsels and affairs of Christendom,-distracting the French nation into schisms and factions, encouraging the Scots to proceed with confidence in their reformation, and promising no small security to Queen Elizabeth, in regard of the pretensions of the Queen of Scots. But so little was her condition bettered by it, that she seemed to be in more danger by the acts of her enemies after his decease than formerly in the time of his life and government. Francis of Guise, a man of great abilities for camp and council, had made himself a very strong party in the Court of France, which he intended to make use of for the Queen of Scots, whose mother, the late Queen Regent of Scotland, was his only sister. And this he might the better do by reason of a division in the Court of France about the government of the kingdom during the minority of Charles the Ninth, the second brother and next heir to the King deceased. Katherine de Medices, the relict of Henry the Second, and the mother of Charles, lays claim to the Regency; for who could have a greater care, either of the young King's person or estate, than his natural mother? But against her, as being a mere stranger to the nation and affairs of France, Anthony of Burbon, Duke of Vendosme by descent, and King of Navarr, at the least in title, in the right of Joan d'Albret his wife, the sole heir of that Crown, lays his claim unto it, as being the first Prince of the blood, and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Regency by the rules of that Government. The Guisian faction join themselves to that of the Queen, of whom they better knew

1 Speed, 861. On the religious wars of France, comp. Aër. Rediv. b. ii.

how to make advantage than they could of the other, and to AN. REG. 3, that end endeavour by all subtle artifices to invest her in it1.

1560.

To this end they insinuate themselves into the Duke, Intrigues of
persuade him either to relinquish his demands of the Regency, party.
or to associate himself with the Queen-mother in the public
government; and to join counsels with the Catholic party for
suppressing the Hugonots. Which that they might allure
him to, or at least take him off from his first pursuit, they
offered to procure a divorce from his present wife, and that,
instead of holding the kingdom of Navarr in right of his
wife, he should hold it in his own personal capacity by a grant
from the Pope, his wife being first deprived of it by his Holi-
ness, as suspected of Lutheranism; that being divorced from
his wife, he should marry Mary Queen of the Scots, with
whom he should not only have the kingdom of Scotland, but
of England also, of which Elizabeth was to be deprived on the
same account; that for the recovery of that kingdom he
should not only have the Pope's authority and the power of
France, but also the forces of the King of Spain; and finally,
that the Catholic King did so much study his contentment,
that, if he would relinquish his pretensions to the Crown of
Navarr, he should be gratified by him with the sovereignty
and actual possession of the Isle of Sardinia, of which he
should receive the Crown with all due solemnities. By which
temptations when they had rendered him suspected to the
Protestant party, and thereby settled the Queen-mother in that
place and power which so industriously she aspired to, they
laid him by as to the title, permitting him to live by the air
of hope for the short time of his life, which ended on the 17th
of November, anno 1562. And so much of the game was
played in earnest, that the Duke of Guise did mainly labour
with the Pope to fulminate his excommunications against Eli-
zabeth, as one that had renounced his authority, apostated
from the Catholic religion, and utterly exterminated the pro-
fession of it out of her dominions3.

138
3. But the Duke sped no better in this negotiation than
310 the Count of Feria1 did before. The Pope had still retained
some hope of regaining England, and meant to leave no way

AN.REG.3, unpractised by which he might obtain the point he aimed at. 1560. When first the See was vacant by the death of Pope Paul

New Bishops.

the Fourth, the Cardinals assembled in the Conclave bound themselves by oath, that, for the better settling of the broken and distracted estate of Christendom, the Council formerly held at Trent should be resumed with all convenient speed that might be1. Which being too fresh in memory to be forgotten, and of too great importance to be laid aside, the new Pope had no sooner settled his affairs in Rome, which had been much disordered by the harshness and temerity of his predecessor, but he resolved to put the same in execution. For this cause he consults with some of the more moderate and judicious Cardinals, and by his resolution and dexterity surmounts all difficulties which shewed themselves in the design; and he resolved not only to call the Council, but that it should be held in Trent2, to which it had been formerly called by Pope Paul the Third, 1545,-that it should rather be a continuance of the former Council, which had been interrupted by the prosecution of the wars in Germany, than the beginning of a new; and that he would invite unto it all Christian Princes, his dear daughter Queen Elizabeth of England amongst the rest3. And on these terms he stood, when he was importuned by the ministers of the Duke of Guise to proceed against her to a sentence of excommunication, and thereby to expose her kingdoms to the next invader. But the Pope was constantly resolved on his first intention, of treating with her after a fair and amicable manner,--professing a readiness to comply with her in all reciprocal offices of respect and friendship, and consequently inviting her amongst other princes to the following Council; to which if she should please to send her Bishops, or be present in the same by her Embassadors, he doubted not of giving them such satisfaction as might set him in a fair way to obtain his ends.

4. Leaving the Pope in this good humour, we shall go for England, where we shall find the Prelates at the same employment in which we left them the last year, that is to say, with setting forth the consecrations of such new Bishops as served to fill up all the rest of the vacant Sees. The first of 1 Sarpi, 416. 2 Ibid. 425-7.

3 Ibid. 436. Camd, 68. ed. 1615.

1560-1.

which was Robert Horn, Doctor in Divinity, once Dean of AN. REG. 3, Durham, but better known by holding up the English Liturgy, and such a form of discipline as the times would bear, against the schismatics of Franckfort1; preferred unto the See of Winchester, and consecrated Bishop in due form of law, on the 16th of February2-of which we shall speak more hereafter on another occasion3. On which day also Mr Edmond Scambler, Bachelor of Divinity, and one of the Prebendaries of the new Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, was consecrated Bishop of the Church of Peterborough. During the vacancy whereof, and in the time of his incumbency, Sir William Cecil, principal Secretary of Estate, possessed himself of the best manors in the Soake which belonged unto it; and for his readiness to confirm the said manors to him, preferred him to the See of Norwich, anno 1584. Next follows the translation of Dr Thomas Young, Bishop of Saint David's, to the See of York, which was done upon the 25th of Februaryin an unlucky hour to that city, as it also proved; for scarce was he settled in that See, when he pulled down the goodly hall, and the greatest part of the episcopal palace in the eity of York, which had been built with so much care and cost by Thomas the elder, one of his predecessors there, in the year of our Lord 10907. Whether it were for covetousness to make money of the materials of it, or out of sordidness to avoid the charge of hospitality in that populous city, let them guess that will. Succeeded in the See of St David's by Davis, Bishop of St Asaph, translated thither the 21st of May, 15618; as he was by another of the same name, Dr Thomas Davis, within few months after".

5. The province of York being thus fitted with a new 1 Sup. p. 181.

2 Godwin, 238. Bramhall, iii. 224.

3

Eliz. viii. 1-3.

4 Godw. 559. Bramh. iii. 225. Scambler was also chaplain to Archbishop Parker.

5 See Browne Willis, Survey of Cathedrals, iii. 496.

"He had refused the archbishoprick, which was then offered to May, dean of St. Paul's; but, on May's dying before consecration, Young accepted it. Bramh. iii. 228.

7 Stow, 602. Godw. 710. Fuller, iv. 344.

8 Godw. 586.

9 Consecrated May 26, 1561. Godw. 643. It was in the see of St Asaph that Richard Davis (who held St David's till 1581) was succeeded by Thomas.

1560-1.

AN. REG.3, Archbishop, it was not long before the consecration of Dr 19
James Pilkington to the See of Durham, which was performed 311
by the hands of his own Metropolitan on the second of March1.
At whose first coming to that See, he found it clogged with
an annual pension of an hundred pound, to be paid into her
Majesty's Exchequer yearly, toward the maintenance of the
garrison in the town of Barwick,-first laid upon this Bishoprick
when that town seemed to be in danger of such French forces
as had been brought into that kingdom, or otherwise might
fear some practice of the Popish party, for the advancing of
the interess of the Queen of Scots. The Bishop's tenants
were protected in their corn and cattle by the power of this
garrison, and consequently the more enabled to make just
payment of their rents; and it was thought to be no reason
that the Queen should be at the sole charge of protecting his
tenants, and he enjoy the whole benefit of it without any dis-
bursement. But this was only a pretence for raising some
revenue to the Crown out of that rich patrimony; the pension
being still charged upon it, though the garrison was removed
in the first of King James2. On the same day, that is to say
the second of March, Dr John Best was consecrated Bishop
of Carlisle3, after the See had been refused by Bernard Gilphin,
Parson of Houghton in the Spring, betwixt Durham and
Newcastle. The offer made him with relation to his brother
George, a man much used in many employments for the
State; but on what ground declined by him, is not well assured.
Whether it were that he was more in love with the retirements
of a private life, or that he could not have the bird without he
yielded to the stripping of it of the most part of its feathers
(as it came to Best)-may be sooner questioned than resolved3.

1 1560-1. Godw. 756. Pilkington had been nominated and elected
to Winchester, but made way for Horn in that see. Bramh. iii. 224—6.
2 See Heylyn's Examen Historicum, 103-4; Browne Willis, i. 228.
3 Godw. 771. Bramh. iii. 226.

5

* See Wordsw. Eccl. Biog. iii. 404.

Bp Carleton, in his Life of Gilpin, states that he was recommended for the bishoprick by the Earl of Bedford, and by Sandys, then Bishop of Worcester. The latter, in a letter urging him to accept it, writes, "I give you to understand that the said bishoprick is left unto you untouched, neither shall anything of it be diminished (as in some others it is a custom); but you shall receive the bishoprick entire as Dr Ogle