CHAP. "presupposed truth of the doctrine rendered the belief of "it rational and justifiable." VI. Wood, Hist. Oxon. vol. i. p. 222. 2. We need not therefore wonder at our being told, that the a generality of the Bishops favoured Bishop Pecock, notwithstanding the opposition which he met with from some of the zealous Doctors of the two Universities. It is to call both their learning and judgment in question, to suppose that they did otherwise. Not only so, but they would have been highly ungrateful to desert the Bishop in his present distress, when they knew his falling into it was partly on their account, his vindicating them and their Order from the aspersions cast upon them. Not but that things had now taken another turn in the University of Oxford, where till almost this time the memory of Doctor Wiclif had been very much reverenced, and his principles defended; but now by the raw and young Regents, who were of a very forward zeal, and more warmly than wisely affected, it was become very fashionable to run down that truly great man, to defame his memory, and misrepresent his tenets. The cry of the Church drowned all sober and impartial thinking and reasoning, and nothing almost was now heard but boasts of its authority, and very warm defences of the infallibility of its determinations. 3. Of the Bishops, which took the part of our Bishop, two are particularly named, viz. I. b Walter Hart, Lyhert, or Le-Hert, S. T. P. who was first a scholar of Exeter College in Oxford, and from thence, I suppose, elected Fellow of Oriel, the same College of which our Bishop was, of which he was afterwards chosen Provost; he was some time after made Confessor to the Queen, and by the Pope's bull of provision, dated a Episcopi ei favebant. Gascoigne, Dict. Theol. MS. b Ego Thomas Gascoigne novi, quod iste Pecock provisus tunc in Episcopum Cicestrensem per media Willielmi Ducis Suffolciæ, et Walteri Hart Episcopi Norwicensis. Tradidit eas scriptas in Anglico, Episcopo Norwicensi suo fautori. Gascoigne, Dict. Theol. MS. Fasti. Holing took shed, p. He 1256. rather. Jan. 24, 1445-6, promoted to the see of Norwich, where CHAP. he was instrumental by his good conduct in pacifying a VI. commotion which was in that city the next year against Le Neve's the Prior of that place, on account of certain new and unaccustomed exactions, which the Prior claimed and of the citizens, contrary to their ancient freedom. died May 17, 1472. Weever tells us, that he paved the church, and during his life maintained twelve students at *Cambridge, with all things necessary for them, at his own * Oxford charges. A later writer assures us, that he built the tra- Sir Thomas verse stone partition, or rood loft, on which the great cru-Browne. cifix was placed, and beautified the roof of the body of the church; that accordingly towards the north side of the said wall are the Bishop's arms, and towards the south side his rebus, viz. a hart in water; and that upon the door, under the rood loft, was a plate of brass with Latin verses on it. This, it seems, was in being in Mr. Weever's time, though the inscription was maimed, as follows: Hic jacet absconsus sub marmore presul honestus, Seclo defunctus, olim pastor quoque sponsus Istius ecclesie, cum digno culmine morum Prefuit egregie Dictus Walterus Lyghert cognomine notus. Evellens acriter mala germana fructus acerbi Germina. Scriptoribus Britan. II. Adam Molins, or de Molineux, who was of noble Leland de parentage. Being Doctor of Laws, he was promoted to the bishopric of Chichester A. D. 1445; he was also Lord Privy Seal, and murdered at Portsmouth, by some sailors CHAP. hired for that purpose, (as has been said before,) June 9, VI. 1449. Both these Prelates have very great characters given them for their learning, piety, wisdom, and probity; particularly Bishop Molins is represented as a great encourager of learning e. Gascoigne, MS. MS. vid. p. 343, V. 4. It is intimated as if, besides these two Prelates, William Asku, or Aiscough, Bishop of Sarum, and William Cestria in Buthe, or Boothe, Bishop of Coventry, favoured our BiMurimuth shop; with whom is joined Doctor Vincent Clement, of contin. p. Oxford, whom Gascoigne calls insolens Doctor, because 112. he obtained his grace in an unusual way. For, as the Ibid. pars i. abovesaid writer informs us, "he was Inceptor in Divinity Episcopus. ❝at Oxford, when he was only in Deacon's or Subdea"con's orders, and obtained his degree of Doctor by "threats and promises, and divers letters and briefs sent "by the King against or to compel those, who in a full 66 congregation of Regents at Oxford had, out of a princi'ple of conscience, denied him his grace." By this it seems probable, that this Doctor was in some favour at court, which was enough to cause Gascoigne to have an ill opinion of him, and give him a disparaging character. In Archbishop Kemp's register he is styled-Venerabilis et egregius vir, Dominus Vincentius Clement - fructuum cameræ apostolicæ in regno Angliæ collector. p. 222; and by Archbishop Parker, Romanus quidam, Papæ subdiaconus et quæstor. Antiq. p. 434. Literæ Regiæ ad Univ. Oxon. MS. 66 5. To these I ought to add one John Harlowe, though I know no more of him, than that he having a mind to inter coll. proceed, and commence Professor of Divinity in the UniWhite Ep. Petrobur. versity of Oxford, the King's letters of mandamus were sent to the Chancellor, Regents, and Non-regents of that e Inter quos et amicus noster Adam de Molineux, secreti Regis signaculi et custos, et literarum cultor, amisso capite, truncatus jacuit. Hermannus Schedelius apud Leland de Scriptor. Britannicis, p. 454. Circa Epiphaniam Domini Magister Adam Moleyns, Episcopus Cicestrensis, apud Portesmothe in hospitali ibidem, portando ac solvendo soldariis aliisque nautis regios denarios, clamando eum proditorem regis et regni, unumque venditorem Normanniæ, miserabiliter interemptus est. W. Wyrcester, Annales Rerum Angl. ad an. 1449. VI. University, whereby they were " prohibited the conferring CHAP. "any degree on him, or any other suspected of the heresy "which he was noised to hold and favour, viz. the super"stitious, erroneous, and damned opinions of Reynold "Pecock, Minister of the see of Chichester." The foundation of this suspicion was, it seems, a report, that he had preserved a great many of our Bishop's writings, and therefore the Chancellor, &c. are required by the same letters to search his house, and if they find any such books to take them away, and transmit them either to the King, or the Archbishop, Primate of England, and Ordinary in the same. 66 66 Dec. 5, our Bishop 6. d Gascoigne tells us, that "a youth of twenty years "old, who went to the grammar school at Oxford, and 66 wore a secular habit, was accused to the King of Eng❝land, Henry VI. of divers and the worst heresies, parti66 cularly that he eat flesh on Fridays; that on this he was "put into the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln, the Lord "William Alnwicke, who committed him to Wallingford He died "jail, by which means he was induced afterwards to ab- 1449, eight jure or retract his opinions before the Bishop; and pro-years before fessing himself a Monk at Abendon, to own before Wil"liam the Abbot, that he had received and learned all his "heresies and errors from the mouth of Pecock alone, shop for he" and from no one else." But any one, I think, of tolerable resy, and sense may be left to judge of the falseness and partiality lent perseof this relation; since he cannot but have observed from the account given even by this writer of the Bishop's opinions, how our Bishop defended against the Lollards the usages of the Church, which they condemned, and particularly shewed, that the Church or Clergy had autho d Fuit nuper unus, qui 20 annorum scholaris in grammatica Oxonia, qui existens in habitu seculari accusatus fuit Regi Anglie Henrico VI. de diversis et pessimis heresibus, et qui comedebat carnes omni feria sexta; et traditus Episcopo Lincolniensi, Domino Willielmo Alnwicke, incarceratus fuit in Wallingforth, et coram Episcopo abjuratus factus est monachus Abendone, et ibi confessus est manifeste coram Abbate Willielmo, quod omnes hereses suas et errores recepit et didicit ab ore prædicti Reginaldi, et a nullo alio. Dict. Theol. MS. was conven ed before the Archbi was a vio cutor of the Lollards. CHAP. rity to appoint new fasts and holy days, or such as were VI. never ordered before. Dict. Theol. p. 382, MS. Wood, Hist. Oxon. vol. i. p. 230. 7. The same writer informs us, that John Orle, Bachelor of Divinity, was his Lordship's Chaplain, and defended his Lord from the false aspersion cast on him, in relation to his opinion of the obligation which Bishops are under to preach. 8. In the year 1476, complaint was made to the King [Edward IV.] that not a few of the members or students of the University of Oxenford were in a great many things of the opinion of Doctor Wiclif and our Bishop. For it seems at that time their opinions were reckoned to be very like, if not the same. Accordingly the royal mandate was procured to be sent to the University, requiring them to search for both Doctor Wiclif's and Bishop Pecock's books in the several Colleges and Halls, and to punish those who had embraced their opinions. In answer to these letters, the University wrote back again, that "with 66 an unanimous consent they had condemned those books "to be burnt, and had put that sentence in execution the day before; and that if any more of these two men's "writings should be found hereafter, they likewise should "be burnt." As for the men who were found to have favoured the opinions of Dr. Wiclif and our Bishop, they, the historian tells us, were either expelled the University, or excommunicated, or some other way punished. Among these was one Thomas Smyth, who being suspected of heresy was afterwards obliged to purge himself before the King. On this account, I suppose, because Dr. Wiclif and our Bishop are both mentioned together, as holding heretical opinions, the Spanish authors of the Index Expurgatorius, printed 1667, have styled our Bishop "a false "Bishop and a Lutheran professor at Oxford." Archdeacon Harpsfield says much the same of our Bishop, viz. "that he was entangled in the opinions of Wiclif." The same mistake is transcribed by Holinshed and our other historians, who are too often implicit followers of one another. But the direct contrary is very plain; for though |