By the Rev. Canon Moberly. 147 
“ Our hospital,” says Mr. Hickman, “ was certainly a concealment ; 
for had the master thereof but shewed the foundation (which was 
only Bishop Robert’s Ordination and Bishop Beauchamp’s statutes) 
in the times either of King Henry VIII., Edward VI., or Queen 
Elizabeth, it had most assuredly fallen to the Crown, with the many 
other superstitious foundations in those days.” It is impossible, on 
considering the evidence, to arrive at any other conclusion than that 
thus candidly avowed. ‘The restriction of the office of warden to a 
priest: the giving him charge of St. John’s chapel, where also 
priests said masses: the injunctions to the chaplain of the hospital 
itself about serving the sick (by saying masses for quick and dead, 
by visiting the sick, and by hearing their confessions) make it plain 
that the hospital might too easily have been brought within the 
scope of the statute, and thus destroyed, however lamentable and 
unjust such destruction would have been. But to Mr. Bigge it 
seemed an intolerable injustice that such a thing should be possible : 
and therefore he set to work to prevent it by all the means in his 
power, and was finally successful. 
The Earl of Pembroke died January 19th, 1601, and was succeeded 
by his eldest son, William. In this year also passed the statute of 
charitable uses: which empowered the Queen to send into each 
county commissioners, of whom the bishop and chancellor of the 
diocese are to be two, authorizing them to enquire concerning 
charitable foundations, to examine witnesses, and to decree as to 
them. Mr, Hickman says :—“ It is supposed that when she sent 
her commissioners into Wiltshire her eye was chiefly (in favour of 
the said Tipper and Dawe, to whom she had given it two or three 
years before) on this hospital of St. Nicholas, to which she bare no 
good will.” But we can hardly suppose that a measure intended 
for all the kingdom alike was set on foot because of ill will to one 
_ small institution. 
The commissioners sent to Wiltshire were thirteen; the bishop, 
the dean, the chancellor of the diocese, the archdeacon of Sarum, 
four knights, and five esquires. They issued searching articles of 
enquiry: and to them Bigge had to make answer. His answer at 
large does not survive, but the account that he made showing his 
