By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 41 
that they might know how long the king should live, and whether 
he should be victorious over his enemies or not.’’ 
Such charges as these seem to us frivolous. Perhaps, however, 
there was more in these so-called chemical experiments than ap- 
pears at first sight. The king, we know, for years lived in fear of 
the Roman Catholics, and he may have suspected a conspiracy 
against his life, carried on under such a pretence. As far as the 
_ result was concerned, our vicar fared better than his patron. My 
Lord Hungerford lost his head,— William Byrde only his living.’ 
After Vicar Byrde’s removal, the living of Bradford was held for 
some time by Thomas Morley,’ suffragan Bishop of Marlborough. 
Of Bishop Morley little is known. He held at the same time with 
Bradford, the living of East Fittleton, void also in 1540 by the 
attainder of William Byrde. He died in 1553. 
Soon after the dissolution of the monastery at Shaftesbury the 
king bestowed the prebendal Manor of Bradford, together with the 
advowson of the various churches, on the Dean and Chapter of 
Bristol, one of the new ecclesiastical corporations that he created 
and endowed out of the proceeds of some of the suppressed religious 
houses. They still retain both the patronage and the prebendal 
manor. 
The lay manor was for a time retained by the Crown in its own 
hands. It was afterwards leased out by Queen Elizabeth to Henry 
Earl of Pembroke. In the eighteenth year of her reign, the same 
1 Burnet’s ‘History of the Reformation,’ Part i. B. iii, sub. anno 1540. 
* There was a William Bird, ‘Prior of Bath,’ of whom Wood (Fast. Oxon. i. 
71.) says that he died 22 May, 1525, in poverty, having expended too much in 
‘building and in chemical experiments to which he was extremely addicted.” 
He rebuilt the Church at Bath (See Collinson’s ‘Somerset,’ i. 56). They cannot 
be the same person, as William Byrde, Vicar of Bradford, was not deprived till 
1540. Wood, perhaps, has made some confusion between the two, but if there 
were two, and both of them chemists, the coincidence is curious. About that 
period, the strange science of Alchemy was very popular. 
® Wilts Institutions, 1540, The appointment was made by the king, and is 
thus entered, ‘‘ Thomas Morley sedis Merlebergen. Episcopus Suffraganus per 
attincturam Willielmi Byrde de alta proditione.” 
* The Churches are thus enumerated in the grant which bears date 34 Henry 
VIII.—,‘‘ac etiam omnes illas Rectorias et Ecclesias de Bradforde, Wynnes- 
leigh, Holte, Attworth, Wraxhall, et Comerweill,” &c. All traces of the church 
at Cumberwell have been lost. 
