102 PAPEKS, ETC. 



new Blshoprlcks in several of the larger dioceses. 

 Taunton among other places was selected for tliat honor. 

 On the Patent ßoll of the 29th of his reign is a 

 mandate to Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 setting forth that the BIshop of Bath and Wells had 

 signified to him the need under which that dlocese lay of 

 an active Suffragan, and that he had presented to him two 

 Clerks, William Fynche late Prior of Bremar, and Richard 

 Walshe Prior of the Hospital of S. John Baptist of 

 Bridgewater, both in Priest's Orders, born in lawful matri- 

 mony, of lawful age, learned both in Spirituals and Tem- 

 porals, and without Canonical impediment of any kind, 

 one of whom he had humbly and devoutly supplicated that 

 he would select for the high office. Further, that he, of 

 his special grace and mere niotion, nominated William 

 Fynche, one of the aforesaid, to be SufFragan Bishop of 

 Taunton, and that he gives and confers on him the style, 

 title, and dignity of SufFragan Bishop. Finally, that he 

 requires the Archbishop to consecrate the said William 

 Fynche, thus nominated, and to confer on him Benedic- 

 tion, and all the Episcopal Insignia, and all and singular 

 other things which it belonged to his Pastoral Office to 

 confer. The missive was dated on the 25th of March, 

 1538.-- 



It is hardly necessary that I should inform my reader 

 that William Fynche was the last as well as the first 

 Bishop of Taunton. 



The tempest -was now all but come upon the greater and 

 richer Houses, and the enemy waited but time and oppoi*- 

 tunity to accoraplish the work on which he was bent. It 

 is not my province, however, to dwell upon the general 



* Fat. 29 Hen. VIII., p. 5, m. 23. 



