“ HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 199 
statement of fact. He observes that ‘ whereas David Pole is said, 
by the historian, to have been preferred at Peterborough, one of the 
poorest of the bishoprics, in truth, Peterborough was at that time 
none of the last bishoprics in England, having been endowed by 
King Henry far above any of the newly-erected bishoprics, and so 
continued until Scambler, the successor of this David Pole, did by 
a simoniacal contract convey away the better part of the possessions 
of it to a noble person of the neighbourhood ; that he might make 
way for his own translation to the see of Norwich, to do the like 
mischief there.” Now the fact is far otherwise, according to the 
following assertion of White, Bishop of Peterborough. ‘‘ Scambler 
says he resigned a good part of his bishopric into the queen’s hands, 
for the Lord Burghley got it, or, as his family asserts, bought it. 
He resigned the manors of Thirley and Walton in Lincolnshire, 
with the manor of Southorpe in Northamptonshire, and at Tambolt 
with the lordship of the loake of Peterborough, and had in exchange 
for it £84. per annum fee, farme rent ; but it does not appear there 
mwas any symoniacal contract about it. Scambler had formerly been 
chaplain to Lord Burghley, and by his means had been preferred at 
Peterborough.”—TuHomas PETERBOROUGH.* 
In the peroration of Wharton’s critical volume, nothing can more 
strikingly illustrate the malignity with which the whole is composed 
than the following passage, in which there is an exaggerated view 
taken from the bishop’s mistakes in fact or induction, mixed up with 
a great deal of spite and empty insult ; for while Wharton pretends 
to have pointed out, in the gentlest manner imaginable, the positive 
defects and errors in the ecclesiastical portions of the history, he art- 
fully strives to bring the whole work into disrepute, by representing 
it as a very easy task to detect similar blunders and errors in the ci- 
vil parts of it, could he prevail upon himself to make the obnoxious 
experiment. “ We were sufficiently able to defend the justice of the 
Reformation before any foreigner undertook to deliver the history of 
it, and shall be so still, if the reputation of his history should suffer 
any diminution. Lest it should be imagined that I have examined 
this history so curiously as to have discovered all the errors and de- 
fects of it, and to have left no room to after diligence and inquiry of 
others, I do protest that I never formed any design of this nature 
until about a month since ; I have noted what my memory and pre- 
sent collections suggested to me. But it may be easily observed 
that I have considered only that part of the history which is purely 
* Lansdowne MSS. fol, 490. 
