LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 229 



upon as grievances or illegal restraints upon 

 them, yet both these prelates have esteemed, 

 his regulations so proper, and his injunctions 

 so wise, as to offer at no amendments or altera- 

 tions in them. Nor will the service he did 

 that church be easily forgot, so long as his 

 injunctions remain upon the register of the 

 chapter. 



As to the suggestions of those vicars who 

 complained that he had exceeded the limits of 

 his power, they are groundless, because he as- 

 sumed and exercised none but what were ex- 

 pressly invested in him by the statutes. And 

 the infringement upon their ancient rights and 

 privileges, if ever there were any made, was 

 made by Archbishop Sandys, in giving his suc- 

 cessors the liberty, by statute, of taking what 

 order they pleased during their own lives, con- 

 cerning the pensions and houses of the vicars. 

 Nor is it easy to account how Archbishop Sandys 

 should have taken this authority upon himself, j 



otherwise than that he knew himself to be 

 sufficiently warranted in what he did by Queen 

 Elizabeth's commission to him, authorized by 

 Parliament ; and which was granted to him 

 with more ample powers than had been ever 

 exercised before (except in the church of Dur- 

 ham by Queen Mary's commissioners, who had 

 the same parliamentary sanction to their acts^ 



