A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



the new dean, upon Cecil for promotion to the bishopric.^*' Fresh plans 

 suggested themselves. In March, 1553, an Act was passed to dissolve the see 

 of Durham,^^" another to make over Gateshead to Newcastle,"^ and a third in 

 May handed over the denuded bishopric to Northumberland.^^'' The act of 

 dissolution provided for the re-erection of the see of Durham, with an 

 income of 2,000 marks, and the establishment of a second see at Newcastle 

 with half that amount. The brief reign of Edward was fast ebbing out, 

 and no action was taken as regards the statutes mentioned, though North- 

 umberland appears to have seized upon Durham House."' 



It has been thought, not without some reason, that a famous sermon 

 preached by Bernard Gilpin at court in 1552 reflects the condition of the 

 Durham diocese with which the preacher was best acquainted."* Over and 

 above the sins common to the times he specifies non-residence, farming of 

 benefices, general ignorance, as characteristic in the Church, and speaks of 

 popular regret for the ' pomp and pleasing variety of painted cloths, candle- 

 sticks, images, altars, lamps, and tapers.' It is long before we get any account 

 of improvement in the former respect, though the ornaments named, where 

 taken away, soon began to find their way back into churches. Within 

 a month of Edward's death Tunstall was restored. The cathedral, probably, 

 returned to its old condition under Watson, made dean in November, 1553, 

 almost immediately after the Act of repeal which swept away all the 

 Edwardine ecclesiastical legislation."^ A further Act was passed annulling 

 the specific acts of Edward's last year by which the see of Durham had been 

 reduced from its ancient position."* Thus it was ' now by the authority of 

 this present Parliament fully and wholly revived, erected and [shall] have its 

 being in like manner and form to all intents and purposes, as it was of old 

 time used and accustomed.' The queen also granted to the bishop the 

 patronage of all the prebends. 



In 1554 a commission issued which drew up the present statutes of the 

 cathedral. Heath, Bonner, Tunstall, and Thirlby served on this com- 

 mission."^ The cathedral is known to have suffered much in the last years 

 of Edward, but it is doubtful whether remote parish churches in the diocese 

 were much disturbed, and a list of chantries existing at Coniscliffe in August, 

 1553, gives one instance in which the demolition of Edward's first year had 

 been quite unsuccessful."' And so whether change had been wrought or 

 whether no alteration had been effected, and there must have been instances 

 of both experiences, the general aspect in 1558 of church life in the 

 bishopric was little different from what had obtained thirty years before, save 

 where pillage or zeal had left some mark not easily to be effaced. The 

 persecution of Mary's last years certainly did not touch the diocese. 



The first commencement of change under Elizabeth was seen in 

 September, 1559, when the visitors of the royal commission (modelled on 



'" S.P. Dom. Edw. VI, vol. 14, No. 18. '=° Quoted in Hutchinson, Hht. Dur. i, 529. 



"' 7 Edw. VI. cap. 10 ; cf. JnA. Ael. ii, 219. 



**' Hutchinson, op. cit. i, 529. "' Ibid. 530. 



^^ In life of Bernard Gilpin. Summary in Low, Diocesan Hist. Dur. (S.P.C.K.), 222. 

 '" Dur. Epis. Reg. Tunstall, fol. 45. "* I Mary, Statute 2, cap. 2. 



'" See the statutes, Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. ii, 155. 



^'^ Surtees, Hist. Dur. iii, 381. There is mention of the rating of a chantry at Sedgefield in June, 

 1558 ; Harl. MS. 608. 



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