BISHOP AYLMER. 57 



Yet one thing more the Bishop required of him ; which C H A P. 

 was, that some of his friends should be bound for him in a . 

 good round sum, that from henceforth he should neither 

 commit in act, nor preach any thing contrary to the same : 

 and then the Bishop did not mislike that he should have 

 farther favour, so that the Queen were made privy there 

 unto, whom this offence did chiefly concern. 



Our Bishop was instrumental, anno 1581, in setting on His device 

 foot a very useful practice in London ; namely, that a num- ^ m vrc 

 ber of learned, sound preachers might be appointed to preach 

 on set times before great assemblies ; chiefly, I suppose, for 

 the Paul s Cross sermons ; their pains to be spent mainly in 

 confirming the people s judgments in the doctrine and dis 

 cipline of the present established Church, so much struck 

 at and undermined by many in these times ; and for the 

 encouragement hereof certain contributions to be made, and 

 settled on them by the city. This motion was so approved 

 of at Court, and by the Queen especially, that Mr. Beal, a 

 clerk of the Council, was sent from above to the Bishop, 

 bringing with him certain notes and articles for the more 

 particular ordering of this business, which he and the eccle 

 siastical Commissioners were to lay before the Mayor and 

 Aldermen. Sir John Branch was then Mayor ; who, it 

 seems, with the Aldermen, did not much like this motion, 

 for the standing charge it must put the city to. For after 

 much expectation, the Mayor gave the Bishop answer, that 

 his brethren thought it a matter of much difficulty, and al 

 most of impossibility also. Notwithstanding, to draw them 

 to this good purpose, the Bishop had appointed divers con 

 ferences with them ; but after all concluded, (and so he sig 

 nified to the Lord Treasurer,) that unless the Lords wrote 

 directly unto them, to let them know it was the Queen s 

 pleasure, and theirs, little would be done in it ; and so a 

 good design overthrown by the might of mammon, as he ex 

 pressed it. But withal he offered that himself and the rest 

 would, if it pleased them above, proceed farther and do 

 what they could, tliinking it pity so good a purpose should 



