BISHOP AYLMER. 67 



ried away all the timber there. For as he, since her Ma- CHAP, 

 jesty s restraint, had not felled nor sold one tree, so under 



the terms aforesaid the woodwards had carried away above 

 an hundred, which were good timber trees. For indeed 

 there were few or no timber trees then within his parks, but 

 either sear, starveling, or half dead. Therefore by the ri 

 gour of his patent the woodward should have all, and the 

 Bishop none, by reason of the prohibition : whereas neither 

 law nor conscience, as the Bishop himself argued, could 

 otherwise interpret his grant, than that he should have fire 

 wood only, and no timber. But the Bishop had not only this 

 wrong done him, but all was laid upon his neck, though it 

 were other men s faults. So that in fine he desired to come 

 to his answer against any man that should take upon him 

 to charge him. And as for Litchfield, in truth he wanted 

 twenty timber trees, and requested them of the Bishop. 

 But the Bishop refused to give them: which if he had 

 granted, as he plainly told the Treasurer, it would have 

 ended all this matter. But this man soon after died. 



He it was that blazed abroad the report of the Bishop^s The elms in 

 felling of the elms about the palace at Fulham : but it was Fulham 

 a shameful untruth. And how false it was, all the Court Admoni- 

 knew, and the Queen herself could witness. For she 

 lately lodged at the palace there ; where she misliked 



thing, but that her lodgings were kept from all good pros- J^ ^ ue&amp;lt; 

 pect by the thickness of the trees, as she told her Vice- lodges at 

 Chamberlain ; and he reported so to the Bishop. And Dr. 

 Pern, Dean of Ely, being at a great man s table soon after, 

 and hearing much railing discourse against the Bishop for 

 his felling the elms at Fulham, asked one of the company, 

 being an ancient lawyer, how long the elms at Fulham had 

 been felled ; &quot; Some half a year ago&quot;, said the lawyer. &quot; Then 

 replied Pern, &quot; they are marvellously grown in that time. 

 &quot; For I assure you, I was there within these four days, and 

 &quot; they seem to be two hundred years old. 1 And then he 

 took occasion likewise to repeat the passage mentioned be 

 fore, how the Queen complained of her prospect hindered 

 by the trees. And therefore that story that commonly 



