BISHOP AYLMER. 69 



appearance before the Counsellors gave occasion to the fac- CHAP, 

 tion to boast, and to bruit abroad that the Bishop of Lon- 



don was called before the Council, and there chidden, and 

 what not ; as though this had been in respect of his severe 

 actings in the Commission. However false this was, the 

 Bishop, being a man of a stout and somewhat hasty spirit, 

 was inwardly vexed ; and thought this talk arose partly 

 from his being before so many of the Council ; which made 

 the matter look somewhat criminal on his side. Therefore His request 

 for the future, to prevent any such surmises, he prayed the 

 Lord Burghley, that hereafter, if there should be occasion, 

 he might be called before him, and some one of the Coun 

 cil; or else he must, as he said in some heat, with their 

 good Lordships 1 favour, give over sitting in the Commis 

 sion : and moreover wished earnestly that the Archbishop 

 were in the Commission ; for he, for his part, was deadly 

 weary. Accordingly the Commission was renewed in De 

 cember, and the Archbishop put in to help to bear the 

 burden. 



The Bishop was troubled at this time with Popish Priests Papists in 

 and Jesuits, who lay in the prisons in and about London, 

 and especially the Marshalsea ; being now replenished with 

 these dangerous underminers of the quiet state of the realm, 

 and disowners of the Queen s supremacy. These, though 

 by the laws they were liable to the death of traitors, yet the 

 Queen cared not to spill their blood, but rather to keep 

 them up in restraint from doing mischief abroad, by their 

 massing and suggesting evil counsels against religion and 

 the Queen s just authority. But though they were thus in 

 hold, under an easy confinement, they followed their ap 

 pointed business, commonly saying mass, and enticing the 

 youth of London unto them, to the Bishop s great grief 

 when he understood it ; and especially that they were daily 

 reconciled. One of these, named Hartly, was more busy 

 than the rest ; whom he therefore shut up, and laid irons 

 upon him, till he should hear from above what course to 

 take hereafter in this matter. 



Our Bishop s triennial visitation happened this year, 1583. Visits. 



F3 



