BISHOP AYLMER. 137 



no more than the law doth in other cases : as in strays, pro- CHAP, 

 claimed and kept a year and a day, according to the law, 



the property is altered, and transferred to the lord from the 

 true owner. So is it for stolen cattle, brought bona Jide to 

 the open market. The first owner s property is gone, and 

 the buyer hath it. And so it was for waived goods, as was 

 that cloth. So that herein the Bishop did but maintain the 

 common known right and privilege of his manor, and no 

 otherwise than any other lord of a manor would and might 

 do in the like case. But to shew that he had not so great 

 a desire to detain the cloth as the libeller presumed, he 

 oftentimes asked an officer of his, how it happened that the 

 diers came not for it : for he had been ever ready, and still 

 was, (and so the apologist seemed to have warrant from him 

 to declare,) to deliver it to them, or the value thereof, if it 

 proved to be theirs. 



As to the executors of Allen the grocer, it is true the Bi 

 shop was somewhat moved to hear his name to be in the mer 

 chants * books ; a thing which he ever so precisely avoided, 

 that commonly he sent to them he had to do with, warning 

 them to deliver nothing in his name, without his own hand, 

 or ready money. Hence if peradventure, provoked by the 

 executors, he used some sharp words in a matter that was 

 so sudden and so strange to him, it must be placed among 

 human frailties. But certain it is, that though not at that 

 time, yet very shortly after, the debt was discharged ; and 

 that long before Martin s railing book came forth, excepting 

 ten pounds, which the said executors themselves for a time 

 respited. 



The business the Bishop had with one Barnabe Benison, Benison s 

 who called himself student in divinity, and who for his&quot; 1 

 perverseness was kept in the Clink half a year and more, 

 was thus. This man had studied for some time at Geneva ; 

 and after a convenient stay returned into England, full 

 fraught with the study of innovation and disobedience, set 

 ting up his station in London : where he was married by 

 some other order different from the book and usage of the 

 Church of England : and it seems bore out himself by 



