ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



occupied in his cure, and to make satisfaction for twenty years of neglect. 

 He feels sure that Wolsey would not have him serve the world to the 

 damnation of his soul and other souls committed to him, and assures him 

 that his absence is not to hunt nor hawk, nor even for quietness of 

 mind, but to endeavour to do his duty to the flock committed to his 

 charge. 1 



On 30 April, 1522, Fox wrote another touching letter to Wolsey 

 on the same subject, saying that as an old priest of over seventy years of 

 age he could no longer have anything to do with the war, that he had no 

 little remorse of conscience as to the enormities of the war, that if he 

 should live twenty years longer and do penance every day he could not 

 make sufficient recompense for his share, that the king had licensed him 

 to remain in his church, and that that was the least he could do, for he 

 had been so negligent that of his four cathedral churches he had never 

 even seen Exeter nor Wells. In the same letter he stated that he had 

 much diocesan business on hand, both of correction and justice, and that 

 he visited his cathedral and the monastery of Hyde once every fifteen 

 days. 2 



The bishop seems to have found his diocese in a sadly neglected 

 condition, for in a third letter to Wolsey, between the dates just cited, 

 namely in January, 1521, he writes with joy as to a projected scheme of 

 Wolsey's for the reformation of the clergy, and says that he is endea- 

 vouring to do within his own small jurisdiction what the cardinal is 

 proposing to effect throughout the two provinces. The bishop stated 

 that he had given his whole mind to this subject for nearly three years, 

 and had found the clergy, and particularly the monks, so corrupted by 

 the license of the times, that he had almost despaired of effecting any 

 perfect reformation.* 



However, in January, 1528, after a wider experience of his diocese, 

 and after his careful visiting, he is able to write to his friend Wolsey 

 from Winchester in a very different strain. He says that he had never 

 had occasion to deprive any one in any of his dioceses, and that (except 

 at Southwark, which is under the archdeacon's jurisdiction) there was as 

 little known crime as within any diocese in the realm. In the same 

 letter the interesting fact comes out that the various monasteries had 

 been put to less cost during the twenty-six years of his episcopate than 

 was usual, for during the whole of that period he had never taken pro- 

 curations of them in all his visitations. 4 



From 1520 the blind bishop, though frequently officiating in 

 person, had the assistance, as suffragan, of William Barnett, Bishop of 

 Kildare. 



On the death of Fox, the see of Winchester was conferred on his 

 friend Cardinal Wolsey, who held it in commendam from 6 April, 1529. 

 Wolsey was merely nominal bishop. He never visited the cathedral 



1 Letters and Papers, Henry VIII. (1515-16), No. 1814. 



* Cott. MSS. Faust, E. vii. 121. 3 Ibid. C. vii. 216. 



* Letters and Papers, Henry Vlll. (1526-8), No. 3815. 



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