ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



removed him out of that diocese in that he would not permit him to con- 

 tinue as a lecturer in Bury, after he had taken the parsonage of Rochford 

 in Essex. Mr. William Green, curate of Bromholm, was suspended for 

 many defects, and among the rest for want of a clerical habit ; but upon his 

 submission he was presently absolved, and his licence to preach was only 

 taken from him, he being very illiterate, having been of late by trade a 

 tailor : of which sort of men many others must come into the reckoning to 

 make up the number fifty that was under censure.^ As to putting down of 

 lectures, no answer can be expected unless a particular case be specified ; but 

 at Lynn there was a lecture, and at Norwich another, which the chancellor 

 caused to be intermitted, and the defendant sent him word not to intermit 

 the same. Two other lectures at Norwich had, the defendant now finds, 

 been raised up the year before, whereof Mr. Bridge carried away one into 

 Holland, and the other ceased by the lecturer returning home to his cure at 

 Stalham, whereof he was vicar ; and never did any of the city so much as 

 crave an allowance from the defendant for others in their places. At North 

 Walsham also he confirmed a lecture, one at Wymondham, and another at 

 East Harling. As for rural deans he never used that name, nor did consti- 

 tute any such. 



The bishop also refutes charges as to extortionate fees, and other un- 

 worthy money transactions ; and as to the accusation that he caused the 

 exodus back to Holland of the strangers, says that it had begun before his 

 installation, and was the result of lowered wages. 



His successor, Richard Mountague, bishop of Chichester, who was 

 translated to Norwich May, 1638, in the next year wrote of the diocese 

 that it was ' as quiet, uniform, and conformable as any in the kingdom, if 

 not more.' ' He had distinguished himself as a brilliant controversialist, at 

 first against against the Romanists, but later, his pamphlets against Calvinism, 

 called A New Gag for an Old Goose in reply to A Gag for the New Gospel brought 

 upon him the wrath of the House of Commons. It can well be imagined 

 how his record would militate against him in Norwich. But he was there 

 for less than three years, and died 13 April, 1641, after having been again 

 attacked in the House of Commons 23 February, 1 641, on a petition from 

 the inhabitants of St. Peter Mancroft concerning an inhibition directed by 

 him against Mr. Carter, parson of that parish, after which a commission 

 was appointed to consider his offences. 



The saintly Bishop Hall followed, being translated from Exeter in 

 December, 1641. Laud had suspected him of being favourable to Calvin- 

 istic and puritanical notions, and in his history of his troubles mentions 

 his appointment in refutation of the charge that he offered preferment 

 only ' to such men as were for ceremonies, popery and Arminianism ;' 

 but it was perhaps unfortunate that Norwich had in him at this juncture 

 another bishop who had gained prominence not only for uprightness of 

 purpose and character, but for intellectual force,' and who was one of the 

 most powerful defenders of episcopacy and the liturgy. He had fallen 



' Several such cases are given in Suffolk and Cambridge, and include a weaver and stage-player, vicars non- 

 resident for seventeen and twenty years, and not priests, some of debauched and scandalous life, and a 

 Mr. Ash who intruded himself into a church where the minister had not been suspended. 



' Laud, IVorks, v, 364. 



' Fuller {(Vortiiei, 441) describes him as our ' English Seneca for his pure, plain, and full style.' 



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