A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



under the Commons' dire disapproval when he was removed to the richei 

 see of Norwich, and the king's action in making the appointment was 

 bitterly resented. 



He valiantly defended his order, and in his Hard Measure has left a 

 vivid account of his own sufferings after the arrest of the bishops in 1641, 

 on Pym's impeachment of them for high treason. They were liberated on 

 bail, but their estates were forfeited ; 400 //' a year was assigned for the main- 

 tenance of Bishop Hall, and he was ordered to go down to Norwich, where 

 he made his first appearance early in 1642. On the passing of the act for 

 the sequestration of the property of malignants April, 1643, commissioners 

 were sent to Norwich, who not only impounded all the rents of the see then 

 due, but seized everything in the palace, even the children's clothes. Utterly 

 destitute, he applied to the committee of the eastern counties for an allow- 

 ance, and the 400 // already voted was assigned to him. This was at once 

 stopped by the London committee, who ordered that only the fifth allowed 

 to the wives and families of malignants should be granted him. Owing to 

 difficulties in ascertaining the exact amount of the fifth, the bishop and his 

 family were kept without payment.^ He had been deprived of a great part 

 of his private fortune also, and if it had not been for a small income his 

 wife possessed, and for the profits still arising from the sale of his books, 

 would have been in actual want. In 1644 the townsmen wrecked the 

 cathedral and chapel,^ and violently expelled the bishop from the palace, 

 and he removed to Higham to a small house near the church, where he died. 

 8 September, 1658 ; his life even in this time of poverty and distress was 

 an example of steady uprightness and generosity. With great courage he 

 had continued to ordain and institute even after the passing of the Covenant 

 in 1644. 



Even in puritan Norfolk the number of clergy ejected from their livings 

 during the interregnum reached the not insignificant figure of eighty, and 



' Walker, Sufferings of the CUrgy, ii, 55. 



' In Hard Measure the bishop has left an account of this in his own words : ' Sheriff Toftes and Alderman 

 Linsey searched my chapel for superstitious pictures, and sent for me to let me know those windows full of 

 images must be demolished. I obtained leave that I might with the least loss and defacing of the windows 

 give order for taking off that offence, which I did by causing the heads of those pictures to be taken off . . . 

 There was not that care and moderation used in reforming the cathedral church bordering on my palace 

 (10 June, 1644.). It is no other than tragical to relate the carriage of that furious sacrilege, whereof our 

 eyes and ears were the sad witnesses, under the authority and presence of Linsey (Alderman), Toites the 

 sheriff, and Greenwood. Lord, what work was here ! What clattering of glasses ! What beating down of 

 walls 1 What tearing up of monuments ! What pulling down of seats ! What wresting out of iron and 

 brass from the windows and graves ! What defacing of arms ! What demolishing of curious stone-work, 

 that had not any representation in the world, but only of the cost of the founder and skill of the mason ! 

 What tooting and piping on the destroyed organ pipes ! And what a hideous triumph on the market day 

 before all the county, when, in a kind of sacrilegious and profane profession all the organ pipes, vestments, 

 both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had been newly sawn down from over the 

 Green-yard pulpit, and the service books and singing books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the 

 public market-place ; a lewd wretch walking before the train in his cope trailing in the dirt, with a service 

 book in his hand, imitating in an impious scorn the tune, and usurping the words of the litany used formerly 

 in the church. Near the public cross, all these monuments of idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire, not with- 

 out much ostentation of a zealous joy, in discharging ordnance to the cost of some who professed how much 

 they had longed to see the day. Neither was it any news upon this guild-day to have the cathedral, now open 

 on all sides, to be filled with musketeers, waiting for the major's return ; drinking and tobaconning as freely as if 

 it had turned alehouse.' (Quoted in Life of Bishop Hall, by the Rev. John Jones, 405.) According to Blome- 

 field (iii, 390), on 9 March, 1643-4, the court ordered that 'seaven popish pictures that were taken from 

 St. Swithin's, the Angel and Four Evangelists taken at St. Peter's, and Moses and Aaron and the four Evange- 

 lists that came from the Cathedral, and some other superstitious pictures, shall be burnt in the open market 

 this day.' 



2qO 



