ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



no need to dwell on the domestic policy of Bishops Welton and Appleby, 

 for apart from their political services on the frontier, their tenures of 

 the see were chiefly remarkable for devotion to the work of the pastoral 

 office. For almost the whole of his episcopal life, 135362, vigorous 

 efforts were made by Bishop Welton to restore and beautify the choir 

 of his cathedral. 1 The long episcopate of Bishop Appleby, 136395, 

 was unhappily disturbed by a grievous commotion in his chapter, which 

 threw the diocese into an uproar for several years. 3 



Little need be said of the two bishops whose episcopates brought 

 the fourteenth century to a close. Robert Read was bishop of Carlisle 

 only for a few months in 1396 before his translation to Chichester. 3 

 Though Bishop Merks cannot have often visited his diocese during the 

 two years he held the see, he is perhaps the most famous of all the 

 medieval bishops of Carlisle. The speech * which he is alleged to have 

 delivered in the Parliament of 1399 on behalf of his unfortunate 

 sovereign, Richard II., has played an important role in the controversies 

 about the royal prerogative which raged in the seventeenth century. 

 Whether or not he made the speech ascribed to him, it is certain that 

 the bishop was much in the company of King Richard before his de- 

 position, and that he was actually present at the time it is supposed to 

 have been delivered. Moreover, Henry IV. informed the pope in 1400 

 that he had deprived Merks of his bishopric for high treason and 

 treachery to his royal person. The portrait of this bishop, the earliest 

 portrait of a bishop of Carlisle in existence, is preserved in the British 

 Museum. 



None of the bishops of the fifteenth century left a permanent mark 

 on the diocese except Bishop Strickland at the beginning and Bishop 

 Bell at the end of the century. We do not attribute this phenomenon 

 to the disturbed condition of the nation during the historic struggle 

 between the houses of Lancaster and York half as much as to the short- 

 ness of the episcopates. No fewer than eleven bishops ruled the diocese 



Carl. Epis. Reg. Welton MS. ff. 64, 74, 82, 109, 123. In 1363 the pope granted an indulgence 

 to penitents who visited the cathedral, which had been burned, on the five feasts of the Blessed Virgin 

 or who would lend a helping hand to the fabric (Cal. Papal Petitions, i. 437). 



J Carl. Epis. Reg. Appleby MS. ff. 348-53. This disturbance is noticed in the account of the 

 priory of Carlisle. 



3 Bishop Robert Read was translated from Lismore to Carlisle on 26 January, 1395-96, and from 

 Carlisle to Chichester on 5 October, 1396 (Cal. of Papal Letters, iv. 535, 539). In the same year John 

 Frizelle, rector of Uldale, had an indult for seven years to let the fruits of his rectory to farm while 

 engaged elsewhere, as he was unable to reside without danger owing to the whirlwinds of war 

 (guerrarum turbines) which were afflicting the diocese (ibid. iv. 535). 



4 The controversies occasioned by this speech cannot be reviewed here. The speech is ascribed 

 to the bishop by the contemporary author of the Chroniquedela Traisonet Mori de Rich. 11. (Eng. Hist. 

 Soc.), pp. 70-1, though it is not mentioned by another French contemporary authority, the metrical 

 chronicle of Creton (Archaeokgia, xx. 99), which states that no word was said in parliament in Richard's 

 favour. Much has been written by the editors of these chronicles for and against the authenticity of the 

 speech. It has been also recorded and embellished by Hall (Chronicle, p. 14, ed. 1809), Holinshed (Chron- 

 icles, iii. pt. i. 512), and Shakespeare (Richard II., Act. iv. Scene i), from whom it passed into 

 English literature. The speech has been often printed in separate form, as may be seen by reference to 

 the catalogue of the library in the British Museum. Bishop White Kennett vigorously attacked the 

 authenticity of the speech in three celebrated but now very rare ' Letters to the Bishop of Carlisle con- 

 cerning one of his predecessors, Bishop Merks,' published in 1713, 1716, and 1717. 



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