ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Queen Mary translated Nicholas Heath from Worcester in 1555. He 

 received his pall in October, and was enthroned in January 1555-6." In 

 the same year he succeeded Gardiner as lord chancellor. Deprivation and 

 imprisonment had not ruined his tolerant temper, and historians like Fuller 

 praise his moderation.^' The Marian persecution left Yorkshire almost 

 untouched ; the single burning recorded, that of Richard Snell of Bedale, 

 took place in the diocese of Chester." Heath recovered much of the 

 alienated property of the see and, by a series of exchanges in London, obtained 

 a site for York House, near Charing Cross.™ His tenure of the archbishopric 

 was brief. He proclaimed EHzabeth, and was one of the two moderators who 

 presided over the futile theological dispute at Westminster in 1559,^' but he 

 opposed the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, and was deprived on 5 July.*^" 

 He was imprisoned in 1560, but released in 1563, and was allowed to end 

 his days in peace." 



At the end of August 1559 the royal visitors began their visitation of 

 the Yorkshire clergy. The southern and western deaneries were visited first 

 at Pontefract, Halifax, and Otley. From 6 to 9 September the commissioners 

 were at York. They were at Hull and Beverley on 1 1 and 1 2 December, 

 at Malton and Northallerton on the 14th and 15th. On 18 September they 

 were at Richmond.*^ From these visitations a large number of clergy were 

 absent, and incurred the guilt of contumacy.'" Some deprivations took place 

 as an immediate consequence, and several of the clergy deprived under Mary 

 were restored to their benefices.'* Among the clergy whose benefices were 

 sequestered was the suffragan Bishop of Hull, Robert Pursglove, Archdeacon 

 of Nottingham and formerly Prior of Guisborough.'' Respite was given to the 

 great majority of the recusants. Meanwhile the sees of the northern province 

 were left vacant, and the temporalities administered by the council of the 

 North.'' In June 1560 William May, Dean of St. Paul's, an active reformer 

 and one of the ecclesiastical commissioners of 1559, was nominated to the 

 archbishopric. He died on the day of his election, and his place was not filled 

 till February 1 560-1, when Thomas Young was translated from St. David's. 

 William Downham became Bishop of Chester on 4 May 1561." On 

 5 May a commission was issued to Young, now president of the North, and 

 other visitors to administer the Oath of Supremacy throughout the province." 



" Drake, op. cit. 453. " Fuller, Ch. Hist. Brit. bk. viii, sect, ii, § 19. 



" Dixon, Hist. Ch. Engl, iv, 653, gives the name as Sewell. In Cattley's edition of Foxc, Acts and Mon. 

 viii, 739, it is Snel. Dixon says that the burning took place at Bedale. Foxe gives the impression that it 

 took place at Richmond ; and this is borne out by the Richmond parish registers. 



'^ Drake, loc. cit. " Ibid. ; Fuller, op. cit. bk. ix, sect, i, § 1 1. 



™ Gee, Tie Eli%abethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion, 1558-64 (1898), 36. 



" Ibid. 144, 194, 195. Heath was excommunicated in Feb. 1 560-1 for failing to attend church. He 

 died in 1579. 



''Ibid. 77-79, 81. 



^ Dr. Gee (ibid. 83-5) gives the names of absentees in York diocese, and (87, 88) those in Chester 

 diocese. Some of the place-names given cannot be identified with absolute certainty from the lists. Bishops 

 Hull (84) is probably one of the Bishophill churches in York; Wormsley (83) and Fockton (84) should 

 probably be Womersley and Folkton. The lists are from the commissioners' report in S.P. Dom. Eliz. x. 



^ List of restitutions (ibid. 89), from the same source. The Yorkshire benefices thus filled up with 

 Bulmer, Burnsall, Doncaster, Hutton (?), Kirkby in Cleveland, Ripley, Sedbergh, Settrington, Whiston, the 

 archdeaconry of Richmond, and the mastership of St. Nicholas' Hospital at Richmond. 



«' Ibid. 78. 



^ Gee (ibid. 165) notes, from one of the Zurich letters, the statement that the revenues of the sees 'did 

 gloriously replenish the Exchequer.' 



"Ibid. 166. »»Ibid. 167. 



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