OF 8JEL BORNE. 
493 
LETTER XXIV. 
ISHOP WAYNFLETE'S efforts to continue 
the Priory still proved unsuccessful ; and the 
convent, without any canons, and for some 
time without a prior, was tending swiftly to 
its dissolution. 
When Sharp's, alias Glastonbury's, priorship ended does 
not appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to 
remove some priors for mal-administration ; but it is not 
well explained how that could be the case with any, unless 
with Sharp ; because all the others, chosen during his epis- 
copate, died in their oflfice, viz. Morton and Fairwise ; Berne 
only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily, and was 
moreover approved of by Waynflete as a person of integrity. 
But the way to show what ineffectual pains the bishop took, 
and what difl&culties he met with, will be to quote the 
words of the libel of his proctor Eadulphus Langley, who 
appeared for the bishop in the process of the impropriation 
of the Priory of Selborne. The extract is taken from an 
attested copy. 
Item — that the said bishop — dicto prioratui et personis 
ejusdem pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores, et 
diligentias gravissimas quam plurimas, tam per se quam per 
sues, pro reformatione premissorum impendebat ; et ali- 
quando illius loci prioribus, propter malam et inutilem admi- 
nistrationem, et dispensationem bonorum predicti prioratus, 
suis demeritis exigentibus, amotis ; alios priores in quorum 
circumspectione et diligentia confidebat, prefecit ; quos 
tam en male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, et admi- 
nistrasse, usque ad presentia tempera post debitam inves- 
tigationem, &c. invenit.'' So that he despaired, with all his 
care, — statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare ; et con- 
siderata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo, et conjectu- 
rando futura de aliqua bona et sancta religione ejusdem 
