CHAPTER IX.
The bill of October for removing Bishops from the House of Peers had hung fire. On its reaching the Upper House it had been once read, and then laid aside. The conduct of the bishops, which led to their impeachment, also induced the Commons to urge upon the Lords the passing of this measure. After some hesitation, they read the bill a third time, on the 5th of February; and the Commons, now become impatient, expressed their sorrow, three days afterwards, that the royal assent had not been immediately given. The King's reluctance was at the same time expressed at a conference on the 8th of February, by the Earl of Monmouth, who said, "that it was a matter of weight which his Majesty would take into consideration, and send an answer in convenient time."[259] On the 14th of February came the tardy "Le Roy le veult." No prelate now remaining to read prayers, the Peers ordered that the Lord Chancellor's or the Lord Keeper's chaplain should "say prayers before the Lords in Parliament," and in his absence, the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper should appoint some other person for that service. The vacant benches, staring their lordships in the face, appeared unsightly; in consequence of which they named a committee to consider "how the peers should sit in the House, now that the Bishops' seats were empty."[260]
1642, February.
Thus fell, after threatening assaults for fourteen months, the temporal power of the prelates. Their exclusion from the Upper House is opposed to the ancient laws and customs of the realm, and it does violence to those ideas of the English Constitution which are based upon the history of the middle ages. Then Church and State were bound in the closest ties, and Churchmen, from their presumed superior intelligence, were esteemed amongst the fittest men to make laws and to direct public affairs. But matters had undergone a vast change by the middle of the seventeenth century, and many persons of enlarged minds had come to perceive, that there was no more necessity for seeking senators than seeking chancellors from the clerical ranks; that neither the liberties of the subject, nor the prerogatives of the crown, appeared to be in danger from the change; and that the removal of the bench of Bishops would not destroy the integrity and completeness of the Upper House, or put out of working gear the machinery of the Constitution. On political grounds they saw no valid objection to the measure, whilst in a religious point of view they deemed it highly desirable.
The Act which deprived Bishops of their legislative functions did not touch their revenues; but there followed, within a little more than two months, an ordinance which absolutely deprived some amongst them of their estates, personal as well as real, and placed the possessions of all the rest in jeopardy; so that from affluence they were reduced to poverty, or to the imminent hazard of losing whatever they had.
Those who lived beyond the year 1650 will be noticed hereafter. Those who died before that time are recorded now.
Bishops.
Robert Wright, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, one of the protesters, remained in the Tower eighteen weeks; and when set at liberty, retired to his episcopal castle of Eccleshall, in Staffordshire, which he—like a military Churchman of the middle ages—defended against the Parliament. He died during a siege in the summer of 1643.
Dr. Accepted Frewen, nominated by the King as successor to Wright, derived but little from his see before the Restoration.[261]
Thomas Westfield, bishop of Bristol, who died in 1644, won the good opinion of all parties; so that the Puritan committee, appointed by the ordinance for sequestering delinquents' estates, on being informed that his tenants refused to pay their rents, ordered them to yield to him the revenues of his bishopric, and gave him and his family a safe conduct to Bristol. It is said of him, that "he made not that wearisome which should be welcome; never keeping his glass (the hour glass in the pulpit), except upon extraordinary occasions, more than a quarter of an hour: he made not that common which should be precious, either by the coarseness or cursoriness of his manner. He never, though almost fifty years a preacher, went up into the pulpit but he trembled; and never preached before the King but once, and then he fainted."[262]