And it happed me, at the first aboarding of us, we took a ship of 300 ton, and I was left therein and twenty-three men with me; and they fought so sore that our men were fain to leave them, and then come they and boarded the ship that I was in, and there I was taken, and was prisoner with them six hours, and was delivered again for their men that were taken before. And as men say, there was not so great a battle upon the sea this forty winter. And forsooth, we were well and truly beat; and my Lord hath sent for more ships, and like to fight together again in haste.
THE EVILS IN THE CHURCH (Written before 1458).
Source.—Gascoigne's Loci e Libro Veritatum, edited by Rogers. (Oxford: 1881.)
Unworthy promotions [pp. 13, 14].
It is notorious now in the realm of England that boys, youths and men dwelling in the courts of the worldly are placed in churches, in high offices and in prelacies, others being set aside who have long been occupied in study and preaching and in the guiding of the people without thought of worldly lucre.... Among others unworthily promoted, one foolish youth, eighteen years of age, was promoted to twelve prebends and a great archdeaconry of the value of a hundred pounds, and to one great rectory, and a certain layman received the rents of all the said benefices, and spent upon the youth just as much as he, the layman, pleased, and never rendered an account, and that youth was the son of a simple knight, and, like an idiot, was drunk almost every day.
Non-residence [pp. 3, 149].
Some never or seldom reside in their cures, and he to whom a church is appropriated and who is non-resident, comes once a year to his cure, or sends to the church at the end of the autumn, and having filled his purse with money and sold his tithes, departs again far away from his cure to the court where he occupies himself in money-making and pleasures.... O Lord God! incline the heart of the Pope, Thy vicar, to remedy the evils which arise through the appropriation of churches, and by the non-residence of good curates in the same. For now in England a time draweth nigh when men will say, "Formerly there were rectors in England, and now there are ruined churches in which cultured men cannot decently live...."
Church dues oppressive [p. 13].
For Rome, like a singular and principal wild beast, hath laid waste the vineyards of the church, reserving to herself the elections of bishops, that none may confer an episcopal church on anyone unless they first pay the annates or first-fruits and rent of the vacant church. Also she hath destroyed the vineyard of God's church in many places, by annulling the elections of all the bishops in England. Also she destroys the church by promoting wicked men according as the King and the Pope agree.
The abuse of the Sacraments [pp. 197].