So brittle is the state of man, so soon it doth decay,
So all the glory of this world must pas and fade away.
"This Robert Pursglove, sometyme Bishoppe of Hull, deceased the 2 day of Maii, in the year of our Lord God, 1579."
Wood says (Ath. Oxon., edit. Bliss, ii. c. 820.), that about the beginning of Queen Mary's reign he was made Archdeacon of Nottingham, and suffragan Bishop of Hull; but Dr. Brett, in a letter printed in Drake's Eboracum, 1736, fol., p. 539., says he was appointed in 1552, the last year of the reign of Edward VI.
John I. Dredge.
In Wharton's List of Suffragan Bishops, the following entry occurs:
"Robertus Silvester, alias Pursglove, epūs Hullensis, 1537, 38."
But this is probably a mistake, as, in a short account of his life by Anthony à Wood (vol. ii. col. 820., Athen. Oxon., edited by Bliss), I find it stated, that "on the death of Rob. Sylvester about the beginning of Queen Mary's reign, he was made Archdeacon of Nottingham, and suffragan Bishop of Hull, under the Archbishop of York." Wood afterwards adds:
"After Queen Elizabeth had been settled in the throne for some time, the oath of supremacy was offered to him, but he denying to take it, was deprived of his archdeaconry and other spiritualities."
Tyro.