Those lands continued in the possession of his successors till the reign of King Stephen, who took them away: “whereupon (says this account) his prosperity forsook him.” King Stephen being dead, “these lands came into the hands of some of the Montagues (after earles of Sarum), who whilest they held the same, underwent many disasters. For one or other of them fell by misfortune. And finally, all the males of them became extinct, and the earldome received an end in their name. So ill was their success.”
After this the lands were restored to the bishoprick; but were taken away a second time by the Duke of Somerset, in the reign of Edward VI.; “when the duke, being hunting in the parke of Sherburne, he was sent for presently unto the kinge (to whome he was protector) and at his coming up to London, was forthwith committed unto the Tower, and shortly after lost his head.” The lands then, in a suit at law, were adjudged to the Bishop of Sarum; and so remained, “till Sir Walter Raleigh procured a grant of them; he afterwards unfortunately lost them, and at last his head also. Upon his attainder they came, by the king’s gift, to Prince Henry; who died not long after the possession thereof. After Prince Henry’s death, the Earle of Somerset (Carr) did possesse them. Finally, he lost them, and many other fortunes.”—Peck’s Desid. Cur. Lib. 14. No. 6.
[Note 14, page 34, line 11.]
Accomplish’d Raleigh! in that lawless day.
“How Dr. John Coldwell, of a physitian, became a bishop, I have heard by more than a good many; and I will briefly handle it, and as tenderly as I can; bearing myself equal between the living (Sir Walter Raleigh) and the dead (Bishop Coldwell). Yet the manifest judgements of God on both of them I may not pass over with silence. And to speak first of the knight, who carried off the Spolia opima of the bishoprick. He, having gotten Sherborne castle, park, and parsonage, was in those days in so great favour with the queen, as I may boldly say, that with less suit than he was fain to make to her, ere he could perfect this his purchase, and with less money than he bestowed since in Sherborne (in building, and buying out leases, and in drawing the river through rocks into his garden), he might, very justly, and without offence of either church or state, have compassed a much better purchase. Also, as I have been truly informed, he had a presage before he first attempted it, which did foreshow it would turn to his ruin, and might have kept him from meddling with it, Si mens non læva fuisset: for, as he was riding post between Plymouth and the court (as many times he did upon no small employments), this castle being right in the way, he cast such an eye upon it as Ahab did upon Naboth’s vineyard. And, once above the rest, being talking of it (of the commodiousness of the place, of the strength of the seat, and how easily it might be got from the bishoprick), suddenly over and over came his horse, that his very face (which was then thought a very good face) plowed up the earth where he fell. This fall was ominous, I make no question; and himself was apt to construe it so. But his brother Adrian would needs have him interpret it as a conqueror, that his fall presaged the quiet possession of it. And accordingly, for the present, it so fell out. So that with much labor, cost, envy, and obloquy, he got it habendum et tenendum to him and his heirs. But see what became of him. In the public joy and jubilee of the whole realm (when favor, peace, and pardon, were offered even to offenders), he who in wit, in wealth, in courage, was inferior to few, fell suddenly (I cannot tell how) into such a downfall of despair, as his greatest enemy would not have wished him so much harm, as he would have done himself. Can any man be so willfully blind as not to see, and say, Digitus Dei hic est!”—Harrington’s Brief View, p. 88.
To these Notes are added the following, taken from Æschylus, to show the resemblance between the expressions of that author and certain passages in this poem.
——Let me walk embathed
In your invisible perfumes.—[P. 2, v. 16.]
Τις οδμα προσεπτα μ’ αφεγγης; Prom. Vinc. 115.