The Holinshed Project

Holinshed Project Home

The Texts
1587

Previous | Next

Compare 1577 edition: 1 The bishop of Winchester at this councell also began an other brall among the cleargie, for being brother to king Stephan, & armed with the popes au|thoritie as his legat in England, by reason of exer|cising his authoritie, fell at variance with the bishop of Canturburie, who tooke himselfe for his superior, bicause he was his primat. This quarell grew so far in question, that they went both to Rome to haue the controuersie decided, and so bringing their sutes thither, contented well the eares of them that had the hearing of the same: for the more weightie the cause seemed, the better it liked them.

¶A late writer, noting in clergiemen of his age & countrie not onelie the aspiring vice of ambition, Paul. Lang. in Chron citizen. pag. 760. but other disorders also, and monstrous outrages, after a complaint made that gold (by which title he calleth those of the ecclesiasticall order) is turned in|to EEBO page image 55 drosse, and swéet wine become tart vineger, con|cludeth with the illation of the cause hereof compri|sed in this metricall accouplement, saieng:

Dum factor rerum priuaret flamine clerum,
Ad satanae votum successit turba nepotum.

Which he inferred vpon occasion against the pre|posterous elections of vnmeet men into episcopall [...]ées, for that they were not so qualified as the dig|nitie of the place required; otherwise peraduenture enabled with competent knowledge and learning. And suerlie, we may note these inordinate affections from the beginning of this our chronicle in the best (I meane in respect of their estates) of this liuerie, and may iustlie impute it to the defection of Gods spirit in them, whose nature is to plant peace and méekenesse in the harts of his tenants, not discord, not ambition, not the works of darknesse, which be|séeme not the children of light. But to the purpose.

Previous | Next