Compare 1577 edition: 1 The fift cause was, bicause that spirituall persons promoted to great benefices, and hauing their li|uings of their flocke, were lieng in the court in lords houses, and tooke all of the parishioners, and no|thing spent on them at all: so that for lacke of resi|dence both the poore of the parish lacked refreshing, and vniuersallie all the parishioners lacked preach|ing and true instruction of Gods word, to the great perill of their soules.

Compare 1577 edition: 1 The sixt cause was, to sée one priest little learned, to haue ten or twelue benefices, & to be resident vp|on none; and to know manie well learned scholars in the vniuersities, which were able to preach & teach, to haue neither benefice nor exhibition.

These things before this time might in no wise be touched, nor yet talked of by anie man,The bishops sticke hard a|gainst these billes. except he would be made an heretike, or léese all that he had. For t hebishops were chancellors, and had all the rule about the king, so that no man durst once presume to attempt anie thing contrarie to their profit or com|moditie. But now, when God had illuminated the eies of the king, and that their subtile dooings were once espied; then men began charitablie to desire a reformation: and so at this parlement men began to shew their grudges. Wherevpon the burgesses of the parlement appointed such as were learned in the law, being of the common house, to draw one bill of the probats of testaments, another for mortuaries, and the third for non residence, pluralities, and ta|king of farmes by spirituall men. The learned men tooke much paines, and first set foorth the bill of mor|tuaries, which passed the common house, and was sent vp to the lords. To this bill the spirituall lords made a faire face, saieng; that suerlie priests and cu|rats tooke more than they should, and therefore it were well done to take some reasonable order: thus they spake, bicause it touched them little.