A HISTORY OF NORFOLK the views of any religious party, the lightness of his punishment suggests not only great forbearance on the part of the vicar, but even the possibility that he may have thought it unw^ise to inflict a severer one, considering the state of public opinion in his parish. The number of puritan deprivations in the see of Norwich in 1605 was only five,^ which says much when the extreme views of many of the clergy there are remembered. The wages of the ministers of the city of Norwich were the subject of a petition to Parliament from them in 1605, and an order of Council was directed to the mayor and city, requiring them — to enter into the due consideration of the estates and abilities of all the inhabitants of the said parishes, and from time to time to set down a proportionable tax on every one of them, such as shall be competent for the maintenance of the said ministers respectively, to be yearly paid them according to their difference in guifts, sufBciency, and diligence in their function. — 15 Feb. 1606. Blomefield says — ' And thus the ministers' wages used to be raised for some time, till Matthew Wren, bishop of Norwich, in 1638 procured His Majesty King Charles I to declare his royal pleasure under the great seal that if any person within the said city of Norwich should refuse to pay according to the rate of 2s. in the pound, in lieu of the tithes of houses, unto the minister of any parish within the sayd city, that the same should be heard in the Court of Chancery, or in the consistory of the bishop of Norwich, and that in such case no prohibition should be granted against the bishop of Norwich, etc., which by reason of the succeeding troubles, never took effect ; notwithstanding which, this was made the ground of one of the articles of impeachment against Bishop Wren. In 1605 also an action was brought against the city of Norwich by the dean and prebends,^ concerning the charging the inhabitants in their precinct for the poor with the rest of the city ; the dispute was not settled until 16 14, when the precinct was exempted from paying to the city poor and obliged wholly to maintain its own. In 16 1 5 Thomas Tunstall, a priest, was hanged, drawn, and quartered, at the gallows beyond Magdalen gates. He confessed that he was a Benedictine friar by vow but not by act.* Bishop Jegon is said to have been unpopular in his diocese because of his insistence on conformity, and because he did not exhibit a liberality in money matters at all in proportion to his great wealth. Archbishop Whitgift wrote to Sir Robert Cecil that he considered himself greatly abused by the bishop's having procured the mastership of Corpus Christi College for his brother Thomas at his resignation. He made the same brother archdeacon of Will, servant of Robert Fisher, and Simon Bullocke of the said towne, did profanely and disorderly behave them- selves in this sort, viz. uppon Christmas daie last in the time of evening prayer, they came into the parish church of Upton aforesaid, with a great whalles bone upon their shoulders, and with y birdes, a robin redbreast and a wrenne, tied by a thridde and hanging upon the said bone, the said William making a great and a roring noyse all waie of his coming, and they went staggering to and fro in the mid allie in a scoffing and a wild profane manner, by the minister's seate (the sayd minister being reading divine service) they fell downe as though they were hevely or grevously loaden, and then and there the sayd Wicked Will in such wild and profane and lewde maner as befor, knellng uppon his knees he praid for the sayd Mr. Deyrton and his wife and for his great dog, to the dishonor of Almightle God, profanacion of the place, and evil example of others. Sexto Aprilis, 1612.' His punishment was to acknowledge his fault in the face of the church. ' Stephens, Hisf. of the Engl. Ch. v, 321. ' Blomefield, iii, 361. ' Ibid. 60. • Ibid. 366. 278
