Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/489

 1584.] THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 473 Bench was ' noted ' as avaricious. They had commenced business at the beginning of the reign ' with alienating their livelihoods for the use of their children,' giving their families the lands of the sees on leases renewable for ever. Parliament having interfered, ' they gathered wealth by sparing/ or made their fortunes, with the help of the courtiers, ' by yielding to make grants of their lands to the Queen's Majesty, not for her profit, but to be granted by her Majesty to the bishops' friends, so as they would part stakes with such as could obtain such suits of her Majesty.' 1 To the Queen these performances were not of vital moment. She required qualities in her bishops which were not compatible with elevation of character. The Protestants believed in God, and in duties which no earthly authority could supersede. The Catholics be- lieved in the Church, in the Church as superior to Kings. Elizabeth preferred persons whom she could ' sound from their lowest note to the top of their com- pass,' and she accepted moral defects in consideration of spiritual complacency. Had they remained like the Scotch tulchans, they might have been borne with ; but in her hatred of the Puritans she allowed them to in- dulge in persecution, and to mimic over again in their courts the insolent tyranny of the old prelates ; they were encouraged to revive the proceedings which had formed the subject of the first grand complaint of the House of Commons, and ' by practices savouring rather
 * Memorial by Lord Burghley, November 28, 1585 : MSS. Domestic.