Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/528

508 to keep life in their famished bodies. 'You maintain your chaplains,' said the brave and noble Lever, face to face with some of these high offenders; 'you maintain your chaplains to take pluralities, and your other servants more offices than they can discharge. Fie! fie! for shame! Ye imagine there is a parish priest curate which does the parson's duty. Yes, forsooth—he ministereth God's sacraments, he saith the service, he readeth the homilies. The rude lobs of the country, too simple to paint a lie, speak truly as they find it, and say 'he minisheth the sacraments, he slubbereth the service, he cannot read the humbles.''

There is no hope that these pictures are exaggerated; and from the unwilling lips of the privy council comes the evidence of the effect upon the people. The cathedrals and the churches of London became the chosen scenes of riot and profanity. St Paul's was the stock exchange of the day where the merchants of the city met for business, and the lounge where the young gallants gambled, fought, and killed each other. They rode their horses through the aisles, and stabled them among the monuments. They practised pigeon-shooting with the newly introduced 'hand-guns,' in the churchyard and within the walls.

In the administration the investigations which followed Somerset's deposition revealed large fruits of carelessness. 'Whalley,' one of the late Protector's friends,