Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/36

 j& KETGN OF ELIZABETH. [011.41. servants/ 'their tenants/ ' their manors/ 'their lord- ships/ 'their woods/ 'their corn.' l Celihacy had been found an unwholesome restric- tion ; married clergymen might have been expected to do their duties the better rather than the worse for the companionship ; and such complaints as these might be regarded as the inevitable but worthless strictures of malice and superstition. But it was not wholly so. While the shepherds were thus dividing the fleeces the sheep were perishing. In many dioceses in England a third of the parishes were left without a clergyman, resident or non-resident. In 1561 there were 1561. J. in the Archdeaconry of Norwich eighty parishes where there was no resident incumbent ; in the Arch- deaconry of Suffolk a hundred and thirty parishes vere almost or entirely in the same condition. 2 In some of these churches a curate attended on Sun- days. In most of them the voices of the priests were silent in the desolate aisles. The children grew up unbaptized ; the dead buried their dead. At St Helen's in the Isle of Wight the parish church had been built upon the shore for the convenience of vessels lying at the anchorage. The Provost and Fellows of Eton were the patrons, and the benefice was among the wealthiest in their gift ; but the church was a ruin through which the wind and the rain made free passage. The parish- 1 Complaints against the Dean and Chapter of Worcester : ., Elizabeth, vol. xxviii. 2 STRYI-E'S Annals of Hie Reformation, vol. i.