Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/177

356 in to the registrar on that day; but this was done merely to delude the court, for they were afterwards taken out again and carried to Sir Henry Martin, who took them from the registrar, on the pretence that the order of the court did not authorize any one commissioner to admit them, and kept them in his custody till the 9th of May following, which was the next court day; so that the bishop could not prepare his answer to them, though he frequently demanded to see them. In the meantime the promoters sent abroad, raking and hunting for more and other matters which were thrust in amongst those remaining in Sir Henry Martin's hands. These new articles being thirty-two in number (making 110 in all) were produced in court on the 9th of May by Sir Henry Martin, who, in order to procure a freer admittance of them, made a solemn protestation in open court that they contained nothing but what concerned commutations, save only some miscarriages of the bishop's servants towards Sir Thomas Canon, whereupon the court was content to admit them. But that this protestation was untrue, and made on purpose to deceive the court, appears by the articles themselves, which contain divers false, frivolous and scandalous charges on other matters besides commutations. In order to give colour to the suggestion and information that the bishop had £10,000 for pious uses yet remaining in his hands, they unjustly accused divers gentlemen of good note and quality in his diocese (who had never before been accused or suspected of incontinency) of being notorious offenders, and of having given great sums of money by way of commutation as bribes so that they might be tolerated or winked at in their sins, and moreover invented divers fictitious names of other parties not known to be in verâ naturâ, whom they likewise feigned to be great offenders and to have paid the said bishop divers sums of money by way of commutation or otherwise. They accused the bishop himself of having counterfeited the hand and seal of King James to a letter for removing James Martin from his appointment; and affirmed that his servants (Brown and Lloyd), at the hearing of the Wigan