Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/184

Rh £1,500; but this included the proceedings he took in the star chamber against Henry Reynolds, the most obnoxious of the informers against him, who was made to stand in the pillory at Chester, Lancaster, and Wigan.

With all these disagreeable matters to vex and annoy him the bishop had on his mind at this time the additional anxiety of his wife's confinement in London; for she was brought to bed of a daughter on 12th May, 1633, at his house on Mill bank, Westminster.

On his return home that year (1633) the bishop was required by the King's council to investigate the case of seventeen witches from Pendle, who had been condemned to death at the Lancaster assizes; and the investigation resulted in their acquittal.

In a letter to Bishop Bridgeman, written from Fulham House, 12th August, 1633, Laud, then bishop of London, concludes with the following postscript: "My Lds grace of Cant, dyed upon Sunday, August ye 4th and it hath pleased his Maty to name me for his successor." The chief purport of the letter itself is to inform him that news had lately reached the court of the death of the chancellor of Chester, and of the bishop's intention to confer the appointment upon his son; from which he strongly endeavours to dissuade him. He says: "Mr. Orlando Bridgman is well knowne to be a very younge man, and of a profession very worthy in it self, but altogether unskilled in Ecc'ticall Lawes and Govermt, and tells him that the Dean of Arches, on hearing of this report, "did in the name of his profession, ye Doctors of ye civill & Canon Lawes, delyver a peticon to his Maty humbly desyring him yt since there was little or noe p'fermt left in this kingdome for ye profession but those places of Judicature under ye Llds ye Bpps and theyr Archdeacons, his Maty would be