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Nugae Antiquae - BISHOPS OF WORCESTER:

BISHOPS OF WORCESTER:


Doctor Gervase Babington.


            Worcester hath been fortunate in this last age to many excellent bishops; of which but two in 100 years have died bishops thereof, the rest having been removed. Also, in less then 14 year, it had one bishop became pope, another that was a protestant, namely, Clement the Seventh, and Hugh Latimer. Of the seven therefore that were in Queen Elizabeth's time, I shall in this place speak but of one, and that is he now living,<419> who by birth is a gentleman of a very good house; for learning inferior to few of his rank. He was sometime chaplain to the late Earl of Pembroke, whose noble Countess used this her chaplain's advice, I suppose; for the translation of the psalms, (of which I have seem some); for it was more than a woman's skill to express the sense so right as she hath done in her verse, and more than the English or Latin translation could give her.—They first were means to place him in Llandaff, near them at Cardiff, where he would say, merrily, his true title should be Aff, for the Land was gone.<420> Thence he came back over the sea to the see of Exeter, and thence, on terra firma, to Worcester; a place where both the church and town are at this day in very flourishing estate, and the church especially in very good reparations, which I take ever for one good argument of a good bishop; for where the sheep be ragged, and the fold rotten, there I straight suppose is no very good shepherd. Yet, as every general rule hath commonly some exception, so hath this in some places in England, and many more in Wales, of which I shall, in their due place, note somewhat in the ensuing treatises. And thus much of Worcester.

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