and officers were never so full of fair words and ill deeds as now they be. A gentleman will say he loveth his tenant, but he keepeth not so good a house to make him cheer as his father did; and he taketh more fines and greater rents than his father had. Another saith he would have an office to do good in his country; but as soon as he hath authority to take the fee to himself, he setteth his servants to do his duty, and instead of wages, he giveth them authority to live by pillage, bribery, and extortion.
'My lords of the laity and clergy, in the name of God I advertise you to take heed. When the Lord of Hosts shall see the flock scattered, spilt, and lost, if he follow the trace of the blood, it will lead him straightway unto this Court.'[1]
There must have been good influence as well as bad in high places, or Latimer and Lever would not have been allowed to denounce to the world in such style the offences of Government officials. Perhaps the accusations were held to be retrospective, and reflected shame on the displaced Somerset. But this was not the whole.
A return of a nobler and also a wiser spirit began to show itself here and there among individuals. While the endowments of schools and hospitals were fraudulently made away with, and, in spite of the change of Government, continued to be pilfered, the Lord Mayor for the year 1549, Sir Rowland Hill, among other large
- ↑ Sermon of Thomas Lever, preached at Paul's Cross: Strype's Memorials, vol. iii.
