416 REIGN- OF ELIZABETH. [CH. Her bishops she treated with studied insolence as creatures of her own, whom she had made and could un- make at pleasure : the bishops themselves lived as if they knew their day to be a short one, and made the most of their opportunities while theylasted. Scandalous dilapidations, destruction of woods, waste of the property of the Sees by beneficial leases, each incumbent enriching himself and his family at the expense of his successors this is the substantial history of the Anglican hier- archy, with a few honourable exceptions, for the first twenty years of its existence. At the time when Wai- sin gham was urging Elizabeth to an alliance with the Scotch Protestants, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, was just dead. He had left behind him enormous wealth, which had been accumulated, as is proved from a statement in the handwriting of his suc- cessor, by the same unscrupulous practices which had brought about the first revolt against the Church. He had been corrupt in the distribution of his own patron- age, and he had sold his interest with others. No Catholic prelate in the old easy times had more flagrantly
- v abused the dispensation system. Every year he made
profits by * admitting children to the cure of souls ' for mone}r. He used a graduated scale in which the price for inducting an infant into a benefice varied with the age, children under fourteen not being inadmissible, if the adequate fees were forthcoming. 1 1 ' The late Archbishop had many occasions of wealth, the possibilities whereof are taken away from his successors. He called in all the dis- pensations made by Cardinal Pole, and so by faculties that year gate
