church from a crafty interpretation and undue extension of these statutes. Its privileges were eluded, and its jurisdiction in danger of being annulled. They supplicated king Henry to remove the grievance by an act of parliament; and, in return for a gracious answer, granted him an entire tenth, and exempted his college of All Souls from the payment. Budden relates that Waynflete frequently presided by appointment of the archbishop in these assemblies; and particularly when, from a like motive, a subsidy was voted to enable the king to repel the Scots, who had made an incursion on the frontier; Henry or Edward, for no date is given, having by royal diploma then recently restored and secured the rights and immunities of the church, which had been convulsed and shaken, says my author, by the malevolent attacks of their subtile adversaries. The inns of court were now filled with lay students, and jealousy and animosity long subsisted between them and the ecclesiastics, by whom they were considered as formidable rivals. P. 87. Ex Actis Synod. Londin. I 2 SECT, SECT. VII. THE nation continued to be harassed with conspiracies and insurrections, until the queen after another battle (25 April 1464) escaped with prince Edward into Flanders; and a defeat in Northumberland reduced king Henry to live in caves and in concealment above a year, when he was betrayed, conveyed to London with his feet bound in the stirrups, and committed to the Tower. Waynflete cannot be supposed an indifferent spectator of these great events. His prudence and address must have been often and fully exercised, in preserving a wary and inoffensive conduct at a period so critical and so replete with danger P. SECT. VIII. THE misfortunes, the capture, and confinement of king Henry must have deeply afflicted another prelate, bishop Bekyngton. Toward the end of the year in which their patron was imprisoned, Waynflete was deprived of this friend, and Wykeham's colleges, with Lincoln college, Oxford, of their especial protector and benefactor. At the latter, as at Winchester, a beacon • Stow. Hume. Parliament. Hist. vol. ii. P Stow. 9 A. Wood, Gutch, p. 244. and and ton still alludes to his name; and in one window of the hall are the arms of Eton, in another of Waynflete, whom we may suppose to have concurred with him in acts of beneficence, and to have entertained a provincial attachment to the society. He was succeeded in his bishoprick by Robert Stillyngton, who had been collated in 1450 to the archdeaconry of Taunton in the same diocese, and had headed the party of the non-residents in a dispute between the canons, which, when wearied and exhausted by a troublesome and expensive litigation, they agreed to refer to the wisdom and equity of Waynflete, (perhaps while he held the seals, for I have not met with the date of the transaction,) by whom it was happily ter minated. SECT. IX. I HAVE not been able to discover whether any intercourse was allowed or carried on, between Waynflete and the captive monarch, during his long confinement of near nine years in the Tower. The piety and clemency of king Henry had conciliated the affection and reverence of the people, had been respected by the confederate chieftains when flushed with victory, and, added to to his high rank, probably exempted him from rigorous or unhandsome treatment. If he was permitted, as I suppose, to see and converse with the bishop, their interviews gave no umbrage to the king de facto and de jure; who in 1466, of his special grace, quieted and exonerated him and his successors in his see, from all debts, demands, penalties, and forfeitures to the crown, which he might have incurred; and further consulted his peace and tranquillity, in 1469, by granting with the authority of parliament to him, his heirs and executors, a most ample pardon of all crimes, misdemeanors, and transgressions, and a remission of their consequences; declaring and accepting him as a true liegeman, and receiving him into special favour'. The preamble of this instrument sets forth, that the king had a regard to the manifest good deserts of the bishop, and that he had found him always grateful and trust-worthy. It appears that he was reconciled to him gradually, and not without previous trial of his behaviour. I Rymer Acta MSS. vol. i. 6 Edw. IV. CHAP CHAPTER VII. Of Bishop Waynflete during the Remainder of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth. SECT. I. HE extirpation of the Lancas "TH trian party had been nearly effected by battles, murthers, attainders, exile, and the scaffold, when Edward was destined in his turn to be for a time with Henry the sport of inconstant fortune. In 1470 his brother the duke of Clarence, with the earl of Warwick, fled to France, and concluded a treaty with queen Margaret, who consented that prince Edward her son should marry a daughter of Warwick, on condition that her husband Henry should be replaced on the throne. In eleven days, such was the turbulence and instability of the people, and such the power of their leaders, a revolution was accomplished. King Edward escaped from his bed to the sea-side, and to Holland, without a recompense to bestow on the captain of the vessel, except a robe, and |