A briefe view of the state of the Church of England as it stood in Q. Elizabeths and King James his reigne, to the yeere 1608 being a character and history of the bishops of those times ... / written ... by Sir John Harington ..., Knight.

William Wickham.

This Bishop my Authour professeth to reverence for his names sake, and his pre∣decessors sake; and I much more for his own sake, and his vertues sake. About the yeere 1570. he was Vice-provost of Eaton, and as the manner was, in the Schoolmasters absence would teach the schoole himselfe, and direct the boyes for their exercises (of which my selfe was one) of whom he shewed as fatherly a care, as if he had been a second Tutor to me. He was reputed there a very milde and good natured man, and esteemed a very good Preacher, and free from that which St. Paul calleth Idolatry, I mean covetousnesse; so that one may say pro∣bably, that as the first William Wickham was one of the richest Prelates that had been in Winchester a long time, and be∣stowed

it well; so this was one of the poorest, and endured it well. He prea∣ched before the Queen at a Parliament, I think the last time that ever he preached before her; and indeed it was Cygnea vox, sweetest, being neerest his end, which if I could set down as he delivered, were well worth the remembring. But the effect was this, that the Temporalities of Bi∣shopricks, and Lands of Colledges, and such like, were from the beginning for the most part the graces, gifts, and Almes of Princes, her Majesties progenitors, that for some excesses and abuses of some of them, they had been and lawfully might be some quite taken away, some altered, some diminished, and that accordingly they were now reduced to a good medi∣ocrity; for though there were some farre greater Bishopricks in France, Spaine, and Germany••, yet there were some also lesse and meaner even in Italy. But yet he most humbly besought her Majesty to make stay of them at least in this medio∣crity; for if they should decay so fast in thirty yeeres to come, as they had for thirty yeeres past, there would hardly be a Cathedrall Church found in good re∣paire within England; which inconveni∣ence

(he said) would soon spread from the Clergy to the Temporalty, that would have cause with Hippocrates Twins to laugh and weep together. This, as he spake zealously, so the Queen gave eare to it graciously, and some good effect was supposed to follow it, for which they both now feel their reward;

and thus much of Wickham.