Although it lasted but a while, the plague thereof
is not yet ceased, which our Lorde quen^he and take
his indignation from us ! qui peccavimus cum pa-
jribus nostris, et injuste egimus!" p. 420 and 421.
u ^ Cayen^sh '^^^ passagc, waxm from the heart, could have

been written by none but a zealous anti-reformist.
That certainly was not Sir William Cavendish. He
had been one of tlie principal instruments in effect-
ing what was a necessary and glorious work, let our
author say what he will against it Men are not
accustomed to record their own condemnation with
such a bold, untreipbling hand. That hand, which



§5

is supposed to have penned these words, had been
once extended to receive tfee conventual seal of
the Priory of Sheen, and the Abbey of St. Alban's.
The person by whom we are to believe they were
written had been an officer in that court which was
purposely erected to attend to the augmentation of
the king's revenue by the sequestration of ecclesias-
tical property ; the proceedings of which court were
too often unnecessarily harsh and arbitrary, if not
unjust and oppressive. Nay more, at the very time
these words were written. Sir William Cavendish was
living on the spoils of those very monasteries whose
overthrow is so deeply deplored ; and rearing out of
them a magnificent mansion at Chatsworth in Der-
byshire, to be the abode of himself and his poste-
rity. After so long and so decided a passage, it has
been thought unnecessary to quote any other : but
throughout the work api)ears the same zeal in the
writer to signalize himself as a friend to the old pro- ..
