THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 34i another, world. 1 Disguised priests flitted about like bats in the twilight, or resided in private houses in ' serving men's apparel/ Corpse candles were, lighted again beside the coffins of the dead, while ' clerks and curates ' sang requiems at their side. In other parts of England ecclesiastical officials, ' nusselled in the Canon Law/ recommenced the iniquities of the spiritual courts,
- maintaining the Pope's authority/ ' propounding ques-
cions at the visitation and sessions/ ' rebuking the Pro- testant preachers/ ' encouraging or winking at persons accused of Papistry, never giving them a sharp word/ They ' provoked the people to blaspheme God, and ministered occasion to sedition ; ' and again with the doctrines they brought back the pleasant practices of the good old times commuting penances for money, compounding for moral enormities, and grinding the widow and the orphan by their fees and extortions. 2 1 Grindal to Cecil, August 29. 2 ' Appeals in causes of reform- ation of life are daily committed in the Arches, and prosecuted there con- trary to the express law of the de- cretals, and thereby notorious faults left unreformed and the offenders covered or justified, contrary to God's Holy Word. As for example : ' Mrs Neames of Woodnes- borough, a woman not only of evil life herself, but also a broodmother of others, and James Augustine of Staplehurst, who had deflowered two maids and got them with child. These twain being heinous offenders, and of the diocese of Canterbury, were justified and restored to their Romish honesty again by the Arches. ' Louis of Sommerby, having deflowered two maids and got them with child, appealed to the Arches, and is not reformed but restored to his Romish priestly iniquity again. ' Baker of Bury, in Suffolk, who was taken with another man's wife, by appeal first to the Arches and then to the Delegates, is by them justified and not reformed. ' Appeals in cases of controversy between party and party, contrary to both law and equity, do pass, Avhere- by the judges, advocates, and proc- tors do much enrich themselves and
