a calumnious report that he had misappropriated money received through the high commission and through his ordinary jurisdiction;[1] and in pursuance of this cruel slander a petition, in Martin's name, was forwarded to the King, in which it was alleged that the bishop had more than £10,000 in his hands received by him and not disposed of ad pios usus.
This being a very serious charge, the King thought fit to issue a commission to make a private enquiry into the matter. The commission was directed to Sir Thomas Canon, knight, and Nicholas Hunt, gent., a proctor of the Arches, ordering them to enquire whether the bishop had received any other commutations than those which he had returned; and the first intimation which reached him of these vexatious proceedings against him was conveyed to him in a private letter from the King, delivered by the commissioners themselves on their arrival at Chester on 19th January, 1632-3.
Happily for him his accounts were always very carefully and methodically kept, so that his innocence in this respect could be clearly shewn. He immediately sent for his secretary, who had arrived from Wigan that very night, and whose books, together with the bishop's own private Leger, were at once produced before the commissioners; and when the accounts had been cast up, and all his secretaries, officers, and others, to the number of 100 persons, had been examined upon oath, it appeared that during the fourteen years of his episcopate there had been but; £1073 13s. 4d. received ad pios usus by him and his officers, and that they had disbursed in pios usus all that sum and £700 more from the bishop's private purse.
So when the commissioners found that there was no case against him, Sir Thomas Canon, being unwilling to return to the King empty handed, urged the bishop to lend £10,000, which he
- ↑ The fines enforced through the high commission were taken to the King's own use, and the commutation money paid to the bishops for ecclesiastical offences were to be applied to charitable purposes.
