Of Bishop Gilbert Bourne<381> I can add nothing, and of the other Gilbert<382> but a word, that he was a good justicer, as saith the same author, nisi quatenus homo uxorius conjugis importunitate impulsus a veri ac recti tramite aberravit, "saving that sometimes being ruled by his wife, by her importunity he swerved from the rule of justice and sincerity," especially in persecuting the kindred of Bourne his predecessor. The fame went that he died very rich, but the same importunate woman carried it all away, that neither church nor the poor were the better for it.

            But for Doctor Godwin,<383> of whom I am to speak, I must (with my authors leave) add a word of mine own knowledge. He came to the place as well qualified for a bishop as might be, unreproveably without simony, given to good hospitality, quiet, kind, affable, a widower, and in the Queen's very good opinion, non minor est virtus quam quærere parte tueri.<384> If he had held on as clear as he entered, I should have as highly extolled him: but see his misfortune, that first lost him the Queen's favor, and after forced him to another mischief.

            Being, as I said, aged, and diseased, and lame of the gout, he married (as some thought for opinion of wealth) a widow of London. A chief favourite<385> of that time. (whom I am sorry to have occasion to name again in this kind) had laboured to get the manor of Banwell from this bishopric, and disdaining the repulse, now earing this intempestive<386> marriage, took advantage thereof, caused it to be told to the Queen, (knowing how much she misliked such matches) and instantly pursued the bishop with letters and mandates for the manor of Banwell for 100 years. The, good bishop not expecting such a sudden tempest, was greatly perplexed, yet a while he held out, and endured many sharp messages from the Queen, of which myself caried him one, delivered me by my Lord of Leicester, who seemed to favor the bishop, and mislike with the knight for molesting him; but they were soon agreed, like Pilate and Herod to condemn Christ.

            Never was harmless man so traduced to his Sovereign, that he had married a girl of twenty year old, with a great portion, that he had conveyed half the bishopric to her, that (because he had the gout) he could not stand to his marriage; with such scoffs to make him ridiculous to the vulgar, and odious to the Queen.

            The good Earl of Bedford happening to be present when these tales were told, and knowing the Londoner's widow that the bishop had married, said, merily to the Queen, after his dry manner, "Madam, I know not how much the woman is above twenty, but I know a son of hers is but little under forty;" but this rather marred than mended the matter. One said, majus peccatum habet:<387> another told of three sorts of Marriage; of God's making, of man's making, and of the Devil's making: of God's making; as when Adam and Eve; two young folk, were coupled; of man's making; When one is old and the other young, as Joseph's marriage; and of the devil's making, when two old folk marry not for comfort, but for covetousness: and such they said was this. The conclusion to the premises was this; that to pacify his persecutors, and to save Banwell, he was fain to part with Wilscombe for 99 years (I would it had been 100,) and so purchased his peace. Thus the bishopric, as well as the bishop were punished, who wished in his heart he had never taken this preferment to foil himself in his decrepit age, with that stain that all his life he had abhorred; and to be made an instrument of another man's sacrilege,<388> and used like a leaden conduit pipe to convey water to others, and drink nothing but the dregs and dross and rust itself. Wherefore right honestly, and modestly, and no less learnedly, writes his own son of him in the forenamed treatise, O illum fœlicem, si fœlix manere maluisset, quam regiminis ecclesiastici labores tum suscipere, cum laboribus impar fractus senio necessum illi fuerit aliorum uti auxilio, &c. "O happy he, if he would rather have remained happy where he was, than to undergo the labours of ecclesiastical government; when he grew unable to travel, broken with age, constrained to use the help of others; who though their duty required a care of so good-natured an old man, yet they proving (as most do) negligent of others' good, and too greedy of their own, overthrew both."

            For my part, though I loved him well, and some of his, yet in this case I can make no other apology for him, nor use no other plea in his defence, but such as ill debtors do, that when they are sued upon just occasions, plead per minas;<389> or, rather, to liken him to a husbandman, that dwelling near a judge that was a great builder, and coming one day amongst divers other neighbors with carriages, some of stone, some of timber; the steward (as the manner of the country was,) provided two tables for their dinners; for those that came upon request,<390> powdered beef<391> and perhaps venison; Those that came for hire, poor John<392> and apple-pies; and having invited them to sit down in his lord's name, telling them one board was for them that came for love, the other for those that came for money; this husbandman and his hind<393> sat not down at either, which the steward imputing to simplicity, repeated his former words again, praying them sit down accordingly; but he answered (for there is craft in the clouted shoe) he saw no table for him, for he came neither for love nor money, but for very fear: and even so I dare answer for this bishop, he neither gave Wilscombe for love, nor sold it for money, but left it for fear.

            How strangely he was entrapped in that unfit marriage, I know not; if it may called a marriage:

Non Hymeneus adest illi, non Gratia lecto.<394>

            Himself protested to me with tears in his eyes, "he took her but for a guide of his house, and for the rest (they were his own words) he lived with her as Joseph did with Mary, our lady." Setting this one disgrace of his aside, he was a man very well esteemed in the country, beloved of all men for his great housekeeping; of the better sort, for his kind entertainment and pleasing discourse at his table. His reading had been much, his judgement and doctrine sound, his government mild and not violent, his mind charitable, and therefore I doubt not but when he lost this life, he won heaven according to his word, win God, win all.<395> This I say truly of him, which his son was not so fit to say, for fear perhap of that foolish saying, (yet wise enough if it be well understood) nemo laudat patrem nisi improbus filius.<396>

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