The endowments made by Henry VIII. to the Deanery of Chester, consisted of manors and lands to the yearly value of £563 3s. 8d., besides spiritualities to the value of £358 10s. 2d. But these splendid gifts were not destined to remain long in possession of the Dean and Chapter. In 1550 Sir Robert Cotton, Comptroller of the Household to Edward VI., having procured the imprisonment of the Dean and two Prebendaries, obtained from them a deed of surrender of the Deanery estates in his own favour. The estates so obtained were disposed of by Cotton in fee farm to certain gentlemen in Cheshire at very low prices. But the Chapter having discovered some years afterwards that the original grant of Henry VIII. was null through the omission of the word “_Cestriæ_” in the description of the grantees, they petitioned the Queen to re-grant to them the estates illegally obtained by Cotton as before mentioned; and their petition was twice argued in the Court of Exchequer. But the gentlemen to whom Cotton had sold the lands, apprehensive of the issue, bestowed a bribe of six years’ rent upon Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the then all-powerful favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who, thus stimulated, prevailed with the Queen to put a stop to the proceedings in the Exchequer, and _grant a commission to him_ and certain other Privy Councillors to hear and determine the matters at issue between the parties. The result was, that in 1580 the charter of Henry VIII. was recalled, and the estates confirmed to the fee farmers, on payment of certain rents, with which, and a few impropriations, the Queen by advice of the Earl and his coadjutors, re-endowed the Chapter. The following is a list of the Bishops, with the date of their consecration, from the foundation of the see in 1541, to the present time, for which we are mainly indebted to the valuable foot notes appended to Gastrell’s Notitia.