_Spoliation of church revenues._--The prelates of the English church, while they inflicted so many severities on others, had not always cause to exult in their own condition. From the time when Henry taught his courtiers to revel in the spoil of monasteries, there had been a perpetual appetite for ecclesiastical possessions. Endowed by a prodigal superstition with pomp and wealth beyond all reasonable measure, and far beyond what the new system of religion appeared to prescribe, the church of England still excited the covetousness of the powerful, and the scandal of the austere.[358] I have mentioned in another place how the bishoprics were impoverished in the first reformation under Edward VI. The catholic bishops who followed made haste to plunder, from a consciousness that the goods of their church were speedily to pass into the hands of heretics.[359] Hence the alienation of their estates had gone so far that in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign statutes were made, disabling ecclesiastical proprietors from granting away their lands, except on leases for three lives, or twenty-one years.[360] But an unfortunate reservation was introduced in favour of the Crown. The queen, therefore, and her courtiers, who obtained grants from her, continued to prey upon their succulent victim. Few of her council imitated the noble disinterestedness of Walsingham, who spent his own estate in her service, and left not sufficient to pay his debts. The documents of that age contain ample proofs of their rapacity. Thus Cecil surrounded his mansion-house at Burleigh with estates, once belonging to the see of Peterborough. Thus Hatton built his house in Holborn on the Bishop of Ely's garden. Cox, on making resistance to this spoliation, received a singular epistle from the queen.[361] This bishop, in consequence of such vexations, was desirous of retiring from the see before his death. After that event, Elizabeth kept it vacant eighteen years. During this period we have a petition to her from Lord Keeper Puckering, that she would confer it on Scambler, Bishop of Norwich, then eighty-eight years old, and notorious for simony, in order that he might give him a lease of part of the lands.[362] These transactions denote the mercenary and rapacious spirit which leavened almost all Elizabeth's courtiers.