The Act which deprived Bishops of their legislative functions did not touch their revenues; but there followed, within a little more than two months, an ordinance which absolutely deprived some amongst them of their estates, personal as well as real, and placed the possessions of all the rest in jeopardy; so that from affluence they were reduced to poverty, or to the imminent hazard of losing whatever they had. Those who lived beyond the year 1650 will be noticed hereafter. Those who died before that time are recorded now. [Sidenote: _Bishops._] Robert Wright, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, one of the protesters, remained in the Tower eighteen weeks; and when set at liberty, retired to his episcopal castle of Eccleshall, in Staffordshire, which he--like a military Churchman of the middle ages--defended against the Parliament. He died during a siege in the summer of 1643. Dr. Accepted Frewen, nominated by the King as successor to Wright, derived but little from his see before the Restoration.[261] Thomas Westfield, bishop of Bristol, who died in 1644, won the good opinion of all parties; so that the Puritan committee, appointed by the ordinance for sequestering delinquents' estates, on being informed that his tenants refused to pay their rents, ordered them to yield to him the revenues of his bishopric, and gave him and his family a safe conduct to Bristol. It is said of him, that "he made not that wearisome which should be welcome; never keeping his glass (the hour glass in the pulpit), except upon extraordinary occasions, more than a quarter of an hour: he made not that common which should be precious, either by the coarseness or cursoriness of his manner. He never, though almost fifty years a preacher, went up into the pulpit but he trembled; and never preached before the King but once, and then he fainted."[262] [Sidenote: 1641-1650.] His immediate successor in the see, Thomas Howell, consecrated at Oxford during the siege of that city, is reported to have been treated at first by the people of Bristol with great indignity and violence--his palace being turned into a malt-house and a mill--but the mildness of his disposition overcame all enemies, and though he found few well-affected on his appointment to the diocese, he left few ill-affected towards him at his death. He died in 1646, and was buried in his own cathedral. George Coke, bishop of Hereford, forfeited his estate, like the other protesters. Colonel Birch, a Parliamentary officer, took possession of his palace on the surrender of the episcopal city in 1645. His wife and children had an exhibition granted for one year out of his sequestered estate at Eardsley, on condition that neither she nor her husband should assist the malignants. He died in 1646.