Here, too, is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the _cause_ or was it the consequence of death--was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My Lord, in May, 1732, the remains of William, Lord Archbishop of this province, were taken up by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there. Let it be considered, my Lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ravages of those times affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken up, graves and vaults broken open, monuments ransacked, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship, suffer not the violence, the depredations, and the iniquities of these times to be imputed to this. Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle, which, though How a ruin, was once considerable, both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the Parliament. At which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places around it; and where they fell were buried. For every place, my Lord, is burial-earth in war; and many, questionless, of these yet rest unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover. I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment, and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place to impute to the living what zeal, in its fury, may have done; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.