A pressing difficulty, in the opening years of Elizabeth, was the illiterate and immoral condition of the clergy. So many refused the oath of supremacy that it became necessary to create lay readers. Indeed, the condition of England, including London, was calculated to fill the minds of the most ardent Protestants with dismay. During the first fifteen years of the reign, the House of Commons complained to the Queen that men were ordained who were infamous in their lives and conversation; the Bishop of London complained that even the Bishops were “sunk and lamentably disvalued by the meanest of the peoples”; the County of Essex represented that the new clergy were ignorant, riotous and drunkards; the Lords in Council represented to the Archbishop of Canterbury the evil lives of the clergy. Out of all the clergy in the City of London there were but nineteen preachers. Yet in 1559 Elizabeth ordered that there should be a sermon once a month on doctrine. And in 1586 the Bishop of London ordered the clergy to write one Sermon every week. It is said that the clergy fell so low in esteem as to be treated like outcasts, incurably drunken, ignorant, and licentious. [Illustration: KNIGHT SEIZING AN ARCHBISHOP From an illuminated MS. in British Museum.] With the general charges against the Elizabethan Clergy it appears unnecessary to bring forward specific acts which may very well be taken to be isolated cases, in no way proving general corruption. There are, however, a few which seem to show the general condition of things. In 1562, a priest was carted through the City for saying mass. In 1554 priests, who would not leave their wives, did penance in St. Paul’s, and were beaten over the head with rods. In 1561 the Queen, who never approved the marriage of priests, ordered those who were married not to bring their wives into Colleges. In the same year there were found to be many conjurors in Westminster including priests, one of whom was put in pillory. In 1557 the priest of St. Ethelburga was pilloried for sedition, and had his ears nailed to the pillory. In 1559 there was a great burning of copes, censers, crosses, altar cloths, rood cloths, books, banners, etc. In 1560 a priest was hanged for cutting a purse; it was his second offence. The priest who sold his wife to a butcher, and was carried through the streets for an open shame, must hardly, one hopes, be quoted as an example. We picture him as a drunken and dissolute hog, lost to all sense of decency. The other priest who for an act of immorality was also carried about the streets may have been more common. When all the clergy married as a matter of course such scandals ceased. As I have reproduced certain charges against the clergy and Religious of the old Faith, it is but fair to give an example of the bad character of one, at least, belonging to the clergy of the Reformation. The following letter is addressed to the Lady Bowes:— “Right Worshipfull,