The last years of the great Queen witnessed a rather distressing condition of things in the county. Pestilence was a frequent visitor in times that were insanitary, and the transition to happier conditions in religion and in society was not complete. The villages were frequently unpopulated, and tillage was decayed, whilst the starving families wandered into the neighbouring towns in search of food. Probably the depressing state of affairs was worse in the Bishopric than in other parts of England, for it received a special aggravation in the Scottish inroads, which were renewed towards the end of the reign before their final extinction at the accession of James. When the Elizabethan Poor Law began its work, the county of Durham benefited by its operation, for regular collectors for the poor were appointed, and sometimes rates were levied, in place of the very uncertain alms of the "poor man’s box" in the church, to which parishioners were asked to contribute under the Injunctions of Elizabeth. The Stuarts showed more regard for the Palatinate of Durham than did the Tudors. No Tudor sovereign, it seems, entered the county, but James I., Charles I., and James II. when Duke of York, paid ceremonious visits to Durham, and in general upheld the prestige of the see, though they never completely restored its independence. One of the most interesting episodes of the seventeenth century is the religious revolution carried out during the first forty years. Bishop Neile is credited with introducing to Durham a series of prebendaries who altered the aspect of the cathedral and produced great changes in the services. These "innovations" caused much comment, and although Charles in 1633 paid a special visit, and by his presence and countenance sanctioned what had been done, frequent remonstrance was made. The long reign of Elizabethan Churchmanship had accustomed the people to one uniform type of worship and ornament, and they were not prepared for the alterations now made in ritual and in the appearance of the churches. When the Scots entered England in 1640, by way of remonstrance against the King’s policy in Church and State, the Bishopric was not altogether unsympathetic; but when the armed demonstration proved to be an armed occupation extending over a year in duration, the royalism of Durham re-asserted itself. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 it was warmly royalist. A second Scottish occupation after Marston Moor in 1644 kept this spirit in check, whilst the Long Parliament virtually superseded the Palatinate and governed the district by committees. Bishop, prebendaries, and other high ecclesiastics had fled when the Scots entered Durham in 1640. Parliament now seized upon the lands of Bishop and Chapter, and sold them or let them as opportunity offered. Thus for several years the old ecclesiastical constitution of Durham was destroyed, and in the parish churches, carefully cleared in 1644 from all "monuments of idolatry," a