The domestic chaplains were usually employed more or less in secular duties. Thus such services are regularly allotted to the eleven priests in the chapel of the Earls of Northumberland; one was surveyor of my lord's lands, and another my lord's secretary. Mr. Christopher Pickering, in his will (A.D. 1542), leaves to "my sarvands John Dobson and Frances, xx{s}. a-pece, besydes ther wages; allso I gyve unto Sir James Edwarde my sarvand," &c.; and one of the witnesses to the will is "Sir James Edwarde, preste," who was probably Mr. Pickering's chaplain.[251] Sir Thomas More says, every man has a priest to wait upon his wife; and in truth the chaplain seems to have often performed the duties of a superior gentleman usher. Nicholas Blackburn, a wealthy citizen of York, and twice Lord Mayor, leaves (A.D. 1431-2) a special bequest to his wife "to find her a gentlewoman, and a priest, and a servant."[252] Lady Elizabeth Hay leaves bequests in this order, to her son, her chaplain, her servant, and her maid.[253] CHAPTER II. CLERKS IN MINOR ORDERS. It is necessary, to a complete sketch of the subject of the secular clergy, to notice, however briefly, the minor orders, which have so long been abolished in the reformed Church of England, that we have forgotten their very names. There were seven orders through which the clerk had to go, from the lowest to the highest step in the hierarchy. The Pontifical of Archbishop Ecgbert gives us the form of ordination for each order; and the ordination ceremonies and exhortations show us very fully what were the duties of the various orders, and by what costume and symbols of office we may recognise them. But these particulars are brought together more concisely in a document of much later date, viz., in the account of the degradation from the priesthood of Sir William Sawtre, the first of the Lollards who died for heresy, in the year 1400 A.D., and a transcript of it will suffice for our present purpose. The archbishop, assisted by several bishops, sitting on the bishop's throne in St. Paul's--Sir William Sawtre standing before him in priestly robes--proceeded to the degradation as follows:--"In the name, &c., we, Thomas, &c., degrade and depose you from the order of priests, and in token thereof we take from you the paten and the chalice, and deprive you of all power of celebrating mass; we also strip you of the chasuble, take from you the sacerdotal vestment, and deprive you altogether of the dignity of the priesthood. Thee also, the said William, dressed in the habit of a deacon, and having the book of the gospels in thy hands, do we degrade and depose from the order of deacons, as a condemned and relapsed heretic; and in token hereof we take from thee the book of the gospels, and the stole, and deprive thee of the power of reading the gospels. We degrade thee from the order of subdeacons, and in token thereof take from thee the albe and maniple. We degrade thee from