required document, and attached the great seal to it; and the plan completely succeeded. The Earl’s Irish possessions were invaded; in consequence of which he crossed the Channel in order to protect them, but in a skirmish, after having manfully maintained his ground against fearful odds, he fell mortally wounded; and died in the hands of his enemies, subjected in his last moments to every species of cruelty and insult. For this murder of the noble Earl of Pembroke (for it was nothing less) the Dean of Bridgnorth was arraigned before the King and his Justiciaries. He appeared on this occasion strangely habited for an ecclesiastical dignitary; for he wore a corslet underneath his clerical garment, and had a dagger suspended from his girdle, and appeared half soldier, half priest. The King, assuming an appearance of anger which he did not feel, for he secretly rejoiced at the death of the Earl, accosted the Dean in very furious language, calling him a traitor, and accusing him of having entered into plots which had brought damage and disgrace on his kingdom. The Dean was sentenced to be committed to the Tower; and when he pleaded his clerical orders, as a reason why he should not be given up to the custody of a layman, the King answered, reasonably enough, that he had always demeaned himself as a layman, and as a layman he was now required to give an account of his stewardship: and forthwith gave orders that all his lay possessions should be confiscated.[20] His name certainly confers no honor on the Royal Peculiar of Bridgnorth, of which he was Dean; but I thought it well to give this brief sketch of his history, as reflecting the manners of the age in which he lived, and as shewing in a very striking way the miserable condition in which the Church was sunk at that period. It was not then as it was afterwards, in Puritan times, when, according to the lively author of _Hudibras_, [20] This account of Peter de Rivallis, given by Mr. Eyton (in his _Antiquities of Shropshire, Vol. 1, pp. 330, 334_), is collected from the historian, Matthew Paris. “The pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, Was beat with fist, instead of a stick.” Sharper and more formidable weapons were wielded in those days by men in holy orders, and wielded at times to some purpose. It was doubtless a sad perversion of the right order of things, when soldiers in Cromwell’s army took upon them the office of divines; but it was a far worse perversion, when divines became soldiers—when the tonsure was covered with a plumed helm—when Bishops and Deans, like this famed Dean of Bridgnorth, hid a coat of mail underneath their cassock, and wore a dagger at their girdle—when Dignitaries of the highest rank, as was not seldom the case, led out armies to the field, and, sword in hand, mingled in the thickest of the fight.