=John Underhill= (1589), Rector of Lincoln College, and one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains, was next appointed, "being persuaded," says Willis, "on certain considerations, to accept it in the way of a better." But it proved "very much out of his way; for ere the first-fruits were payed he died in great discontent and poverty about the beginning of May 1592." Again Elizabeth, who had already taken away some of the best estates from the bishopric, kept it in her hands the third time (1592-1604): "who," says Willis, "constituting no bishop forty-one years of her forty-four, disposed of its income to her courtiers as she thought fit, giving whatever they had a mind to ask; though, as some writers remark, it proved miserably fatal to them, particularly to her great favourite the Earl of Essex." With =John Bridges= (1604-1618) commences the unbroken succession of Bishops of Oxford. It is suggested by Fuller in his "Worthies" that "the cause that church was so long a widow was the want of a competent estate to prefer her"; but at this time, Elizabeth being dead, the endowment of the see had been increased; and henceforward occupants for it were found. Bridges is known to history mainly from his name appearing at the head of the title-page of the first two Marprelate tracts. He was then, 1587, Dean of Sarum, and had written a temperate reply to the Puritan pamphleteers who were pouring violent abuse upon Episcopacy. Martin Marprelate seized upon his book, "A Defence of the Government Established in the Church of England," and headed the "Epistle" and the "Epitome" with, "Oh read over D. John Bridges, for it is a worthy worke." He was a good Bishop. =John Howson= (1619-1628) was a great controversialist of the time, his four sermons against the Pope's supremacy having, according to Fuller, "made him famous to all posterity." He was one of the original members of Chelsea College, an institution founded by James I. "to afford divines leisure and other conveniences to spend their time wholly in controversy." Mercifully this terrible design soon gave way, and Chelsea College became Chelsea Hospital. Bishop Howson was translated to Durham in 1628, where he died at the age of ninety-five. =Richard Corbet= (1628-1632) was "a distinguished wit in an age of wits, and a liberal man amongst a race of intolerant partizans." But perhaps his liberality (which did not prevent him, by-the-way, from carrying out the Laudian discipline with a high hand) was due to his own easy way of living: for he and his chaplain were wont to lock themselves in the wine-cellar and be merry. He seems to have been a genial, kind, generous, and spirited prelate; sincere and affectionate in private life, he was, says Gilchrist, "correct, eloquent, and ingenious as a poet." At least he was a man of character. From 1632 to 1635 he was Bishop of Norwich.