18. THOMAS HEMENHALE, who soon resigned this see, and accepted that of Worcester in lieu of it. Then succeeded 19. ANTHONY DE BECK, a man of the most imperious and turbulent temper, who had terrible quarrels with the monks, by whose instigation, as it was thought, he was poisoned by his own servants at his seat of Hevingham, in 1343. His successor was 20. WILLIAM BATEMAN, dean of Lincoln. He was a great benefactor to the nunnery of Flixton in South Elmham, and gave the nuns a body of statutes for their regulation; and, in 1347 founded _Trinity Hall_ in Cambridge, for the express purpose of supplying his diocese with persons properly qualified for the discharge of the duties of parochial cures. He died in 1354, at Avignon, while on an embassy to the pope. This prelate was a native of Norwich, but spent much of his time abroad, and chiefly at Rome, till the pope promoted him to this bishopric. So great was his interest with his holiness, that he also obtained for himself and successors, the first fruits, as we are told, of all vacant livings within his diocese, which occasioned, it seems, frequent disputes between him and his clergy. But the clergy were not likely to gain much by disputing with him, for he is represented as “a stout defender of his rights, and one who would not suffer himself to be injured or imposed upon, or his dignity insulted, by any one.” In proof of which, the following anecdote has been related of him by some of our historians:—“Lord Morley, having killed some of the bishop’s deer, infringed upon his manors, and abused his servants who opposed him, was obliged to do penance by walking through the streets of the city with a wax candle of six pounds weight in his hand, and kneel down before the bishop, in the cathedral, and ask his pardon, although the king had sent an express order to the contrary.”—From this anecdote we may safely infer, that this prelate governed his slaves and vassals, the inhabitants of Lynn, with despotic sway. It is said that there was in his time such a dreadful plague in England, and throughout Europe, as scarcely left a tenth part of the inhabitants living; and that it appears from the Chronicle of Norwich, that from the first of January to the first of July 1348–9, 57374 persons, besides ecclesiastics and beggars, died in Norfolk alone. We cannot learn how many of them were of the town of Lynn.—A circumstance that seems to corroborate this extraordinary mortality is, that this bishop instituted and collated 850 persons to benefices vacant at this time. {358} His successor was 21. THOMAS PERCY, youngest brother of the Earl of Northumberland, though but twenty-two years of age. After erecting the steeple of the cathedral, which had been blown down by a violent wind, and repairing the choir, which had been much damaged, he died, in 1369. The next year he was succeeded by