The work to be done by the Tudor hierarchy was mercenary, not imaginative; therefore pastors had to be chosen who could be trusted to labour faithfully for wages. Perhaps no equally large and intelligent body of men has ever been more skilfully selected. The Anglican priests, as a body, have uniformly been true to the hand which fed them, without regard to the principles they were required to preach. A remarkable instance of their docility, where loss of income was the penalty for disobedience, was furnished at the accession of William and Mary. Divine right was, of course, the most sacred of Anglican dogmas, and yet, when the clergy were commanded to take the oath of allegiance to him whom they held to be an usurper, as Macaulay has observed, “some of the strongest motives which can influence the human mind, had prevailed. Above twenty-nine thirtieths of the profession submitted to the law.”[300] Moreover, the landlords had the economic instinct, bargaining accordingly, and Elizabeth bluntly told her bishops that they must get her sober, respectable preachers, but men who should be cheap. “Then spake my Lord Treasurer.... Her Maty hath declared unto you a marvellous great fault, in that you make in this time of light so many lewd and unlearned ministers.... It is the Bishop of Litchfield ... that I mean, who made LXX. ministers in one day for money, some taylors, some shoemakers, and other craftsmen, I am sure the greatest part of them not worthy to keep horses. Then said the Bp. of Rochester, that may be so, for I know one that made 7 in one day, I would every man might beare his own burthen, some of us have the greatest wrong that can be offred.... But my Lord, if you would have none but learned preachers to be admitted into the ministery, you must provide better livings for them.... “To have learned ministers in every parish is in my judgm^{t} impossible (quoth my Ld. of Canterbury) being 13,000 parishes in Ingland, I know not how this realm should yield so many learned preachers. “Jesus (quoth the Queen) 13,000 it is not to be looked for, I thinke the time hath been, there hath not been 4. preachers in a diocesse, my meaning is not you should make choice of learned ministers only for they are not to be found, but of honest, sober, and wise men, and such as can reade the scriptures and homilies well unto the people.”[301]