And yet in this place he met with many oppositions in the regulation of Church affairs, which were much disordered at his entrance, by reason of the age and remissness of Bishop Grindal,[18] his immediate predecessor, the activity of the Non-conformists, and their chief assistant the Earl of Leicester; and indeed by too many others of the like sacrilegious principles.  With these he was to encounter; and though he wanted neither courage, nor a good cause, yet he foresaw, that without a great measure of the Queen’s favour, it was impossible to stand in the breach that had been lately made into the lands and immunities of the Church, or indeed to maintain the remaining lands and rights of it.  And therefore by justifiable sacred insinuations, such as St. Paul to Agrippa,—­“Agrippa, believest thou?  I know thou believest,” he wrought himself into so great a degree of favour with her, as, by his pious use of it, hath got both of them a great degree of fame in this world, and of glory in that into which they are now both entered.

[Sidenote:  The “little black husband”]

His merits to the Queen, and her favours to him were such, that she called him, “her little black husband,” and called “his servants her servants:”  and she saw so visible and blessed a sincerity shine in all his cares and endeavours for the Church’s and for her good, that she was supposed to trust him with the very secrets of her soul, and to make him her confessor; of which she gave many fair testimonies; and of which one was, that “she would never eat flesh in Lent, without obtaining a licence from her little black husband:”  and would often say “she pitied him because she trusted him, and had thereby eased herself by laying the burthen of all her Clergy-cares upon his shoulders, which he managed with prudence and piety.”

[Sidenote:  Church-lands Acts]

I shall not keep myself within the promised rules of brevity in this account of his interest with her Majesty, and his care of the Church’s rights, if in this digression I should enlarge to particulars; and therefore my desire is, that one example may serve for a testimony of both.  And, that the Reader may the better understand it, he may take notice, that not many years before his being made Archbishop, there passed an Act, or Acts of Parliament, intending the better preservation of the Church-lands, by recalling a power which was vested in others to sell or lease them, by lodging and trusting the future care and protection of them only in the Crown:  and amongst many that made a bad use of this power or trust of the Queen’s, the Earl of Leicester was one; and the Bishop having, by his interest with her Majesty, put a stop to the Earl’s sacrilegious designs, they two fell to an open opposition before her; after which they both quitted the room, not friends in appearance.  But the Bishop made a sudden and seasonable return to her Majesty,—­for he found her alone—­and spake to her with great humility and reverence, to this purpose.