“Of all that ever I knew in Essex,” says Harrison, “Denis and Mainford excelled, till John of Ludlow, alias Mason, came in place, unto whom in comparison these two were but children.”  This last did so harry a client for four years that the latter, still called upon for new fees, “went to bed, and within four days made an end of his woeful life, even with care and pensiveness.”  And after his death the lawyer so handled his son “that there was never sheep shorn in May, so near clipped of his fleece present, as he was of many to come.”  The Welsh were the most litigious people.  A Welshman would walk up to London bare-legged, carrying his hose on his neck, to save wear and because he had no change, importune his countrymen till he got half a dozen writs, with which he would return to molest his neighbors, though no one of his quarrels was worth the money he paid for a single writ.

The humblest mechanic of England today has comforts and conveniences which the richest nobles lacked in Harrison’s day, but it was nevertheless an age of great luxury and extravagance; of brave apparel, costly and showy beyond that of any Continental people, though wanting in refined taste; and of mighty banquets, with service of massive plate, troops of attendants, and a surfeit of rich food and strong drink.

In this luxury the clergy of Harrison’s rank did not share.  Harrison was poor on forty pounds a year.  He complains that the clergy were taxed more than ever, the church having become “an ass whereon every man is to ride to market and cast his wallet.”  They paid tenths and first-fruits and subsidies, so that out of twenty pounds of a benefice the incumbent did not reserve more than L 13 6s. 8d. for himself and his family.  They had to pay for both prince and laity, and both grumbled at and slandered them.  Harrison gives a good account of the higher clergy; he says the bishops were loved for their painful diligence in their calling, and that the clergy of England were reputed on the Continent as learned divines, skillful in Greek and Hebrew and in the Latin tongue.

There was, however, a scarcity of preachers and ministers in Elizabeth’s time, and their character was not generally high.  What could be expected when covetous patrons canceled their debts to their servants by bestowing advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cooks, grooms, pages, and lackeys—­when even in the universities there was cheating at elections for scholarships and fellowships, and gifts were for sale!  The morals of the clergy were, however, improved by frequent conferences, at which the good were praised and the bad reproved; and these conferences were “a notable spur unto all the ministers, whereby to apply their books, which otherwise (as in times past) would give themselves to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tipling at the ale house, shooting, and other like vanities.”  The clergy held a social rank with tradespeople; their sons learned