The practise of prelates. CompiledThe practyse of prelates. Compyled

And how be it that they strive among them selves who shall be greatest, yet against the temporal pour they be always at one though they dissemble it and feign as though one held against the other to know their ⟨image 48⟩enemies secretes to betray them with all. They can inspire privily into the breasts of the people, what mischief they list, & no man shall know whence it cometh. Their letters go secretly from one to an other through out all kingdoms. Saint peters vicar, shall have word in .xv. or .xvi. days, from the uttermost part of christendom. The bishops of England at their need / can write unto the bishops of Ireland, scotland, Denmark, douchland / france and spain, promising them as good a turn an other time / putting them in remembrance that they be all one holy church / & that the cause of the one, is the cause of the other, saying: if our •ugglyng break out / yours can not be long hid. And the other shall serve their turn / and bring the game unto their hands, & no man shall know how it cometh about. As soon as king Richard was gone to Ireland to subdue these rebellious, the bishop cam in again, and prevented the king, and toke up his power against him and toke him prisoner / and put him down / and to death most cruelly, and crowned the earl of Derby king. O merciful Christ / what blood hath that coronation cost England? But what care they? Their causes must ⟨image 49⟩be avenged. He is not worthy to be king that will not avenge their quarrels· For do not the kings receive their kingdom of the beast, and swear to worship him and maintain his throne? And then when the earl of Darby which is king Henry the fourth / was crowned, the prelates toke his sword and his sons Henry the fifth after him, as all the kings swords since and abused them to shed christen blood at their pleasure. And they coupled their cause unto the kings cause (as now) & made it treason to believe in Christ as the scripture teacheth & to resist the bishops (as now) and thrust them in the kings prisons (as now) so that it is no new invention, that they now do but even an old practise, though they have done their busy cure to hide their science / that their conveyance should not be espied.

And howe be it that they stryue amonge them selues who shalbe greatest, yet agaīst the temporall powr they be always at one though they dissēble it and fayne as thogh one helde againste the other to know theyr