1571

8th. June Friday
There was an enquiry into the state of the Collegiate Church by Archbishop Grindal, held 8th June, in the Chapter-house. Some curious evidence was given of the habits of the clergy and condition of the church. Two of the Collegiate body went about the town with a handbell, moving the people to works of mercy; while the choiristers fetched the dead to the church from their houses with handbells and singing. There were pictures in the church which the churchwardens had never defaced, and the old shrines were not removed. One of the Fellows was accustomed to go to an alehouse in sermon time in his surplice, and even kept an alehouse himself. There had been no change of churchwardens since the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. (MS. Report, in the hands of Mr. J. E. Bailey.)(7)

1571
Sir Richard Hall, one of the Fellows of the Collegiate Church, “ministered a dormatory” to divers persons, who all died after taking the same; and the same fate followed those whose veins he cut. “When he should serve God, he runneth abowte his phisicke and surgerye, and ys altogether unlearned.” This individual added to his other employments that of Bursar to the College. (MS. in Mr. J. E. Bailey’s hands.)(7)