King James I. heartily approved of his proposal, and gave him a most
honourable reception, both in the Universities and at Court. All the
English bishops agreed to contribute towards his maintenance. Fuller says:
"It is incredible what flocking of people there was to behold this old
archbishop now a new convert; prelates and peers presented him with gifts
of high valuation." Other writers of the period describe him as "old and
corpulent," but of a "comely presence"; irascible and pretentious, gifted
with an unlimited assurance and plenty of ready wit in writing and
speaking; of a "jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was
ridiculed on the stage in Middleton's play, _The Game of Chess_, as the
"Fat Bishop." "He was well named De Dominis in the plural," says
Crakanthorp, "for he could serve two masters, or twenty, if they paid him
wages."
Our author now proceeded to finish his great work, which he published in
1617 in three large folios--_De Republica Ecclesiastica_, of which the
original still exists among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. "He exclaims," says Fuller, "'in reading, meditation, and writing,
I am almost pined away,' but his fat cheeks did confute his false tongue
in that expression." In this book he shows that the authority of the
Bishop of Rome can easily be disproved from Holy Scripture, that it
receives no support from the judgment of history and antiquity, that the
early bishops of that see had no precedence over other bishops, nor were
in the least able to control those of other countries.
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