[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