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 trades, and their daughters might go out
to service. Jewell says many of them were the "basest sort of people"
unlearned, fiddlers, pipers, and what not. "Not a few," says Harrison,
"find fault with our threadbare gowns, as if not our patrons but our
wives were the causes of our woe." He thinks the ministers will be better