It was usual for the courtiers, during this reign, to make an agreement with a bishop or incumbent; and to procure a fictitious alienation to the queen, who afterwards transferred the lands to the person agreed on.[**] This method of pillaging the church was not remedied till the beginning of James I.The present depression of the clergy exposed them to all injuries; and the laity never stopped till they had reduced the church to such poverty, that her plunder was no longer a compensation for the odium incurred by it.
A solemn and public disputation was held during this session in presence of Lord Keeper Bacon, between the divines of the Protestant and those of the Catholic communion.

The champions appointed to defend the religion of the sovereign were, as in all former instances, entirely triumphant; and the Popish disputants, being pronounced refractory and obstinate, were even punished by imprisonment.[***] * I Eliz.cap.

2.
** Strype, vol.i.p.

79.
*** Strype, vol.i.p.

95.
Emboldened by this victory, the Protestants ventured on the last and most important step, and brought into parliament a bill[*] for abolishing the mass and reestablishing the liturgy of King Edward.
Penalties were enacted, as well against those who departed from this mode of worship, as against those who absented themselves from the church and the sacraments.