508 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. MR. EVANS, a worthy and conscientious minister, was presented by the Earl of Warwick to the vicarage of Warwick ; but Dr. Whitgift, then bishop of Worcester, re- fused his allowance. When the worthy earl sent him to his grace, requesting that he might be admitted with a favourable subscription, the bishop said, " 0, I know you, Mr. Evans, to be worthy of a better place than Warwick. I would very gladly gratify my lord; but there is a Lord in heaven whom I fear; and, therefore, I cannot admit you without subscrip- tion." Though the good man offered to subscribe in all points as far as the law required, the bishop would not admit him, unless he would enter into bonds to observe all things in the Boole of Common Prayer. Upon this, Mr. Evans boldly addressed him, saying, " Will the law then permit you thus to play the tyrant, bishop ? I shall see a premunire upon you one day for these pranks.". RICHARD PROWD was a puritan minister of Burton-upon- Dunmore. In the year 1580 he wrote a very affecting letter to Lord Burleigh, giving a melancholy account of the state of religion, produced by the suppression of the religious exercises ; and by forbidding ministers and others meeting together, to pray for the preservation of the protestant reli- gion in so dangerous a crisis as the present, when there was a prospect of the queen's marriage with a papist. He expressed his doubts to his lordship whether he dealt so plainly with her majesty as the importance and his know- ledge of these things required, and warmly urged him to interpose in the present alarming crisis. But it does not appear what effect this letter produced.+ JOHN HOOKE was minister at Wroxall in Warwickshire, but Was suspended in 1583 for nonconformity. This was doubtless for refusing subscription to Whitgift's three articles. He continued a long time under the ecclesiastical sentence, and whether he was ever restored is rather doubtful. His annual stipend was only 5/. 6s. 8d.t MS. Chronology, vol. i. p. 228. (8.) Strype's Annals, vol. ii. p. 600. Appen. p. 22. MS. Register, p. 744.
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