The clergy ill example,"--

is little more than the following paragraph from Holinshed put into
verse:--

"This cardinal! (as you may perceive in this storie) was of a great
stomach, for he compted himselfe equall with princes, and by craftie
suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little
on simonie, [i.e., regarded it as of little consequence,] and was not
pittifull, and stood affectionate in his owne opinion: in open presence
he would lie and saie untruth, and was double both in speach and
meaning: he would promise much and performe little: he was vicious of
his bodie, and gave the clergie evill example."--Ed. 1587, vol. iii. p.
622.

Turning back from the page on which the Chronicler comments upon the
life of the dead prime-minister, to that on which he records his fall,
we find these passages:--

"In the meane time, the king, being informed that all those things that
the cardinall had doone by his _power legatine within this realme_ were
in the case of the _premunire_ and provision, caused his attornie,
Christopher Hales, to sue out a writ of premunire against him. ...After
this in the king's bench his matter for the premunire being called upon,
two atturneis which he had authorised by his warrant, signed with his
owne hand, confessed the action, and so had judgement to _forfeit all
his lands, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be out of the king's
protection_."--Ib. p. 909.

If the reader will look back at the passage touching the premunire,
quoted above, he will see that these few lines from Raphael Holinshed
are somewhat fatal to an argument in favor of Shakespeare's "legal
acquirements," in so far as it rests in any degree upon the use of terms
or the knowledge displayed in that passage. Shakespeare and Drayton are
here in the same boat, though "not with the same sculls."

Before we shelve Holinshed,--for the good Raphael's folios are like
Falstaff in size, if not in wit, and, when once laid flat-long, require
levers to set them up on end again,--let us see if he cannot help us to
account for more of the "legalisms" that our Lord Chief Justice and
our barrister have "smelt out" in Shakespeare's historical plays. Mr.
Rushton quotes the following passages from "Richard II.":--

"_York_. Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not
Hereford live?

* * * * *

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time
His _charters_ and his _customary rights_;