Note 159 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Burnet; Strype's Annals, 169. Pensions were reserved for those who quitted their benefices on account of religion. Burnet, ii. 398. This was a very liberal measure, and at the same time a politic check on their conduct. Lingard thinks the number must have been much greater; but the visitors' reports seem the best authority. It is however highly probable that others resigned their preferments afterwards, when the casuistry of their church grew more scrupulous. It may be added, that the visitors restored the married clergy who had been dispossessed in the preceding reign; which would of course considerably augment the number of sufferers for popery.