_Hatfield--Consecration of Chapel there._--Le Neve, in his _Lives of
Protestant Bishops_ (ii. 144.), states, that Richard Neile, Bishop of
Lincoln, went to Hatfield, 6th May, 1615, to consecrate the chapel in the
house there lately built by Robert, Earl of Salisbury. I have applied to
the Registrar of Lincoln diocese, in which Hatfield was (until recently)
locally situated, for a copy of the notarial act of consecration; but it
appears that the register of Bishop Neile was taken away or destroyed in
the Great Rebellion, and that, consequently, no record of his episcopality
now exists at Lincoln.
Le Neve says he had the most part of his account of Bishop Neile from
Thomas Baker, B.D. of St. John's College, Cambridge, who had it from a
grandson of the Bishop's. He quotes also Featley's MS. Collections.
Can any of your readers inform me whether Bishop Neile's episcopal register
for Lincoln is in existence, or whether any transcript of it is known? or
if any evidence, confirmatory of Le Neve's statement of the fact and date
of the consecration of the chapel of Hatfield, is known to exist?