But now I come to matters whereon I have more authority to speak. When
the Isle of Man passed to the Stanley family, the Bishopric fell to
their patronage, and they lost no time in putting their own people into
it. It was then under the English metropolitan of Canterbury, but early
in the sixteenth century it became part of the province of York. About
that time the baronies, the abbeys, and the nunneries were suppressed.
It does not appear that the change of metropolitan had made much
change of religious life. Apparently the clergy kept the Manx people in
miserable ignorance. It was not until the seventeenth century that the
Book of Common Prayer was translated into the Manx language. The Gospels
and the Acts were unknown to the Manx until nearly a century later. Nor
was this due to ignorance of the clergy of the Manx tongue, for most
of them must have been Manxmen, and several of the Bishops were Manxmen
also. But grievous abuses had by this time attached themselves to the
Manx Church, and some of them were flagrant and wicked, and some were
impudent and amusing.