BISHOP BEKYNTON.
[TO THE EDIT9It OF THE SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Will you permit me to add to your notice of Bishop Bekynton's life one fact, which is, I think, of some present interest and importance?
Bekynton was made Master of St. Katharine's Hospital in 1440, and in 1441, " finding that the resources of this hospital were not sufficient to maintain the members, he obtained from the King a Charter"—thus far I quote from Ducarel—which alone has pre- served the hospital to the present time.
The great charter of King Henry VI. granted to St. Katha- rine's Hospital still exists, as I hope, among the archives of the City of London. It was surrendered to the City by Sir Thomas Wilson in the reign of Elizabeth, and has never seen the light since. With some modifications, it was renewed by Elizabeth ; but it seems certain that the whole revenues of the hospital would have shared the fate of those of other religious houses, but for the reservation in Bekynton's Charter of the rights of the inhabitants of the Precinct of St. Katharine.
The revenues of the Hospital, with the exception of certain Crown payments and chantry endowments, have been preserved entire to the present time. It is possible that some day or other they may be turned to some better account than at present, and that Bekynton's work may show some more satisfactory modern "results" than appear in the existence of an unreformed eccle- siastical corporation of sinecurists, upon which commission after commission reports in vain.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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