The Town Part 42

Cavendish has given a minute account of the household at York Place, from which the following are extracts. Compare them with the recollection of "the disciples plucking ears of corn:"--

"He had in his hall, daily, three especial tables furnished with three princ.i.p.al officers; that is to say, a Steward, which was always a dean or a priest; a Treasurer, a knight; and a Comptroller, an esquire; which bore always within his house their white staves. Then had he a cofferer, three marshals, two yeoman ushers, two grooms, and an almoner," &c., &c., &c....

"In his privy kitchen, he had a master-cook, who went daily in damask, satin, or velvet, with a chain of gold about his neck."... In his chapel, he had "a Dean, who was always a great clerk and a divine; a Sub-dean; a Repeater of the quire; a Gospeller, a Pisteller (separate men to read the Gospels and the Epistles), and twelve singing Priests; of Scholars, he had first, a Master of the children; twelve singing children; sixteen singing men; with a servant to attend upon the said children. In the Revestry, a yeoman and two grooms: then were there divers retainers of cunning singing men, that came thither at divers sundry princ.i.p.al feasts. But to speak of the furniture of this chapel pa.s.seth my capacity to declare the number of the costly ornaments and rich jewels, that were occupied in the same continually. For I have seen there, in a procession, worn forty-four copes of one suit, very rich, besides the sumptuous crosses, candlesticks, and other necessary ornaments to the comely furniture of the same. Now shall ye understand that he had two cross-bearers, and two pillar-bearers; and in his chamber, all these persons; that is to say: his High Chamberlain; his Vice-Chamberlain; twelve Gentlemen Ushers, daily waiters; besides two in his Privy Chamber; and of Gentlemen waiters in his Privy Chamber he had six; and also he had of Lords nine or ten, who had each of them allowed two servants; and the Earl of Derby had allowed five men. Then had he of Gentlemen, as cup-bearers, carvers, sewers, and Gentlemen daily waiters, forty persons; of yeomen ushers he had six; of grooms in his chamber he had eight; of yeomen of his chamber he had forty-six daily to attend upon his person; he had also a priest there which was his Almoner, to attend upon his table at dinner. Of doctors and chaplains attending in his closet to say daily ma.s.s before him, he had sixteen persons: and a clerk of his closet. Also he had two secretaries, and two clerks of his signet: and four counsellors learned in the laws of the realm.

"And, for as much as he was Chancellor of England, it was necessary for him to have divers officers of the Chancery, to attend daily upon him, for the better furniture of the same.

That is to say, first, he had the Clerk of the Crown, a Riding Clerk, a Clerk of the Hanaper, a Chafer of Wax. Then had he a Clerk of the Check, as well to check his chaplains, as his yeomen of the chamber; he had also four Footmen, which were apparelled in rich running coats, whensoever he rode any journey. Then had he an Herald at Arms, and a Serjeant at Arms; a Physician; an Apothecary; four Minstrels; a Keeper of his Tents; an Armourer; an Instructor of his Wards; two Yeomen in his Wardrobe; and a Keeper of his chamber in the court. He had also daily in his house the Surveyor of York, a Clerk of the Green Cloth; and an auditor. All this number of persons were daily attendant upon him in his house, down-lying and up-rising. And at meals, there was continually in his chamber a board kept for his Chamberlains, and Gentlemen Ushers, having with them a mess of the young Lords, and another for gentlemen.

Besides all these, there was never an officer and gentleman, or any other worthy person in his house, but he was allowed some three, some two servants; and all other one at the least; which amounted to a great number of persons."

Such was the style in which Wolsey grew fat, in-doors. When he went out of doors, to Westminster Hall for instance, as Chancellor, or merely came into an anteroom, to speak with his suitors, the following was the state which he always kept up. Think of Lord Brougham or Lord Lyndhurst in our own times, modestly eschewing notice, and going down to the House in a plain hat and trowsers, and then look on the following picture:--

"Now will I declare unto you," says the worthy Cavendish, striking up a right gentleman-usher note (and out of this very gentleman-usher's family came the princely house of Devons.h.i.+re, which has lasted with so much height and refinement ever since,)--"Now will I declare unto you his order in going to Westminster Hall, _daily_ in the term season. First, before his coming out of his privy chamber, he heard most commonly every day two ma.s.ses in his private closet; and there then said his daily service with his chaplain; and, as I heard his chaplain say, being a man of credence and of excellent learning, that the Cardinal, what business or weighty matters soever he had in the day, he never went to his bed with any part of his divine service unsaid, yea, not so much as one collect; wherein I doubt not but he deceived the opinion of divers persons. And after ma.s.s he would return in his privy chamber again, and being advertised of the furniture of his chambers without, with n.o.blemen, gentlemen, and other persons, would issue out into them, apparelled all in red, in the habit of a cardinal; which was either of fine scarlet, or else of crimson satin, taffety, damask, or caffa, the best that he could get for money; and upon his head a round pillion, with a n.o.ble of black velvet set to the same in the inner side; he had also a tippet of fine sables about his neck; holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, pa.s.sing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors. There was also borne before him, first, the great seal of England, _and then his cardinal's hat, by a n.o.bleman or some worthy gentleman, right solemnly, bareheaded_. And as soon as he was entered into his chamber of presence, where there was attending his coming to await upon him to Westminster Hall, as well n.o.blemen and other worthy gentlemen, as n.o.blemen and gentlemen of his own family; thus pa.s.sing forth with two great crosses of silver borne before him; with also two great pillars of silver, and his pursuivant at arms with a great mace of silver gilt. Then his gentlemen ushers cried, and said: 'On, my lords and masters, on before; make way for my Lord's Grace!' Thus pa.s.sed he down from his chamber through the hall; and when he came to the hall door, there was attendant for him his mule, trapped altogether in crimson velvet, and gilt stirrups. When he was mounted, with his cross bearers, and pillow bearers, also upon great horses trapped with [fine] scarlet, then marched he forward, with his train and furniture in manner as I have declared, having about him four footmen, with gilt poll-axes in their hands; and thus he went until he came to Westminster Hall door. And there alighted and went after this manner, up through the hall into the chancery; howbeit he would most commonly stay awhile at a bar, made for him, a little beneath the chancery [on the right hand], and there commune some time with the judges, and some time with other persons. And that done he would repair into the chancery, sitting there till eleven of the clock, hearing suitors, and determining on divers matters. And from thence, he would divers times go into the star chamber, as occasion did serve; where he spared neither high nor low, but judged every estate according to their merits and demerits."

But this style of riding abroad was not merely for official occasions.

He went through Thames Street every Sunday, in his way to the court at Greenwich, with his crosses, his pillars, his hat, and his great seal.

He was as fond of his pomp out of doors, as a child is of its new clothes.

The description of the way in which he used to receive the visits of the King at York Place, has acquired a double interest from the use made of it by Shakspeare, by whom it has been, in a manner, copied, in his play of "Henry the Eighth:"

"Thus in great honour, triumph, and glory," says Cavendish, "he reigned a long season, ruling all things within this realm, appertaining unto the King, by his wisdom, and also all other weighty matters of foreign regions with which the King of this realm had any occasion to intermeddle. All Amba.s.sadors of foreign potentates were always dispatched by his discretion, to whom they had always access for their dispatch. His house was also always resorted and furnished with n.o.blemen, gentlemen, and other persons, with going and coming in and out, feasting and banqueting all Amba.s.sadors divers times, and other strangers right n.o.bly.

"And when it pleased the King's Majesty, for his recreation, to repair unto the Cardinal's house, as he did divers times in the year, at which time there wanted no preparations, or goodly furniture, with viands of the finest sort that might be provided for money or friends.h.i.+p, such pleasures were then devised for the King's comfort and consolation, as might be invented, or by man's wit imagined. The banquets were set forth, with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort, and costly a manner, that it was a heaven to behold. _There wanted no dames, or damsels, meet or apt to dance with the maskers, or to garnish the place for the time, with other goodly disports._ Then was there all kind of music and harmony set forth, with excellent voices both of men and children. I have seen the King suddenly come in thither in a mask, with a dozen of other maskers, all in garments like shepherds, made of fine cloth of gold and fine crimson satin paned, and caps of the same, with visors of good proportion of visnomy; their hairs, and beards, either of fine gold wire, or else of silver, and some being of black silk; having sixteen torch-bearers, besides their drums, and other persons attending upon them, with visors, and clothed all in satin, of the same colours. And at his coming, and before he came into the hall, ye shall understand, that he came by water to the water gate, without any noise: where, against his coming, were laid charged, many chambers[335], and at his landing they were all shot off, which made such a rumble in the air, that it was like thunder. It made all the n.o.blemen, ladies, and gentlewomen, to muse what it should mean coming so suddenly, they sitting quietly at a solemn banquet; under this sort: First, ye shall perceive that the tables were set in the chamber of presence, banquet-wise covered, my Lord Cardinal sitting under the cloth of estate, and there having his service all alone; and then was there set a lady and a n.o.bleman, or a gentleman and gentlewoman, throughout all the tables in the chamber on the one side, which were made and joined as it were but one table. All which order and device was done and devised by the Lord Sands, Lord Chamberlain to the King; and also by Sir Henry Guildford, Comptroller to the King. Then immediately after this great shot of guns, the Cardinal desired the Lord Chamberlain and Comptroller to look what this sudden shot should mean, as though he knew nothing of the matter. They thereupon looking out of the windows into Thames, returned again, and showed him that it seemed to them there should be some n.o.blemen and strangers arrived at his bridge, as amba.s.sadors from some foreign prince. With that, quoth the Cardinal, 'I shall desire you, because ye can speak French, to take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter and to receive them, according to their estates, and to conduct them into this chamber, where they shall see us, and all these n.o.ble personages sitting merrily at our banquet, desiring them to sit down with us, and to take part of our fare and pastime.' Then [they] went incontinent down into the hall, where they received them with near twenty new torches, and conveyed them up into the chamber, with such a number of drums and fifes as I have seldom seen together at one time, in any masque. At their arrival into the chamber, two and two together, they went directly before the Cardinal where he sat, saluting him very reverently; to whom the Lord Chamberlain for them said; 'Sir, for as much as they be strangers, and can speak no English, they have desired me to declare unto your Grace thus: they, having understanding of this your triumphant banquet, where was a.s.sembled such a number of excellent fair dames, could do no less, under the supportation of your good Grace, but to repair hither to view as well as their incomparable beauty, as for to accompany them at mumchance[336], and then after to dance with them, and so to have of them acquaintance. And, sir, they furthermore require of your Grace license to accomplish the cause of their repair.' To whom the Cardinal answered, that he was very well contented that they should do so. Then the maskers went first and saluted all the dames as they sat, and then returned to the most worthiest, and there opened a cup full of gold, with crowns and other pieces of coin, to whom they set divers pieces to cast at. Thus in this manner perusing all the ladies and gentlewomen, and to some they lost, and of some they won. And this done, they returned unto the Cardinal, with great reverence, pouring down all the crowns into the cup, which was about two hundred crowns. 'At all,' quoth the Cardinal, and so cast the dice, and won them all at a cast; whereat was great joy made. Then quoth the Cardinal to my Lord Chamberlain, 'I pray you,' quoth he, 'show them that it seemeth me that there should be among them some n.o.ble man, whom I suppose to be much more worthy of honour to sit and occupy this room and place than I; to whom I would most gladly, if I knew him, surrender my place, according to my duty.' Then spake my Lord Chamberlain unto them in French, declaring my Lord Cardinal's mind, and they rounding him again in the ear, my Lord Chamberlain said to my Lord Cardinal, 'Sir, they confess,'

quoth he, 'that among them there is such a n.o.ble personage, whom, if your Grace can appoint him from the other, he is contented to disclose himself, and to accept your place most worthily.' With that the Cardinal, taking a good advis.e.m.e.nt among them, at the last, quoth he, 'me seemeth the gentleman with the black beard should be even he.' And with that he arose out of his chair, and offered the same to the gentleman in the black beard, with his cap in his hand. The person to whom he offered then his chair was Sir Edward Neville, _a comely knight of a goodly personage_,[337] that much more resembled the King's person in that mask than any other. The King, hearing and perceiving the Cardinal so deceived in his estimation and choice, could not forbear laughing; but plucked down his visor, and Master Neville's also, _and dashed[338] out with such a plesant countenance and cheer_, that all n.o.ble estates there a.s.sembled, seeing the King to be there amongst them, rejoiced very much. The Cardinal eftsoons desired his highness to take the place of estate, to whom the King answered, that he would go first and s.h.i.+ft his apparel; and so departed, and went straight into my lord's bedchamber, where was a great fire made and prepared for him; and there new apparelled him with rich and princely garments. And in the time of the King's absence the dishes of the banquet were clean taken up, and the tables spread again with new and sweet perfumed clothes; every man sitting still until the King and his maskers came in among them again, every man being newly apparelled. Then the King took his seat under the cloth of state, commanding no man to remove, but sit still, as they did before. Then in came a new banquet before the King's majesty, and to all the rest through the tables, wherein, I suppose, were served two hundred dishes or above, of wondrous costly meats and devices, subtilly devised.

Thus pa.s.sed they forth the whole night with banqueting, dancing, and other triumphant devices, to the great comfort of the King, and pleasant regard of the n.o.bility there a.s.sembled.

"All this matter I have declared at large, because ye shall understand what joy and delight the Cardinal had to see his Prince and sovereign Lord in his house so n.o.bly entertained and pleased, which was always his only study, to devise things to his comfort, not pa.s.sing of the charges or expenses. It delighted him so much, to have the King's pleasant princely presence, that nothing was to him more delectable than to cheer his sovereign lord, to whom he owed so much obedience and loyalty, as reason required no less, all things well considered.

"Thus pa.s.sed the Cardinal his life and time, from day to day, and year to year, in such great wealth, joy, and triumph, and glory, having always on his side the King's especial favour; until Fortune, of whose favour no man is longer a.s.sured than she is disposed, began to wax something wroth with his prosperous estate [and] thought she would devise a mean to abate his high port; wherefore she procured Venus, the insatiate G.o.ddess, to be her instrument. To work her purpose, she brought the King in love with a gentlewoman, that, after she perceived and felt the King's goodwill towards her, and how diligent he was both to please her, and to grant all her requests, she wrought the Cardinal much displeasure; as hereafter shall be more at large declared."

Pretty Anne Bullen completed the ruin of Wolsey for having thwarted her, and not long afterwards was sent out of this very house from which she ousted him, to the scaffold, herself ruined by another rival. On the Cardinal's downfall, Henry seized his house and goods, and converted York Place into a royal residence, under the t.i.tle of Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.

"It is not impossible," says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana, vol. ii., p. 27.) "that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by Wolsey, and obtained its name from the newness and freshness of its appearance, when compared with the ancient buildings of York Place. Shakspeare, in his play of King Henry VIII., makes one of the interlocutors say, in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn:--

'So she parted, And with the same full state paced back again To York Place, where the feast is held.'

To this is replied--

'Sir, you Must no more call it York Place--that is past.

For since the Cardinal fell, that t.i.tle's lost.

'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.'"

It is curious to observe the links between ancient names and their modern representatives, and the extraordinary contrast sometimes exhibited between the two. The "Judge," who by Henry's orders went to turn Wolsey out of his house, without any other form of law--a proceeding which excited even the fallen slave to a remonstrance--was named Sh.e.l.ly, and was one of the ancestors of the _poet_! the most independent-minded and generous of men.

FOOTNOTES:

[334] Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in the "Autobiography," p. 79.

[335] _Chambers_, short guns, or cannon, standing upon their breaching without carriages, chiefly used for festive occasions; and having their name most probably from being little more than _chambers_ for powder. It was by the discharge of these _chambers_ in the play of Henry VIIIth. that the Globe Theatre was burnt in 1613. Shakspeare followed pretty closely the narrative of Cavendish.--_Singer._

[336] _Mumchance_ appears to have been a game played with dice, at which silence was to be observed.--_Singer._

[337] Probably a handsomer figure than the King. This (though not the subtlest imaginable) would be likely to be among Wolsey's court-tricks, and modes of gaining favour.

[338] This "dashed out" is in the best style of bluff King Hal, and capitally well said by Cavendish.

CHAPTER XI.

Henry the Eighth -- His Person and Character -- Modern Qualifications of it considered -- Pa.s.sages respecting him from Lingard, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others -- His additions to Whitehall -- A Retrospect at Elizabeth -- Court of James resumed -- Its gross Habits -- Letter of Sir John Harrington respecting them -- James's Drunkenness -- Testimonies of Welldon, Sully, and Roger c.o.ke -- Curious Omission in the Invective of Churchill the Poet -- Welldon's Portrait of James -- Buckingham, the Favourite -- Frightful Story of Somerset -- Masques -- Banqueting House -- Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson -- Court of Charles the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second -- James the Second.

We have said more about Wolsey than we intend to say of Henry the Eighth; for the son of the butcher was a great man, and his master was only a king. Henry, born a prince, became a butcher; Wolsey, a butcher, became a prince. And we are not playing upon the word as applied to the king; for Henry was not only a butcher of his wives, he resembled a brother of the trade in its better and more ordinary course. His pleasures were of the same order; his language was coa.r.s.e and jovial; he had the very straddle of a fat butcher, as he stands in his doorway. Take any picture or statue of Henry the Eighth--fancy its cap off, and a knife in its girdle, and it seems in the very act of saying, "What d'ye buy? What d'ye buy?" There is even the petty complacency in the mouth, after the phrase is uttered.

And how formidable is that petty unfeeling mouth, in the midst of those wide and wilful cheeks! Disturb the self-satisfaction of that man, derange his bile for an instant, make him suppose that you do not quite think him

"Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,"

and what hope have you from the sentence of that ma.s.s of pampered egotism?

Let us not do injustice, however, even to the doers of it. What better was to be looked for, in those times, from the circ.u.mstances under which Henry was born and bred--from the son of a wilful father, and an unfeeling state marriage--from the educated combiner of church and state, instinctively led to entertain the worldliest notions of both, and of heaven itself--from the inheritor of the greatest wealth, and power, and irresponsibility, ever yet concentrated in an English sovereign? It has been attempted of late by various writers (and the attempt is a good symptom, being on the charitable side,) to make out a case for Henry the Eighth, as if he were a sort of rough but honest fellow, a kind of John Bull of that age, who meant well upon the whole, and thought himself bound to keep up the conventionalities of his country. We know not what compliment is intended to be implied by this, either to Henry or his countrymen; but really when a man sends his wives, one after the other, to the scaffold, evidently as much to enable him to marry another as to vindicate any propriety--when he "cuts" and sacrifices his best friends and servants, and pounces upon their goods--when he takes every license himself, though he will not allow others even to be suspected of it--when he grows a brute beast in size as well as in habits, and dies shedding superfluous blood to the last--we cannot, for our parts, as Englishmen, but be glad of some better excuses for him of the kind above stated, than such as are to be found in the roots of the national character, however jovial.

Imagine only the endearments that must have pa.s.sed between this man and Anne Bullen, and then fancy the heart that could have sent the poor little, hysterical, half-laughing, half-crying thing to the scaffold! The man was _mad_ with power and vanity. That is his real excuse.

It has been said, that all which he did was done by law, or at least under the forms of it, and by the consent, sometimes by the recommendation, of his statesmen. The a.s.sertion is not true in all instances; and where it is, what does it prove but that his tyrannical spirit had helped to make his statesmen slaves? They knew what he wished, and notoriously played the game into his hands. When they did not, their heads went off. That circ.u.mstances had spoilt them altogether, and that society, with all its gaudiness, was but in a half-barbarous state, is granted; but it is no less true, that his office, his breeding, and his natural temper, conspired to make Henry the worst and most insolent of a violent set of men; and he stands straddling out accordingly in history, as he does in his pictures, an image of sovereign brutality.

Excessive vanity, aggravated by all the habits of despotism and luxury, and accompanied, nevertheless, by that unconscious misgiving which is natural to inequalities between a man's own powers and those which he derives from his position, is the clue to the character of Henry the Eighth. Accordingly, no man gave greater ear to tale-bearers and sowers of suspicion, nor resented more cruelly or meanly the wounds inflicted on his self-love, even by those who least intended them, or to whom he had shown the greatest fondness. The latter, indeed, he treated the worst, out of a frenzy of egotistical disappointment; for his love arose, not from any real regard for their merits, but from what he had taken for a flattery to his own. Sir Thomas More knew him well, when, in observation to some one who had congratulated him on the King's having walked up and down with his arm around his neck, he said that he would have that neck cut in two next day, if the head belonging to it opposed his will. He not only took back without scruple all that he had given to Wolsey, but he went to live in the houses of his fallen friend and servant--places which a man of any feeling and kindly remembrance would have avoided. He was very near picking a murderous quarrel with his last wife, Catherine Parr, on one of his theological questions. And how did he conduct himself to the memory of poor Anne Bullen, even on the day of her execution? Hear Lingard, who, though no partizan of his, thinks he must have had some heinous cause of provocation, to induce him to behave so roughly:--

"Thus fell," says the historian, "this unfortunate Queen within four months after the death of Catherine. To have expressed a doubt of her guilt during the reign of Henry, or of her innocence during that of Elizabeth, would have been deemed a proof of disaffection. The question soon became one of religious feeling, rather than of historical disquisition.

Though she had departed no farther than her husband from the ancient doctrine, yet, as her marriage with Henry led to the separation from the communion of Rome, the Catholic writers were eager to condemn, the Protestant to exculpate her memory.

In the absence of those doc.u.ments which alone could enable us to decide with truth, I will only observe that the King must have been impelled by some powerful motive to exercise against her such extraordinary, and, in one supposition, such superfluous vigour. Had his object been (we are sometimes told that it was) to place Jane Seymour by his side on the throne, the divorce of Anne without execution, or the execution without the divorce, would have effected his purpose. But he seemed to have pursued her with insatiable hatred. Not content with taking her life, he made her feel in every way in which a wife and a mother could feel. He stamped on her character the infamy of adultery and incest; he deprived her of the name and right of wife and Queen; and he even b.a.s.t.a.r.dized her daughter, though he acknowledged that daughter to be his own. If then he were not a.s.sured of her guilt, he must have discovered in her conduct some most heinous cause of provocation, which he never disclosed. He had wept at the death of Catherine (of Arragon); but, as if he sought to display his contempt for the character of Anne, he dressed himself in white on the day of her execution, and was married to Jane Seymour the next morning."[339]

Now, nothing could be more indecent and unmanly than such conduct as this, let Anne have been guilty as she might; and nothing, in such a man, but mortified self-love could account for it. Probably he had discovered, that in some of her moments of levity she had laughed at him. But not to love him would have been offence enough. It would have been the first time he had discovered the possibility of such an impiety towards his barbarous divinitys.h.i.+p: and his rage must needs have been unbounded.

What Providence may intend by such instruments, is one thing: what we are const.i.tuted to think of them, is another: charitably, no doubt, when we think our utmost; but still with a discrimination, for fear of consequences. As to what was thought of Henry in his own time or afterwards, we must not rely on the opinion of Baker, Holinshed, and other servile chroniclers, of mean understanding and time-serving habits, who were the least honourable kind of "waiters upon Providence," taking the commonest appearances of adversity and prosperity (so to speak) for vice and virtue, and flattering every arbitrary and conventional opinion, as though it were not to perish in its turn. We are to recollect what More said of him (as above) in his confidential moments and Wolsey in his agony, and Pole and others, when, having got to a safe distance, they returned him foul language for his own bullying, and bl.u.s.tered out what was thought of him by those who knew him thoroughly. Observe also the manifest allusions in what was written upon the court of those days, by one of the wisest and best of its ornaments, Sir Thomas Wyat--a friend of Anne Bullen's.

The verses are ent.i.tled, "Of a Courtier's Life," and it may be observed, by the way, that they furnish the second example, in the English language, of the use of the Italian _rime terzette_, or triplets, in which Dante's poem is written, and which had been first introduced among us by Sir Thomas's friend, the Earl of Surrey (another of Henry's victims):--

Mine owne John Poynes, sins ye delight to know The causes why that homeward I me draw And flee the prease of courtes whereso they goe, Rather than to live thrall _under the awe_ _Of lordly lookes_, wrapped within my cloke, _To will and l.u.s.t_ learning to set a law, It is not, that because I storme or mocke The power of those whom fortune here hath lent Charge over us, of right to strike the stroke; But true it is, that I have alway ment Less to esteeme them, than the common sort Of outward thinges that judge in their entent;

My Poynes, I cannot frame my tong to fayn, To cloke the truth, for praise, without desert, Of them that list all vice for to retayne; I cannot _honour_ them that set theyr part _With Venus and with Bacchus their life long_, Nor hold my peace of them although I smart I cannot crouch, nor _kneele_ to such a wrong, TO WORs.h.i.+P THEM LIKE G.o.d ON EARTH ALONE, _That are as wolves these sely lambs among_.

(Here was a sigh perhaps to the memory of his poor friend Anne):--

I cannot wrest the law to fyll the coffer With innocent blood to feed myselfe _fat_, And do most hurt where that most help I offer I am not he that can allow the state Of hye Caesar, and d.a.m.n Cato to die;

(an allusion probably to Sir Thomas More).