that I was like forthwith to be silenced, I made no scruple to entertain you (contrary to my former usage) with much unpleasant and ill dressed discourse, because I see I have incurred the displeasure and hatred of some; but whether deservedly or no, I shall leave to their consideration, for I am persuaded that those who have driven me hence would not suffer me to live anywhere if it were in their power. But as for me, I willingly yield to the times, and if they can derive to themselves any satisfaction from my calamity, I would not hinder them from it. But as Aristides, when he went into exile and forsook his country, prayed that they might never more think of him; so I beseech God to grant the same to my fellow-collegians, and what can they wish for more? Pardon me, my hearers, if grief has seized me, being to be torn against my will from that place where I have passed the first part of my life, where I have lived pleasantly, and been in some honour and employment. But why do I thus delay to put an end to my misery by one word? Woe is me, that (as with my extreme sorrow and deep feeling I at last speak it) I must say farewell my studies, farewell to these beloved houses, farewell thou pleasant seat of learning, farewell to the most delightful intercourse with you, farewell young men, farewell lads, farewell fellows, farewell brethren, farewell ye beloved as my eyes, farewell all, farewell."

But he did not yet leave Oxford. Another college sheltered Jewel, and the University, making him. public orator, required him to write its congratulations to the queen upon her proposed change of the established religion. He was driven also, by threat of death, to sign doctrines in which he did not believe, whereby he lost his friends and did not satisfy his enemies. Then he fled on foot, and was

JOHN JEWEL. (From the Portrait before Strype's "Life of Jewel.") found lying exhausted on the road by a friend, who took him to London; and thence, in 1554, he crossed to Frankfort. There he from the pulpit, with extreme emotion, publicly repudiated his subscription to the doctrines he denied. "It was my abject and cowardly mind," he said, "and faint heart that made my weak hand to commit this wickedness." His old friend Peter Martyr presently drew Jewel from

Frankfort to Strasburg, where he took him into his house as constant companion and helper. Jewel transcribed for the printer his friend's Commentary on the Book of Judges, and read the Fathers with him, especially St. Augustine. Edmund Grindal was among the English refugees with whom Jewel formed closer friendship at Strasburg. In 1556 Peter Martyr was called to the professorship of Hebrew at Zurich, and went thither, taking Jewel with him as a part of his own household. After the death of Mary, John Jewel returned to England, where Elizabeth soon made him Bishop of Salisbury. In 1562 Bishop Jewel published in Latin, for readers throughout Europe, his "Apology of the Church of England." It was issued by the queen's authority as a Confession of the Faith of the Reformed Church of England, showing where and why it had parted from those Roman doctrines which it accounted to be heresies, and how they had arisen in the early Church. Thus Bishop Jewel wrote in his "Apology" upon

THE CHARGE OF HERESY.

Though St. Jerome will allow no man to be patient under the suspicion of heresy, yet we will not behave ourselves neither sourly nor irreverently, nor angerly, though he ought not to be esteemed either sharp or abusive who speaks nothing but the truth; no, we will leave that sort of oratory to our adversaries, who think whatsoever they speak, although it be never so sharp and reproachful, modest and apposite when it is applied to us, and they are as little concerned whether it be true or false; but we, who defend nothing but the truth, have no need of such base arts.

Now if we make it appear, and that not obscurely and craftily, but bona fide, before God, truly, ingeniously, clearly and perspicuously, that we teach the most holy Gospel of God, and that the ancient Fathers and the whole primitive Church are on our side, and that we have not without just cause left them, and returned to the Apostles and the ancient Catholic Fathers; and if they, who so much detest our doctrine, and pride themselves in the name of Catholics, shall apparently see, that all those pretences of antiquity, of which they so immoderately glory, belong not to them, and that there is more strength in our cause than they thought there was; then we hope that none of them will be so careless of his salvation, but he will at some time or other bethink himself which side he ought to join with. Certainly, if a man be not of a hard and obdurate heart, and resolved not to hear, he can never repent the having once considered our defence, and the attending what is said by us, and whether it be agreeable or no to the Christian Religion.

For whereas they call us heretics, that is so dreadful a crime, that except it be apparently seen, except it be palpable, and as it were to be felt with our hands and fingers, it ought not to be easily believed that a Christian is or can be guilty of it; for heresy is a renunciation of our salvation, a rejection of the grace of God, and a departure from the body and spirit of Christ. But this was ever the custom and usage of them and of their forefathers, that if any presumed to complain of their errors, and desired the reformation of religion, they condemned them forthwith for heretics, as innovators and factious men. Christ himself was called a Samaritan, for no other cause, but for that they thought He had made a defection to a new religion or heresy. And St. Paul the Apostle being called in question, was accused of heresy, to which he replied: After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the

God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law, and in the Prophets.

In short, all that religion which we Christians now profess, in the beginning of Christianity, was by the pagans called a sect or heresy; with these words they filled the ears of princes, that when out of prejudice they had once possessed their minds with an aversion for us, and that they were persuaded that whatever we said was factious and heretical, they might be diverted from reflecting upon the thing itself, or ever hearing or considering the cause. But by how much the greater and more grievous this crime is, so much the rather ought it to be proved by clear and strong arguments, especially at this time, because men begin now-a-days a little to distrust the fidelity of their oracles, and to inquire into their doctrine with much greater industry than has heretofore been employed; for the people of God in this age are quite of another disposition than they were heretofore, when all the responses and dictates of the Popes of Rome were taken for Gospel, and all religion depended upon their authority; the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Apostles and Prophets are everywhere now to be had, out of which all the true and catholic doctrine may be proved, and all heresies may be refuted.

But seeing they can produce nothing out of the Scriptures against us, it is very injurious and cruel to call us heretics, who have not revolted from Christ, nor from the Apostles, nor from the Prophets. By the sword of Scripture Christ overcame the devil when He was tempted by him; with these weapons everything that exalteth itself against God is to be brought down and dispersed, for all Scripture (saith St. Paul) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, that the man of God may be perfect and throughly furnished unto all good works; and accordingly, the holy fathers have never fought against heretics with any other arms than what the Scriptures have afforded them. St. Augustine, when he disputed against Petilianus, a Donatist heretic, useth these words, Let not (saith he) these words be heard," I say," or "Thou sayest," but rather let us say, "Thus saith the Lord." Let us seek the church there, let us judge of our cause by that. And St. Jerome saith, Let whatever is pretended to be delivered by the Apostles, and cannot be proved by the testimony of the written Word, be struck with the sword of God. And St. Ambrose to the Emperor Gratian, Let the Scriptures (saith he), let the Apostles, let the Prophets, let Christ be interrogated. The Catholic Fathers and bishops of those times did not doubt but our religion might be sufficiently proved by Scripture; nor durst they esteem any man an heretic, whose error they could not perspicuously and clearly prove such by Scripture. And as to us, we may truly reply with St. Paul, After the way which they call Heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets, or the writings of the Apostles.

John Aylmer, who was born in 1521, and educated at Cambridge, was that tutor to Lady Jane Grey who is named in a passage often quoted from Roger Ascham's "Schoolmaster:"

One example, whether love or feare doth worke more in a child, for vertue and learning, I will gladlie report: which maie be hard with some pleasure, and folowed with more profit. Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodegate in Lecetershire, to take my leave of that noble Ladie Jane Grey, to whom I was exceding moch beholdinge. Hir parentes, the Duke and the Duches, with all the houshould, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were huntinge in the Parke: I founde her, in her Chamber, readinge Phædon Platonis in

Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som jentleman wold read a merie tale in Bocase. After salutation, and dewtie done, with som other taulke, I asked hir, whie she wold leese soch pastime in the Parke smiling she answered me: I wisse, all their sporte in the Parke is but a shadoe to that pleasure, that I find in Plato: Alas, good folke, they never felt, what trewe pleasure ment. And howe came you, Madame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did chieflie allure you unto it: seinge, not many women, but verie fewe men have atteined thereunto? I will tell you, quoth she, and tell you a troth, which perchance ye will mervell at. One of the greatest benefites, that ever God gave me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and severe Parentes, and so jentle a scholemaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie, or sad, be sowyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing anie thing els, I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number, even so perfitelie, as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name, for the honor I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I thinke my selfe in hell, till tyme cum, that I must go to M. Elmer, who teacheth me so jentlie, so pleasantlie, with soch faire allurementes to learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing, whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, what soever I do els, but learning, is ful of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking unto me: And thus my booke, hath bene so moch my pleasure, and bringeth dayly to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deede, be but trifles and troubles unto me. I remember this talke gladly, both bicause it is so worthy of memorie, and bicause also, it was the last talke that ever I had, and the last tyme, that ever I saw that noble and worthie Ladie.

In 1553 Aylmer was Archdeacon of Stowe, and he was one of the Protestant exiles at Zurich in the reign of Mary. It was he who after the accession of Elizabeth published at Strasburg a loyal reply to John Knox's "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women." His age then was thirty-eight.

The title of Aylmer's book is "An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subiectes, agaynst the late blowne Blaste, concerninge the Gouerment of Wemen, wherin be confuted all such reasons as à straunger of late made in that behalfe, with a breife Exhortation to obedience. Anno M.D.lix. Proverbes 32. Many daughters there be, that gather riches together: but thou goest above them all. As for favour it is deceitfull, and bewtie is a vaine thing but a woman that feareth the Lord: she is worthie to be praysed. Geve her of the fruit of her handes, and let her owne workes prayse her in the gate. At Strasborowe the 26 of April."

Aylmer begins with reasoning upon the power of God, who by weak instruments has declared his glory; who had enabled one poor friar, Luther, without armies at his back, to cast out of the temple of God Antichrist, armed and guarded with the power of Emperors, Kings, Princes, and Laws.

And as we began with the matter of women, so to return thither again with the example of a woman. Was not Queen Anne, the mother of this blessed woman, the chief, first, and

only cause of banishing this beast of Rome, with all his beggarly baggage? Was there ever in England a greater feat wrought by any man than this was by a woman? I take not from King Henry the due praise of broaching it, nor from that lamb of God, King Edward, the finishing and perfecting of that was begun, though I give her her due commendation. I know that that blessed martyr of God, Thomas Cranmer, Bishop of Canterbury, did much travail in it, and furthered it but if God had not given Queen Anne favour in the sight of the king, as he gave to Esther in the sight of Nebuchadnezzar, Haman and his company, the Cardinal,' Winchester,2 More, Rochester3 and others, would soon have triced up Mordecai, with all the rest that leaned to that side. Wherefore, though many deserved much praise for the helping forward of it, yet the crop and root was the queen, which God had endued with wisdom that she could, and given her the mind that she would, do it. Seeing then that in all ages God hath wrought his most wonderful works by most base means, and showed his strength by weakness, his wisdom by foolishness, and his exceeding greatness by man's exceeding feebleness, what doubt we of this power when we lack policy, or mistrust his help which hath wrought such wonders? Who is placed above Him, saith Job, to teach Him what He should do? Or who can say to Him, Thou hast not done justly? He sendeth a woman by birth; we may not refuse her by violence. He stablisheth her by law; we may not remove her by wrong.

Of the arguments of the "First Blast" Aylmer says presently

The arguments, as I remember, be these, not many in number, but handsomely amplified.

First, that whatsoever is against nature, the same in a Commonwealth is not tolerable. But the government of a woman is against nature. Ergo, it is not tolerable.

The second, Whatsoever is forbidden by Scripture is not lawful. But a woman to rule is forbidden by Scripture. Ergo, it is not lawful.

The third, If a woman may not speak in the Congregation, much less may she rule. But she may not speak in the Congregation. Ergo, she may not rule.

The fourth, What the Civil Law forbiddeth, that is not lawful. But the rule of a woman the Civil Law forbiddeth. Ergo, it is not lawful.

The fifth, Seeing there followeth more inconvenience of the rule of women than of men's government, therefore it is not to be borne in a Commonwealth.

The last, The Doctors and Canonists forbid it. Ergo, it cannot be good.

These (as I remember) be the props that hold up this matter, or rather the pickaxes to undermine the State.

John Aylmer takes each of these syllogisms in turn, and shows logically where it fails. Then having knocked down all the props, and blunted all the pickaxes, he calls upon each loyal Englishman to support and establish their queen, and cheerfully to pay their taxes.

If thou mistrust the misspending of that thou givest and she taketh, thou art too foolish. For could she that in all her life hath lived upon her own so humbly without pride, so moderately without prodigality, so maidenly without pomp, now find in her heart in unnecessary charges to lash out

The Cardinal, Wolsey. 2 Winchester, Gardiner, 3 Rochester, John Fisher.

thine? Wilt thou have a taste, how prodigal or pompous she is? I pray thee, then, mark these two points which I know to be true, although in that sex they be strange. Seven years after her father's death she had so proud a stomach, and so much delighted in glistening gases of the world, in gay apparel, rich attire, and precious jewels, that in all that time she never looked upon those that her father left her but once, and that against her will. And after so gloried in them, that there came never gold nor stone upon her head till her sister enforced her to lay off her former soberness and bear her company in her glistening gains. Yea, and then she so ware it as every man might see, that her body carried that which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used in King Edward's time made the noblemen's daughters and wives to be ashamed to be drest and painted like peacocks, being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul and Peter wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's daughter, receiving from Lady Mary before she was Queen, goodly apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with parchment lace of gold, when she saw it said, "What shall I do with it?" "Marry," said a gentlewoman, "wear it." "Nay," quoth she, "that were a shame, to follow my lady Mary against God's Word, and leave my lady Elizabeth which followeth God's Word." See that good example is oft times much better than a great deal of preaching. And this all men know, that when all the ladies bent up the attire of the Scottish skits at the coming in of the Scottish Queen, to go unbridled, and with their hair frounced, curled, and double curled, she altered nothing, but to the shame of them all kept her old maidenly shamefastness. Another thing to declare how little she setteth by this worldly pomp, is this, that in all her time she never meddled with money but against her will, but seemed to set so little by it, that she thought to touch it was to defile her pure hands consecrated to turn over good books, to lift unto God in prayer, and to deal alms to the poor. Are not these arguments sufficient to

make thee think of her that she will neither call to thee before she hath need, nor misspend it vainly after she hath it ?*

This passage recalls the account given of Elizabeth as a young princess by her tutor, Roger Ascham, in a private letter, written in April, 1550, to his German friend, John Sturm, which certainly expressed the writer's private mind :—

"There are many honourable ladies now who surpass Thomas More's daughters in all kinds of learning; but among all of them the brightest star is my illustrious Lady Elizabeth, the king's sister; so that I have no difficulty in finding subject for writing in her praise, but only in setting bounds to what I write. I will write nothing however which I have not myself witnessed. She had me for her tutor in Greek and Latin two years; but now I am released from the Court and restored to my old literary leisure here, where by her beneficence I hold an honest place in this University. It is difficult to say whether the gifts of nature or of fortune are most to be admired in that illustrious lady. The praise which Aristotle gives wholly centres in her-beauty, stature, prudence, and industry. She has just passed her sixteenth birthday, and shows such dignity and gentleness as are wonderful at her age and in her rank. Her study of true religion and learning is most energetic. Her mind has no womanly weakness, her perseverance is equal to that of a man, and her memory long keeps what it quickly picks up. She talks French and Italian as well as English she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin, and moderately so in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her hand-writing. She is as much delighted with music as she is skilful in the art. In adornment she is elegant rather than showy, and by her contempt of gold and head-dresses, she reminds one of Hippolyte rather than of Phædra. She read with me almost all Cicero, and great part of Titus Livius; for she drew all her knowledge of Latin from those two authors. She used to give the morning of the day to the Greek Testament, and afterwards read select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles. For I thought that from those sources she might gain purity of style, and her mind derive instruction that would be of value to her to meet

In 1562 John Aylmer was made Archdeacon of Lincoln, and in 1576 Bishop of London, on the translation of Sandys to the see of York.

JOHN AYLMER.

From the Portrait prefixed to his Life by Strype.

Here let us recall a few more of those events which

occupied the minds of Englishmen, and quickened energies of thought and feeling during the first twenty-one years of Elizabeth's reign. In 1564 year of the birth of Shakespeare-Catherine de' Medici was visited by her daughter Elizabeth, who in 1560 had been married, aged fifteen, to Philip of Spain, aged thirty-four. The Duke of Alva came with the Spanish Queen Elizabeth, and was heard exhorting Catherine to strike down some leaders of the Huguenots, saying to her, "One head of salmon is worth ten thousand heads of frogs." In March of this year 1564, Cardinal Granvella was obliged by a league of nobles of the Netherlands, headed by William of Orange and Counts Egmont and Horn, to retire from the Government. In July, 1565, Mary

every contingency of life. To these I added Saint Cyprian and Melanchthon's Common Places, &c., as best suited, after the Holy Scriptures, to teach her the foundations of religion, together with elegant language and sound doctrine. Whatever she reads she at once perceives any word that has a doubtful or curious meaning. She cannot endure those foolish imitators of Erasmus, who have tied up the Latin tongue in those wretched fetters of proverbs. She likes a style that grows out of the subject; chaste because it is suitable, and beautiful because it is clear. She very much admires modest metaphors, and comparisons of contraries well put together and contrasting felicitously with one another. Her ears are so well practised in discriminating all these things, and her judgment is so good, that in all Greek, Latin, and English composition, there is nothing so loose on the one hand or so concise on the other, which she does not immediately attend to, and either reject with disgust or receive with pleasure, as the case may be. I am not inventing anything, my dear Sturm; it is all true: but I only seek to give you an outline of her excellence, and whilst doing so, I have been pleased to recall to my mind the dear memory of my most illustrious lady...

St. John's College, Cambridge, April 4, 1550,"

Queen of Scots married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In October, 1565, Philip of Spain wrote to require enforcement in the Netherlands of edicts against heresy. The nobles required Margaret of Parma, who was then Regent, to publish the letter. A storm of feeling was aroused. Thousands began to emigrate to England, and up their looms among us. In 1566 Philip conceded to the Netherlands moderation of the law against heretics by substitution of hanging for burning. In March of that year occurred Darnley's murder of Rizzio, and on the 19th of June the birth of Mary Stuart's son James, afterwards James I. of England.

On the 22nd of August, 1567, the Duke of Alva entered Brussels. He then occupied other towns of the Netherlands, established the Council of Tumults -otherwise known as the Council of Blood. Margaret of Parma retired from the Regency, and Alva became Governor-General of the Netherlands. At the same time the second Huguenot civil war broke out in France. In this year, on the night of Sunday, the 9th of February, Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was destroyed by a gunpowder plot. In May, the Earl of Bothwell was divorced from a wife to whom he had been married only fourteen months, and married to Queen Mary. Before the end of July, Mary had been compelled by her own subjects to sign her abdication in favour of her son James, and appoint the Earl of Murray-friend of Knox and the foremost Reformers Regent during his minority. Mary escaped from Lochleven, raised her friends, was defeated at Langside, and turned to England: thus she became in 1568, and remained for eighteen years, a state prisoner to England, regarded by the Roman Catholics abroad as future Queen of England if their cause should triumph. In February, 1568, a sentence of the Inquisition condemned to death all the inhabitants of the Netherlands except some who were named, and Alva estimated at eight hundred the executions after Passion week. In June this year, also, Counts Egmont and Horn were executed. There was pause of civil war in France between Roman Catholics and Huguenots, but in 1569 it was resumed, and in that year young Walter Raleigh went to France, and joined the Huguenots as volunteer. in 1569 that Edmund Spenser went to Cambridge, entering Pembroke College as a sizar, and in that year also he first appeared in print, as contributor of verse to a religious miscellany by one of the refugees from persecution in the Netherlands, John Van der Noodt. Contribution to such a book shows clearly what was the bent of young Spenser's mind, and how he looked at the course of events. The book was called " A Theatre wherein be represented as well the Miseries and Calamities which follow the Voluptuous Worldling, as also the great Joys and Pleasures which the Faithful do enjoy. An Argument both Profitable and Delectable to all that sincerely love the Word of God."

It was

In August, 1570, a treaty was made in France which conceded much to the Huguenots. In the spring of 1571 a Synod of the French Reformed Church was held, by the King's permission, at Rochelle. On the 24th of August, 1572, the French

Huguenots were struck down by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

In the Netherlands, in 1573, there was the siege of Protestant Haarlem, when three hundred women were among the defenders of the town. It ended with a treacherous slaughter of two or three thousand. Three hundred were drowned in the lake, tied back to back. In December of that year (1573), the Duke of Alva was recalled by his own wish, and boasted on his way home that he had caused 16,000 Netherlanders to be executed. Hearing of such events was part of the education of Edmund Spenser while at Cambridge. He graduated as B.A. in 1573, then being about twenty years old. In 1575 Edmund Grindal-then aged fifty-six-became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Edmund Grindal was born in 1519, at St. Bees, in Cumberland, was educated at Cambridge, and was in 1550 chaplain to Bishop Ridley. In 1553 he was among those Reformers who fled from persecutions in England, and he went to Strasburg. At the accession of Elizabeth he returned, and he assisted in the drawing up of the new liturgy. In 1559 he was made Master of Pembroke Hall, and in the

EDMUND GRINDAL.
From the Portrait before his Life by Strype.

same year Bishop of London. In 1570 he became Archbishop of York, and in 1575 Archbishop of Canterbury. While maintaining generally the discipline established in the Reformed Church of England, Edmund Grindal agreed in some respects with those whom Matthew Parker is said to have first called Puritans and Precisians for what he regarded as their over-precise reference of everything -whether fit subject of revelation or not-to Bible warrant. Edmund Grindal laid great stress on the importance of a faithful study and interpretation of God's Word. As Bishop of London, as Archbishop of York, and now as head of the Church of England,

he used what authority he might to encourage a form of meeting called "prophesying," from the schools of the prophets spoken of in the Old Testament, for the interpretation of the Word of God. The clergy in a district met to discuss difficulties with one another, that they might not be taken by surprise when these were propounded to them by parishioners, and that they might be trained to bring knowledge and thought to their preaching. Queen Elizabeth objected to the prophesyings as examples of division of opinion among the clergy, encouragements to a bold questioning among the laity, and destructive of a Unity of Doctrine, by which she hoped to secure peace in the Church. The Books of Homilies provided sermons enough, she thought, and the use of them caused a uniformity of preaching that would give small scope for heresies of private judgment. She therefore bade the new Archbishop issue letters to the clergy to forbid the "prophesyings," and restrain excess of zeal for original preaching. Grindal replied that his conscience would not suffer him to do this, and he was therefore, in 1577, sequestered from the exercise of his office. This is the letter that caused his disgrace:

LETTER TO THE QUEEN,

Concerning suppressing the Prophesies, and abridging the Number of Preachers.

With most humble remembrance of my bounden duty to your Majesty: It may please the same to be advertised, that the speeches which it hath pleased you to deliver unto me, when I last attended on your Highness, concerning abridging the number of preachers, and the utter suppression of all learned exercises and conferences among the ministers of the Church, allowed by their bishops and ordinaries, have exceedingly dismayed and discomforted me. Not so much for that the said speeches sounded very hardly against mine own person, being but one particular man, and not much to be accounted of; but most of all for that the same might both tend to the public harm of God's Church, whereof your Highness ought to be nutricia, and also to the heavy burdening of your own conscience before God, if they should be put in strict execution. It was not your Majesty's pleasure then, the time not serving thereto, to hear me at any length concerning the said two matters then propounded: I thought it therefore my duty by writing to declare some part of my mind unto your Highness; beseeching the same with patience to read over this that I now send, written with mine own rude scribbling hand; which seemeth to be of more length than it is indeed: for I say with Ambrose, Scribo manu mea, quod sola legas.2

MADAM,

First of all, I must and will, during my life, confess, that there is no earthly creature to whom I am so much bounden as to your Majesty; who, notwithstanding mine insufficiency (which commendeth your grace the more), hath bestowed upon me so many and so great benefits as I could never hope for, much less deserve. I do therefore, according to my most bounden duty, with all thanksgiving, bear towards your Majesty a most humble, faithful, and thankful heart; and that knoweth He which knoweth all things. Neither do I ever intend to offend your Majesty in any thing, unless, in

1 Nurse.

"I write with mine own hand, what you alone may read."