After which message Mr John Vales and Mr Beard never meddled further with the Hot Gospeller, doubtless knowing they might trust him to keep his word, and having no desire to risk their necks.
On the 3rd of November (see note in Appendix) was born Mr Underhill’s son Edward, at his house in Wood Street. This being no time to search for sponsors of rank, John Avery stood for the child, at the father’s request, with Mr Ive, and Mrs Elizabeth Lydiatt, Mr Underhill’s sister, who was staying with him at that time. And only a week later they were all at another christening, of Mr Holland’s child, baptised by Mr Rose; and the sponsors were Lord Strange, his kinsman (by deputy), Mr Underhill, and Thekla; the child was named after Lord Strange, Henry. (The sex and name of Roger Holland’s child are not recorded.) The all, however, did not include Mrs Rose; for she knew too well, poor soul! the dread penalty that would ensue if her husband “were taken in her company.”
The year ended better than the Gospellers feared. No harm had come to the Archbishop and his brother prisoners. Mr Underhill and Mr Rose were still at liberty. Cardinal Pole had returned to the fatherland whence he had been banished for many years; but from him they hardly looked for evil. The Princess Elizabeth was restored to favour. Roger Holland had left London for his own home in Lancashire, to prevent his child from being re-baptised after the Roman fashion. He meant to leave it with his father, and return himself to London. In the Gospellers’ houses, Mr Rose was still preaching: he was to administer the Sacrament on the night of New Year’s Day, at Mr Sheerson’s house in Bow Churchyard. And Philip had been King five months. Surely, the cloud had a silver lining! surely, they had feared more than there was need! So argued the more sanguine of the party. But it was only the dusk which hid the black clouds that had gathered; only the roar of men’s work which drowned the growl of the imminent storm. They were entering—though they knew it not—on the darkest hour of the night.
Note 1.
“Brief life is here our portion,
Brief sorrow, short-lived care;
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life is There.”
Neale’s Translation.
Note 2. Boni-Homines—translated into various languages,—was the ancient title of the Waldensian Church and its offshoots.
Note 3. The best of them, and the only Lutheran—Isabel Queen of Denmark—died in 1525; but of course the imprisoned mother never knew it.
Note 4. The letters yet extant in the archives of Simancas, from Denia and others, give rise to strong suspicion that the story which the world has believed so long—Juana’s insane determination not to bury the coffin of her husband—was a pure invention of their own, intended to produce (as it has produced) a general belief in the insanity of the Queen.
Note 5. This sketch in words, given by Foxe, is one of the most graphic descriptions ever written.