[1151] Hist. Reform. I. 190-1.
[1152] Le Plat V. 244-5.
[1153] Suppression of Monasteries, p. 112.
[1154] Eccles. Memorials, I. 256-7.
[1155] Suppression of Monasteries, Nos. xvii., xxi., xxiv., xlii., xlv., xlvii., xcviii., &c.
[1156] Ibid. No. cxx.
[1157] Travels of Nicander Nucius, pp. 68-71 (Camden Soc.).
[1158] Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 249.
[1159] As published in the Harleian Miscellany, the Beggars’ Petition bears the date of 1538, but internal evidence would assign it to a time anterior to the suppression of the monasteries, and Burnet attributes it to the period under consideration, saying that it was written by Simon Fish, of Gray’s Inn, that it took mightily with the public, and that when it was handed to the king by Ann Boleyn, “he lik’d it well, and would not suffer anything to be done to the author” (Hist. Reform. I. 160). Froude, indeed, assigns it to the date of 1528, and states that Wolsey issued a proclamation against it, and further, that Simon Fish, the author, died in 1528 (Hist. Engl. Ch. VI.), while Strype (Eccles. Memorials1. 165) includes it in a list of books prohibited by Cuthbert, Bishop of London, in 1526. In the edition of 1546, the date of 1524 is attributed to it.
The tone of that which was thus equally agreeable to the court and to the city, may be judged from the following extracts, which are by no means the plainest spoken that might be selected.