[369] Father Forest hath laboured divers manner of ways to expulse Father Laurence out of the convent, and his chief cause is, because he knoweth that Father Laurence will preach the king's matter whensoever it shall please his Grace to command him.—Ibid. p. 250.
[370] Ibid. p. 251.
[371] Lyst to Cromwell. Ibid. p. 255. STRYPE, Eccles. Memor., vol. i. Appendix, No. 47.
[372] STOW'S Annals, p. 562. This expression passed into a proverb, although the words were first spoken by a poor friar; they were the last which the good Sir Humfrey Gilbert was heard to utter before his ship went down.
[373] Vaughan to Cromwell: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 489-90. "I learn that this book was first drawn by the Bishop of Rochester, and so being drawn, was by the said bishop afterwards delivered in England to two Spaniards, being secular and laymen. They receiving his first draught, either by themselves or some other Spaniards, altered and perfinished the same into the form that it now is; Peto and one Friar Elstowe of Canterbury, being the only men that have and do take upon themselves to be conveyers of the same books into England, and conveyers of all other things into and out of England. If privy search be made, and shortly, peradventure in the house of the same bishop shall be found his first copy. Master More hath sent oftentimes and lately books unto Peto, in Antwerp—as his book of the confutation of Tyndal, and of Frith's opinion of the sacrament, with divers other books. I can no further learn of More's practices, but if you consider this well, you may perchance espy his craft. Peto laboureth busylier than a bee in the setting forth of this book. He never ceaseth running to and from the court here. The king never had in his realm traitors like his friars—[Vaughan wrote "clergy." The word in the original is dashed through, and "friars" is substituted, whether by Cromwell or by himself in an afterthought, I do not know]—and so I have always said, and yet do. Let his Grace look well about him, for they seek to devour him. They have blinded his Grace."
[374] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 262, etc.
[375] The wishes of the French Court had been expressed emphatically to Clement in the preceding January. Original copies of the two following letters are in the Bibliothèque Impérial at Paris:—
The Cardinal of Lorraine to Cardinal —— at Rome.
"Paris, Jan. 8, 1531-2.
"RIGHT REVEREND FATHER AND LORD IN CHRIST.—After our most humble commendations—The King of England complains loudly that his cause is not remanded into his own country; he says that it cannot be equitably dealt with at Rome, where he cannot be present. He himself, the Queen, and the other witnesses, are not to be dragged into Italy to give their evidence; and the suits of the Sovereigns of England and France have always hitherto been determined in their respective countries.