Bedford, however, made no sign of recognition. Bourne read the ballad; on which Underhill protested that there was no attack on the queen's title in it. No! Bourne said, but it maintains the queen's title with the help of an arrant heretic, Tyndal. Underhill used the word Papist. Sir John Mason asked what he meant by that: "Sir," he says that he replied, "I think, if you look among the priests in Paul's, you shall find some old mumpsimusses there.
"Mumpsimusses, knave, said he, mumpsimusses! Thou art an heretic knave, by God's blood!
"Yea! by the mass, said the Earl of Bath, I warrant him an heretic knave indeed.
"I beseech your honours," Underhill said, "speaking to the Lords that sat at the table (for those others stood by and were not of the council), be my good Lords. I have offended no laws. I have served the Queen's Majesty's father and brother long time, and spent and consumed my living therein. I went not forth against her Majesty, notwithstanding I was commanded."
He was interrupted by Arundel, who said that, "by his writing," "he wished to set them all by the ears." Hastings re-entered at the moment, telling the council that they must repair to the queen, and the Hot Gospeller was promptly ordered to Newgate.
The sheriff led him through the streets, his friend Joy "following afar off, as Peter followed Christ." He wrote a few words to his wife at the door of Newgate, asking her to send him "his nightgown, his Bible, and his lute;" and then entered the prison, his life in which he goes on to describe.
In the centre of Newgate was "a great open hall." "As soon as it was supper time," the board was covered in the same hall. The keeper, whose name was "Alisander," with his wife, came and sat down, and half a dozen prisoners that were there for felony, Underhill "being the first that for religion was sent unto that prison." One of the felons had served with him in France. "After supper," the story continues, "this good fellow, whose name was Bristow, procured me to have a bed in his chamber, who could play well upon a rebeck. He was a tall fellow, and after one of Queen Mary's guard; yet a Protestant, which he kept secret, for else, he said, he should not have found such favour as he did at the keeper's hands and his wife's, for to such as loved the gospel they were very cruel. Well, said Underhill, I have sent for my Bible, and, by God's grace, therein shall be my daily exercise; I will not hide it from them. Sir, said he, I am poor; but they will bear with you, for they see your estate is to pay well; and I will shew you the nature and manner of them; for I have been here a good while. They both do love music very well. Wherefore you with your lute, and I to play with you on my rebeck, will please them greatly. He loveth to be merry, and to drink wine, and she also. If you will bestow upon them, every dinner and supper, a quart of wine and some music, you shall be their white son, and have all the favour they can shew you."
The honour of being "white son" to the governor and governess of Newgate was worth aspiring after. Underhill duly provided the desired entertainments. The governor gave him the best room in the prison, with all other admissible indulgences.
"At last," however, "the evil savours, great unquietness, with over many drafts of air," threw the poor gentleman into a burning ague. He shifted "his lodgings," but to no purpose; the "evil savours" followed him. The keeper offered him his own parlour, where he escaped from the noise of the prison; but it was near the kitchen, and the smell of the meat was disagreeable. Finally, the wife put him away in her store-closet, amidst her best plate, crockery, and clothes, and there he continued to survive till the middle of September, when he was released on bail through the interference of the Earl of Bedford.—Underhill's Narrative: Harleian MSS. 425.[(Back to Main Text)]
Footnote 82: Strype.[(Back to Main Text)]