Another example.
Hence it happened once, that at Christmas time a certain great lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and spurned the delusion, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to his chamber, saying:
Fy, fy, for shame, forsothe ye be to blame.
At another time, riding by Bath, where are warm baths in which they say the men of that country customably refresh and wash themselves, the king, looking into the baths, saw in them men wholly naked with every garment cast off. At which he was displeased, and went away quickly, abhorring such nudity as a great offence, and not unmindful of that sentence of Francis Petrarch 'the nakedness of a beast is in men unpleasing, but the decency of raiment makes for modesty.'
Besides, he took great precautions to secure not only his own chastity but that of his servants. For before he was married, being as a youth a pupil of chastity, he would keep careful watch through hidden windows of his chamber, lest any foolish impertinence of women coming into the house should grow to a head, and cause the fall of any of his household. And like pains did he apply in the case of his two half-brothers, the Lords Jasper and Edmund, in their boyhood and youth: providing for them most strict and safe guardianship, putting them under the care of virtuous and worthy priests, both for teaching and for right living and conversation, lest the untamed practices of youth should grow rank if they lacked any to prune them. Not less diligence did he use, I am told, towards others dependent on him, advising them to eschew vice and avoid the talk of the vicious and dissolute, and to lay hold on virtue.
Against avarice.
His liberality.
Against that pest of avarice with which so many are infected and diseased, even princes of the earth, this king Henry of whom we speak was most wary and alert. For neither by the splendid presents given to him nor by the ample wealth which he owned was he ever entrapped into the unlawful love of them, but was most liberal to the poor in lightening their wants; and enriched very many others with great gifts or offices, or at least put all neediness far from them. Never did he oppress his subjects with unreasonable exactions as do other rulers and princes, but behaving himself among them like a kind father, relieved them from his own resources in a most comely sort, and contenting himself with what he had, preferred to live uprightly among them, rather than that they should pine in poverty, trodden down by his harshness. Now that he was content with his own substance and in no way coveted that of others is shown by many true instances. Among them is this: a certain great lord offered the said king a precious coverlet for the bed in his chamber, which was all over set with gold nobles in great number, and then he said: 'Be you careful of these and their like.' But the mind of the king thirsting rather for heavenly and spiritual things and making the things of earth of less account, regarded lightly the gift.
At another time when the executors of his uncle, the most reverend lord cardinal the bishop of Winchester came to the king with a very great sum, namely £2000 of gold to pay him, for his own uses, and to relieve the burdens and necessities of the realm, he utterly refused the gift, nor would receive it by any manner of means, saying: 'He was a very dear uncle to me and most liberal in his lifetime. The Lord reward him. Do ye with his goods as ye are bound: we will receive none of them.' The executors were amazed at this his saying, and entreated the king's majesty that he would at least accept that gift at their hands for the endowment of his two colleges which he had then newly founded, at Cambridge and Eton. This petition and gift the king gladly accepted, and ordered them to make the gift to the said colleges for the relief of the soul of his said uncle; and they fulfilled the king's command with all speed.