[17] "The common net at that time," says Sir Richard Baker, "for catching of Protestants was the real presence; and this net was used to catch the Lady Elizabeth. That princess showed great prudence in concealing her sentiments of religion, in complying with the present modes of worship, and in eluding all questions with regard to a subject so momentous. Being asked at one time, what she thought of the words of Christ, 'This is my Body,'—whether she thought it the true body of Christ that was in the sacrament,—it is said that after some pausing she thus answered:—
"'Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the Word did make it,
That I believe, and take it;'
"which, though it may seem but a slight expression, yet hath in it more solidness than at first sight appears; at least, it served her turn at that time to escape the net, which by a direct answer she could not have done."—Baker's Chronicle, p. 320.
[18] Cardinal Pole and others.
DR DEE, THE ASTROLOGER.
"Dark was the vaulted room of gramarye
To which the wizard led the gallant knight,
Save that before a mirror huge and high
A hallowed taper shed a glimmering light
On mystic implements of magic might;
On cross, and character, and talisman,
And almagest and altar, nothing bright;
For fitful was the lustre, pale and wan,
As watch-light by the bed of some departing man."
—Lay of the Last Minstrel.
The character of Dee, our English "Faust," as he is not inaptly called, has both been misrepresented and misunderstood. An enthusiast he undoubtedly was, but not the drivelling dotard that some of his biographers imagine. A man of profound learning, distinguished for attainments far beyond the general range of his contemporaries, he, like Faustus, and the wisest of human kind, had found out how little he knew; had perceived that the great ocean of truth yet lay unexplored before him. Pursuing his inquiries to the bound and limit, as he thought, of human knowledge, and finding it altogether "vanity," he had recourse to forbidden practices, to experiments through which the occult and hidden qualities of nature and spirit should be unveiled and subdued to his own will.