Would I had kept her with me at home.
’Tis madness at their will to let roam
Young maids or women through the countryside.
The knavery of this world is deep and wide.
¶ How Mary was shamefully bespoken of her aunt.
Thus is Mary departed from her uncle and come unto Nimmegen, where she did buy all that was needful for her or her uncle. And on the selfsame day that she was come to Nimmegen her aunt had fallen out with four or five of her gossips concerning the Duke Adolf who had done into prison the old Duke his father. So that she was the rather mad or a raging she-devil than a Christian wight; for she held of the side of the young Duke, and after did destroy herself whenas she learned that the old Duke was made quit of prison by the hand of the chastelain of Grave, as ye will hereafter learn. Mary, seeing that it grew to evening when she had done all those things for the which she had come to Nimmegen, said unto herself thus:
Now have I all such as we wanted,
By weight and measure no whit scanted,
Bought and duly therefor paid.
But meseems I have here so long delayed