CONTAINING
The Entertaining and Merry Tricks and Droll Frolics played by the Cobbler
How he got acquainted with the King, became a Great Man and lived at Court ever after.
Chapter I.
How King Henry VIII. used to visit the watches in the city and how he became acquainted with a merry, jovial cobbler.
It was the custom of King Henry the Eighth to walk late in the night into the city disguised, to observe and take notice how the constables and watch performed their duty, not only in guarding the city gates, but also in diligently watching the inner parts of the city, that so they might, in a great measure, prevent those disturbances and casualties which too often happen in great and populous cities in the night; and this he did oftentimes, without the least discovery who he was, returning home to Whitehall early in the morning.
Now, on his return home through the Strand, he took notice of a certain cobbler who was constantly up at work whistling and singing every morning. The king was resolved to see him and be acquainted with him, in order to which he immediately knocks the heel off his shoe by hitting it against a stone, and having so done, he bounced at the cobbler's stall.
"Who's there?" cries the cobbler.
"Here's one," cries the king. With that the cobbler opened the stall door, and the king asked him if he could put the heel on his shoe.