He sayth they have no brayne
Their estate to maintaine:
And make to bowe the knee
Before his Majestie.”
[13.] Compare also the quotation from Piers Plowman’s Crede, under No. 5, p. xlv, and Palsgrave, 1530 A.D., ‘I mase, I stonysshe, Je bestourne. You mased the boye so sore with beatyng that he coulde not speake a worde.’ See a gross instance of cruelty cited from Erasmus’s Letters, by Staunton, in his Great Schools of England, p. 179-80.
[14.] “And therfore do I the more lament that soch [hard] wittes commonlie be either kepte from learning by fond fathers, or bet from learning by lewde scholemasters,” ed. Mayor, p. 19. But Ascham reproves parents for paying their masters so badly: “it is pitie, that commonlie more care is had, yea and that emonges verie wise men, to finde out rather a cunnynge man for their horse than a cunnyng man for their children. They say nay in worde, but they do so in deede. For, to the one they will gladlie give a stipend of 200. Crounes by yeare, and loth to offer to the other, 200. shillinges. God, that sitteth in heauen, laugheth their choice to skorne, and rewardeth their liberalitie as it should: for he suffereth them to have tame and well ordered horse, but wilde and unfortunate Children.” Ib. p. 20
[15-15.] Sanctæ memoriæ Robertum Cognominatum Grodsted dudum Lincolniendem Episcopum, Regi Henrico quasi admirando, cum interrogavit, ubi Noraturam didicit, quâ Filios Nobilium Procerum Regni, quos secum habuit Domisellos, instruxerat, cum non de nobili prosapia, sed de simplicibus traxisset Originem, fertur intrepide respondisse, In Domo seu Hospitio Majorum Regum quam sit Rex Angliæ; Quia Regum, David, Salomonis, & aliorum, vivendi morem didicerat ex Intelligentia scripturarum.
[16.] Domicellus, Domnicellus, diminutivum a Domnus. Gloss. antiquæ MSS.: Heriles, Domini minores, quod possumus aliter dicere Domnicelli, Ugutio: Domicelli et Domicellas dicuntur, quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut servientes. Sic porro primitus appellabant magnatum, atque adeo Regum filios. Du Cange.
[17.] Mr Bruce sends me the More extracts.
[18.] How Wolsey broke off the insurance is very well told. Mistress Anne was “sent home again to her father for a season; whereat she smoked”; but she “was revoked unto the Court,” and “after she knew the king’s pleasure and the great love that he bare her in the bottom of his stomach, then she began to look very hault and stout, having all manner of jewels or rich apparel that might be gotten with money” (p. 67).