“Would you go now, if you saw your starting-point?”
“If I saw the door open, I should go: that would be leave from Our Lord. If I saw the door open, and my keepers and the other English beyond power of resistance, truly I should see in it my leave and help sent me by Our Lord. But without this leave, I shall not go, unless I make a forcible attempt to go,[[80]] and so learn if Our Lord would be pleased: this on the strength of the proverb, ‘Help thyself, and God will help thee’: I say this in order that, if I do escape, no one may say I did so without God’s leave.”
“When you asked to hear Mass, did it not seem to you that it would be more proper to be in female dress? Which would you like best, to have a woman’s dress to hear Mass, or to remain in a man’s dress and not hear it?”
“Give me assurance beforehand that I shall hear Mass if I am in female attire, and I will answer you this.”
“Very well, I give you assurance of it: you shall hear Mass if you put on female attire.”
“And what say you, if I have sworn and promised to our King my Master, not to put off this dress? Well, I will answer you this: Have made for me a long dress down to the ground, without a train; give it to me to go to Mass, and then on my return I will put on again the dress I have.”
“I say it to you once again, do you consent to wear female attire to go and hear Mass?”
“I will take counsel on this, and then I will answer you: but I beseech you, for the honour of God and Our Lady permit me to hear Mass in this good town.”
“You consent simply and absolutely to take female attire?”
“Send me a dress like a daughter of your citizens—that is to say, a long ‘houppeland.’[[81]] I will wear it to go and hear Mass. I beseech you as earnestly as I can, permit me to hear it in the dress I wear at this moment and without changing anything!”