[68] King John, in 1213, had made peace with the Pope (who had deposed him) by consenting to hold his kingdom in fief for the Pope and to pay to him an annual tribute of 1,000 marks.
[69] These words mean "We create thee companion to kings, superior to dukes, and our brother."
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Born in 1605, died in 1682; educated at Oxford, Padua and Leyden; in 1633 made Doctor of Medicine; settled at Norwich in 1637; knighted in 1671; his "Religio Medici" published in 1643; author of several other works.
I
OF CHARITY IN JUDGMENTS[70]
Now for that other virtue of charity, without which faith is a mere notion and of no existence, I have ever endeavored to nourish the merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my parents, and regulate it to the written and prescribed laws of charity: and if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue; for I am of a constitution so general that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things: I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humor, air, anything. I wonder not at the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools; nor at the Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but being amongst them, make them my common viands, and I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander: at the sight of a toad or viper I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can discover in others; those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch; but where I find their actions in balance with my countrymen's, I honor, love, and embrace them in the same degree.