...I was senseless enow to undervalue Will. Yes, I am a happy wife, a happy mother. When my little Bill stroaked dear father's face just now, and murmured "Pretty!" he burst out a-laughing, and cried, "You are like the young Cyrus, who exclaimed, 'Oh, mother, how pretty is my grandfather!'"
I often sitt for an hour or more, watching Hans Holbein at his brush. He hath a rare gift of limning; but in our likeness, which he hath painted for deare Erasmus, I think he has made us very ugly.
III.--The Great Seal is Resigned
June, 1530.
Events have followed too quick and thick for me to note 'em. Father's embassade to Cambray, and then his summons to Woodstock. Then the fire in the men's quarter, the outhouses and barns. Then, more unlookt for, the fall of my lord cardinall and father's elevation to the chancellorship.
On the day succeeding his being sworn in, Patteson marched hither and thither, in mourning and paper weepers, bearing a huge placard, inscribed, "Partnership dissolved," and crying, "My brother is dead; for now they've made him Lord Chancellor, we shall ne'er see Sir Thomas more."
Father's dispatch of business is such that one day before the end of term he was told there was no cause or petition to be sett before him, a thing unparalleled, which he desired might be formally recorded.
July 28.
Here's father at issue with half the learned heads in Christendom concerning the king's marriage. And yet for alle that, I think father is in the right.
He taketh matters soe to heart that e'en his appetite fails.