BROKEN CROSS WITHIN THE ABBEY PRECINCTS.
laughed; and no one the worse. But one must not open mouth against the monks; and by freedom of speech I brought upon me the wrath of the Dominicans. So there was admonishing from the Bishop, and I left Diss, coming to London, where, I hoped, Christ cross me spede and by the favour of His Highness the King, once my scholar apt and quick, to receive some great office.”
“Did you bring your wife with you, Sir John?”
“Ha! Sayest thou wife? How? Doth the world know that I was married? Yea, I brought her with me—and my lusty boys. Sir, many there are—parish priests—who are married secretly and are thought to entertain a leman. By the King was I recommended to the Cardinal. And now, indeed, I thought my fortune made; and so paid court to that great man, and strove to please him. Yea, I wrote for him that admirable poem, profitable to the soul, entitled, ‘The Boke of Three Fooles.’ And the ‘Garlande of Laurell’ I dedicated to my Lord Cardinal’s right noble Grace:
“Go lytell quayre, apace
In moost humble wyse,
Before his noble grace,
That caused you to devise
This lytell enterprise;
And hym most lowly pray,
In his mynde to comprise
These wordes his grace dyd saye
On an ammas gray.
Je foy enterment en sa bonne grace.”
“You fell from his good grace?”
“I did. How, it boots not to relate. Tongue! tongue! that must needs be making rhymes, whether on Cardinal or on Priest, on Lord or Varlet. He gave me nothing; yet he made much of me: gave me what they call Bowge a court at his own great table, where he entertained a hundred daily. He heard my verses, and he smiled; yet he gave me nothing. He heard my jests, and laughed; yet he gave me nothing. Wherefore, the Muse working powerfully within me, not to be resisted, I wrote such verses as I have already told you, and fled hither. And here must I remain, for the Cardinal can never forgive me, seeing that I have set upon him a mark that he can in no way rub off. My only hope is that, as King’s favourites do fall as well as rise, and that His Highness the King hath a temper which is like the wind in March, the great man may fall before I die—otherwise, a Sanctuary man shall I remain unto the end. Drink, good sir.”