weeks, that is to wete, from the xv. day of May in the year 1449 unto the
xv. day of August in the year 1450, that every castle, fortress, and town
defensable of the said duchies were delivered up by force or composition to
the adverse party."

After a break (p. 50), in consequence of the loss of a leaf of the
Manuscript, we find ourselves in the midst of a discussion of the merits of
astrology. The author addresses himself to combat the prevalent confidence
in prophecies and in the influence of the stars: "which judgments (he
avers) be not necessarily true;" but merely contingent or likely, and, he
adds, "as likely not to be as to be." For if, he puts the case, "a
constellation or a prophecy signified that such a year or within {ix} such
a time there should fall war, pestilence, or dearth of vitaile to a country
or region, or privation of a country, it is said but dispositively, and not
of necessity or certainty; for then it should follow that the prophecies,
constellations, and influence of the stars were masters over God's power,
and that would soune to a heresy, or else to a great error." After this
pious determination upon a question that at that period presented great
difficulties, the author adds, that he believed God to have bestowed that
sovereignty upon man's soul, that, having a clean soul, he might even turn
the judgment of constellations or prophecies to the contrary disposition:
to which effect he quotes the bold assertion of the famous astrologian
Ptolemy,

_Quod homo sapiens dominatur astris._

With these sentiments, rising superior to the general prejudices of the
age, our author proceeds confidently to censure the moral causes of the
recent calamities, which in his judgment had ensued "for lak of prudence
and politique governaunce in dew time provided," and from "havyng no
consideracion to the comon wele, but rather to magnifie and enriche one
silfe by singler covetise, using to take gret rewardis and suffering
extorcions over the pore peple." On this subject he subsequently speaks
still more plainly.

This leads him to reflect upon the fate of many realms and countries that
had been ruined by sin and misgovernance: as the old Bretons were, when
driven out of England by the Saxons into Cornwall and Wales. "And where (he
exclaims[13]) is Nynnyve, the gret cite of thre daies? and Babilon, the
gret toure, inhabited now withe wilde bestis? the citeis of Troy and
Thebes, ij. grete magnified citeis? also