ot
you set a ballad of late in print?'--I kneeled down, saying, `Yes,
truly, my Lord; is that the cause I am called before your
Honours?'--`Marry,' said Secretary Bourne, `you have one of them about
you, I am sure.'--`Nay truly, have I not,' said I.--Then took he one out
of his bosom and read it over distinctly, the Council giving diligent
ear. When he had ended,--`I trust, my Lord,' said I, `I have not
offended the Queen's Majesty in the ballad, nor spoken against her
title, but maintained it.'--`You have, sir,' said Morgan. `Yes, I can
divide your ballad, and make a distinction in it, and so prove at the
least sedition in it.'--`Yea,' I said, `you men of law will make of a
matter what ye list.'--`Lo!' said Sir Richard Southwell, `how he can
give a taunt! You maintain the Queen's title with the help of an arrant
heretic, Tyndale.'--`You speak of Papists there, sir,' said Mr Mason.
`I pray you, how define you a Papist?'--`Why,' said I, `it is not long
since you could define a Papist better than I.' With that some of them
secretly smiled, as the Lord of Bedford, Arundel, Sussex, and Paget. In
great haste Sir John Gage took the matter in hand. `Thou callest men
Papists there,' said he; `who be they thou judgest to be
Papists?'--`Sir,' said I, `I do name no man, nor I am not hither to
accuse any, nor none I will accuse; but your Honours do know that in
this controversy that hath been, some be called Papists and some
Protestants.'--`But we will know whom thou judgest to be Papists, and
that we command thee upon thine allegiance to declare.'--`Sir,' said I,
`I think if you look among the priests in Poules, ye shall find some old
_mumpsimuses_ there.'--`_Mumpsimuses_, knave!' saith he, `_mumpsimuses_!
thou art an heretic knave!' and sware a great oath.--Says the Earl of
Bath, `I warrant him an heretic knave, indeed.'--`I beseech your
Honours,' said I (speaking to the Lords that sat at the table, for these
other that stood by be not now of the Council), `be my good Lords. I
have offended no laws, and I have served the Queen's Majesty's father
and her brother long time, and in their service have spent and consumed
part of my living, never having as yet any preferment or recompense, and
the rest of my fellows likewise, to our utter undoing, unless the
Queen's Highness be good unto us; and for my part I went not forth
against her Majesty, notwithstanding I was commanded, nor liked those
doings.'--`No, but with your writings