inster vpon
Candlemas day [? _2nd February 1529_] before kyng Henry the viij, for
him to read and peruse."

We have been unable to verify this procession at Westminster on this
particular date, and think that if it had been so, Sir THOMAS MORE would
have surely noticed to the _Supplicacyon_ while writing the _Dialogue_,
the printing of which was in progress during the next four months. He may,
however, have thought it necessary to write a special book against S.
FISH's tract, with its distinct line of attack as he has accurately stated
it.

It will be seen from the Bibliography that this date of the Spring of 1529
quite harmonizes with those of the contemporary German and Latin
translations; which, naturally, would be prompt. It is also not
inconsistent with the following allusion at p. 30 to Cardinal WOLSEY's
still holding the Lord Chancellorship.

** And this is by the reason that the chief instrument of youre lawe ye[a]
the chief of your counsell and he whiche hath your swerde in his hond to
whome also all the other instrumentes are obedient is alweys a spirituell
man.

So much, then, as to the certain approximate date of the publication. FOX
is quite wrong in assuming as he does in the following paragraph that this
work was the occasion of Bishop TONSTAL's _Prohibition_ of the 24th
October 1526, _i.e._ more than two years previously.

After that the Clergye of England, and especially the Cardinall,
vnderstoode these bookes of the _Beggars supplication_ aforesayd, to be
strawne abroade in the streetes of London, and also before the kyng. The
sayd Cardinall caused not onely his seruauntes diligently to attend to
gather them vp, that they should not come into the kynges handes, but also
when he vnderstode, that the king had receaued one or two of them, he came
vnto the kynges Maiesty saying: "If it shall please your grace, here are
diuers seditious persons which haue scattered abroad books conteyning
manifest errours and heresies" desiryng his grace to beware of them.
Whereupon the kyng putting his hand in his bosome, tooke out one of the
bookes and deliuered it vnto the Cardinall. Then the Cardinall, together
with the Byshops, consulted _&c._

_Eccles. Hist. &c., p. 900. Ed. 1576._

II.

We now come to the only authoritative account of our Author, as it is
recorded in the same Third Edition of the _Actes and Monumentes &c., p.
896. Ed. 1576_.

** _The story of