cal year; she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be
troubled with it. The bishop discovering that all was not well, for the
pulpit stands there _vis a vis_ to the closet, he fell to treat of some
more plausible numbers, as of the number 666, making _Latinus_, with
which he said he could prove the pope to be Antichrist; also of the
fatal number of 88,--so long before spoken of for a dangerous year,...
but withal interlarding it with some passages of Scripture that touch
the infirmities of age... he concluded his sermon. The queen, as the
manner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanks
or good countenance, that she said plainly he should have kept his
arithmetic for himself. 'But I see,' said she, 'the greatest clerks are
not the wisest men;' and so went away for the time discontented.

"The lord keeper Puckering, though reverencing the man much in his
particular, yet for the present, to assuage the queen's displeasure,
_commanded him to keep his house for a time_, which he did. But of a
truth her majesty showed no ill nature in this, for within three days
she was not only displeased at his restraint, but in my hearing rebuked
a lady yet living for speaking scornfully of him and his sermon. Only
to show how the good bishop was deceived in supposing she was so decayed
in her limbs and senses as himself perhaps and other of that age were
wont to be; she said she thanked God that neither her stomach nor
strength, nor her voice for singing, nor fingering instruments, nor,
lastly, her sight, was any whit decayed; and to prove the last before us
all, she produced a little jewel that had an inscription of very small
letters, and offered it first to my lord of Worcester, and then to sir
James Crofts to read, and both protested _bona fide_ that they could
not; yet the queen herself did find out the poesy, and made herself
merry with the standers by upon it."

A point of some importance to the peers of England was about this time
brought to a final decision by the following circumstance. Sir Thomas,
son and heir of sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour-castle, a young man of a
courageous and enterprising disposition, going over to Germany, had been
induced to engage as a volunteer in the wars of the emperor against the
Turks; and in the assault of the city of Gran in Hungary had taken with
his own hand a Turkish banner. For this and other good service, Rodolph
the Second had been pleased to confer upon him th