Compare 1577 edition: 1 Not long after, quéene Marie partlie offended with the Londoners, as fauorers of Wiats conspi|racie, and partlie perceiuing the more part of them nothing inclined towards hir procéedings in religi|on, which turned manie of them to losse, summoned a parlement to be holden at Oxford,A parlement summoned at Oxford but no [...] holden. as it were to gratifie that citie, which with the vniuersitie, towne, and countrie, had shewed themselues verie forward in hir seruice; but speciallie in restoring of the reli|gion called catholike: for which appointed parlement there to be holden, great prouision was made, as well by the quéens officers, as by the townesmen & inhabitants of the countrie round about. But the quéens mind in short space changed, and the same parlement was holden at Westminster in Aprill next following, wherein the queene proponed two speciall matters, the one for the mariage to be had betweene hir and the prince Philip of Spaine: the o|ther, for the restoring againe of the popes power and iurisdiction in England. As touching hir mariage, it was with no great difficultie agréed vpon; but the other request could not be easilie obteined.

Howbeit, it was to be wished, euen to the disap|pointing of that mariage (if God in counsell had so prouided) that the whole bodie of the parlement had beene semblablie affected, as it is said, that all the nations of the world were,All nations in the world against the mariage of the sun, and why. when the sunne would néeds be maried. Against which purpose of the sun the people of all regions assembling, humblie be|sought Iupiter to cast in a blocke and impediment against that wedding. But Iupiter demanding of them why they would not haue the sun maried; one stepping vp made answer for the rest, and said: Thou knowest well enough Iupiter that there is but one sun, and yet he burneth vs all: who, if he be maried & haue children, as the number of suns must néeds increase; so must their heat and feruentnesse be multiplied, whereby a generall destruction of all things in their kind will insue. Herevpon that match was ouerthrowne. But God aboue ruling by prouidence all things here beneath, had purposed this coniunction; so that it was not in the power of man to withstand or interrupt it: howbeit it was his pleasure (to what end himselfe best knoweth) to cursse it with barrennesse, as he did the queene hir selfe with a short and vnpeaceable reigne (full of sedition and bloudshed) as our English poet noteth:

Quaepost Eduardi mortem conuersio rerum,

Transtulit in varias alieno pectore partes

Brutigenas, fauet hic externis, ille perosus

Mystarum rabiem, tantis obstacula quaerit

Opportuna malis: cùm iam proh dedecusingens,

Seditio exoritur, regnorum pessima pestis.

¶On the eight of Aprill, then being sundaie, Iohn Stow. A cat hanged in cheape. a cat with hir head shorne, and the likenesse of a vestment cast ouer hir, with hir fore féet tied togither, and a round peece of paper like a singing cake betwixt them, was hanged on a gallows in Cheape, néere to the crosse, in the parish of saint Matthew: which cat being taken downe, was caried to the bishop of London, and he caused the same to be shewed at Pauls crosse by the preacher doctor Pendleton.]