If it be true that you saie (quoth the bishop) I will shew you fauor. But of an other thing maister Bertie, I will admonish you as mening you well. I heare euill of your religion; yet I hardlie can think euill of you, whose mother I know to be as god|lie and catholike, as anie within this land, your selfe brought vp with a maister, whose education if I should disallow, I might be charged as author of his error. Besides partlie I know you my selfe, and vn|derstand of my friends inough to make me your friend: wherfore I will not doubt of you, but I praie you if I maie aske the question of my ladie your wife; is she now as readie to set vp the masse, as she was latelie to pull it downe,A dog clothed in a rochet vnder the name of bishop Gardiner. when she caused in hir progresse, a dog in a rochet to be caried & called by my name? Or dooth she thinke hir lambs now safe inough, which said to me when I vailed my bonnet to hir out of my chamber window in the tower, that it was merie with the lambs now the woolfe was shut vp?It is merie with lambs when woolues be tied. Another time my lord hir husband hauing inuited me and diuerse ladies to dinner, desired eue|rie ladie to choose him whome she loued best, and so place themselues. My ladie your wife taking me by the hand, for that my lord would not haue hir to take himselfe, said, that for so much as she could not sit downe with my lord whome she loued best, she had chosen me whome she loued worst.

Of the deuise of the dog, quoth master Bertie, she was neither the author nor the allower. The words, though in that season they sounded bitter to your lordship: yet if it should please you without offense to know the cause, I am sure the one will purge the other. As touching setting vp of masse, which she learned not onelie by strong persuasions of diuerse excellent learned men,Purgation of the ladie du|chesse for not comming to masse. but by vniuersall consent and order whole six yeares past inwardlie to abhorre; if she should outwardlie allow, she should both to Christ shew hir selfe a false christian, and vnto hir prince a masking subiect. You know my lord, one by iudge|ment reformed, is more woorth than a thousand trans|formed temporizors. To force a confession of religi|on by mouth, contrarie to that in the heart, worketh damnation where saluation is pretended. Yea ma|rie (quoth the bishop) that deliberation would doo well if she neuer required to come from an old religi|on to a new. But now she is to returne from a new to an ancient religion: wherein when she made me hir gossip, she was as earnest as anie.

For that, my lord (said M. Bertie) not long since, she answered a friend of hirs vsing your lordships spéech,Religion go|eth not by age, but by truth. that religion went not by age but by truth: and therefore she was to be turned by persuasion and not by commandement. I praie you (quoth the bi|shop) thinke you it possible to persuade hir? Yea ve|relie (said master Bertie) with the truth: for she is reasonable inough. The bishop therevnto replieng, said: It will be a maruellous griefe to the prince of Spaine, and to all the nobilitie that shall come with him, when they shall find but two noble personages of the Spanish race within this land, the quéene, and my ladie your wife, and one of them gone from the faith. Master Bertie answered, that he trusted they should find no fruits of infidelitie in hir. So the bi|shop persuading master Bertie to trauell earnestlie for the reformation of hir opinion,Master Ber|tie released from his band of appearing. and offering large friendship, released him of his band from further ap|pearance.