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.
The duchesse
and hir husband, dailie more and more, by their friends vnderstanding that the bishop meant to call hir to
an account of hir faith, whereby extreamitie might follow, deuised waies how by the quéenes licence they
might passe the seas. Ma|ster Bertie had a redie meane:
Waies practi|sed how to conueie the duchesse ouer the seas with the quéenes licence. Master Ber|tie deuiseth causes to passe ouer into Flanders.