Note 105 — THE PROLOGUE.

These intrigues, in which the cardinal bore so large a part, did not redound to the glory of his country. Our merry neighbours even then had begun to make our diplomatic inferiority the subject of their sport and ridicule. William Tindall, in his Practice of popish Prelates, referring to these events, tells us, “The Frenchmen of late dayes made a play or a disguising at Paris, in which the emperour daunsed with the pope and the French king, and weried them, the king of England sitting on a hye bench, and looking on. And when it was asked, why he daunsed not, it was answered, that he sate there, but to pay the minstrels their wages onely: as who should say, wee paid for all mens dauncing.” Tindall’s Works, p. 375. A. D. 1572. W.