Note 401 — INDEX.

Footnote 401: "It was this morning told me by one of the Emperor's council, who misliked much the matter, that a preacher of ours whose name he rehearsed, beateth the pulpit jollily in England for a restitution of abbey lands. It is a strange thing in a well-ordered commonwealth that a subject should be so hardy to cry unto the people openly such learning, whereby your winter work may in the summer be attempted with some storm. These unbridled preachings were so much misliked in the ill-governed time as men trusted in this good governance it should have been amended; and so may it be when it shall please my Lords of the Council as diligently to consider it, as it is more than necessary to be looked unto. The party methinketh might well be put to silence, if he were asked now, being a monk, and having professed and vowed solemnly wilful poverty, he can with conscience keep a deanery and three or four benefices."—Mason to Petre: MS. Germany, bundle 16, Mary, State Paper Office. It is not clear who the offender was. Perhaps it was Weston, Dean of Westminster and Prolocutor of Convocation.(Back to Main Text)