dayes, as is credibly reported, such knowledge was giuen by the kynges seruauntes to the wife of ye sayd Symon Fishe, yat she might boldly send for her husband, without all perill or daunger. Whereupon she thereby beyng incouraged, came first and made sute to the kyng for the safe returne of her husband. Who vnderstandyng whose wife she was, shewed a maruelous gentle and chearefull countenaunce towardes her, askyng “where her husband was.” She aunswered, “if it like your grace, not farre of[f].” Then sayth he, “fetch him, and he shal come and go safe without perill, and no man shal do him harme,” saying moreouer, “that hee had [had] much wrong that hee was from her so long:” who had bene absent now the space of two yeares and a halfe,

In the whiche meane tyme, the Cardinall was deposed, as is aforeshewed, and M[aster]. More set in his place of the Chauncellourshyp.

Thus Fishes wife beyng emboldened by the kynges wordes, went immediatly to her husband beyng lately come ouer, and lying priuely within a myle of the Court, and brought him to the kyng: which appeareth to be about the yeare of our Lord. 1530.

When the kyng saw hym, and vnderstood he was the authour of the booke, he came and embraced him with louing countenance: who after long talke: for the space of iij. or iiij. houres, as they were ridyng together on huntyng, at length dimitted him, and bad him “take home his wife, for she had taken great paynes for him.” Who answered the kyng agayne and sayd, he “durst not so do, for fear of Syr Thomas More then Chauncellor, and Stoksley then Bishop of London. This seemeth to be about the yeare of our Lord. 1530.

This bringing in of Stokesley as Bishop is only making confusion worse confounded. Stokesley was consecrated to the see of London on the 27th Nov. 1530. By that time, S. Fish had died of the plague which occurred in London and its suburbs in the summer of 1530; and which was so severe, that on 22nd June of that year, the King prorogued the Parliament to the following 1st October. Letters &c. Henry VIII. Ed. by J. S. Brewer, M.A., IV, Part 3, No. 6469. Ed. 1876.

The Martyrologist, throughout, seems to be right as to his facts, but wrong as to his dates.

The kyng takyng his signet of[f] his finger, willed hym to haue hym reommended to the Lord Chauncellour, chargyng him not to bee so hardy to worke him any harme.

Master Fishe receiuyng the kynges signet, went and declared hys message to the Lord Chauncellour, who tooke it as sufficient for his owne discharge, but asked him “if he had any thynge for the discharge of his wife:” for she a litle before had by chaunce displeased the Friers, for not sufferyng them to say their Gospels in Latine in her house, as they did in others, vnlesse they would say it in English. Whereupon the Lord Chauncellour, though he had discharged the man, yet leauyng not his grudge towardes the wife, the next morning sent his man for her to appeare before hym: who, had it not bene for her young daughter, which then lay sicke of the plague, had bene lyke to come to much trouble.

Of the which plague her husband, the said Master Fish deceasing with in half a yeare, she afterward maryed to one Master James Baynham, Syr Alexander Baynhams sonne, a worshypful Knight of Glo[uce]stershyre. The which foresayd Master James Baynham, not long after, [1 May 1532] was burned, as incontinently after in the processe of this story, shall appeare.

And thus much concernyng Symon Fishe the author of the booke of beggars, who also translated a booke called the Summe of the Scripture out of the Dutch [i.e. German].

Now commeth an other note of one Edmund Moddys the kynges footeman, touchyng the same matter.

This M[aster]. Moddys beyng with the kyng in talke of religion, and of the new bookes that were come from beyond the seas, sayde “if it might please hys grace, he should see such a booke, as was maruell to heare of.” The kyng demaunded “what they were.” He sayd, “two of your Merchauntes, George Elyot, and George Robinson.” The kyng [ap]poynted a tyme to speake with them. When they came before his presence in a priuye [private] closet, he demaunded “what they had to saye, or to shew him” One of them said “yat there was a boke come to their hands, which they were there to shew his grace.” When he saw it, hee demaunded “if any of them could read it.” “Yea” sayd George Elyot, “if it please your grace to heare it,” “I thought so” sayd the kyng, “for if neede were thou canst say it without booke.”

The whole booke beyng read out, the kyng made a long pause, and then sayd, “if a man should pull downe an old stone wall and begyn at the lower part, the vpper part thereof might chaunce to fall vpon his head:” and then he tooke the booke and put it into his deske, and commaunded them vpon their allegiance, that they should not tell to any man, that he had sene the booke.

III.

o this account we may add two notices. Sir T. More replying in his Apology to the “Pacifier” [Christopher Saint Germain] in the spring of 1533, gives at fol. 124, the following account of our Author’s death—

And these men in the iudgement of thys pytuouse pacyfyer be not dyscrete / but yet they haue he sayth a good zele though. And thys good zele hadde, ye wote well, Simon Fysshe when he made the supplycacyon of beggers. But god gaue hym such grace afterwarde, that he was sory for that good zele, and repented hym selfe and came into the chyrche agayne, and forsoke and forsware all the whole hyll of those heresyes, out of whiche the fountayne of that same good zele sprange. [Also at p. 881, Workes. Ed. 1557.]

This is contrary to the tenour of everything else that we know of the man: but Sir T. More, possessing such excellent means of obtaining information, may nevertheless be true.

Lastly. Anthony à Wood in his Ath. Oxon. i. 59, Ed. 1813, while giving us the wrong year of his death, tells us of his place of burial.

At length being overtaken by the pestilence, died of it in fifteen hundred thirty and one, and was buried in the church of St. Dunstan (in the West).

Tyndale had often preached in this church.

IV.

hat a picture of the cruel, unclean and hypocritical monkery that was eating at the heart’s core of English society is given to us in this terse and brave little book? Abate from its calculations whatever in fairness Sir