was borne away a great part, and sought and enquired diligently for the thief that stole it. And the king seeing the great trouble and sorrow of the treasurer demanded him the cause of his heaviness. And when he had told it to the king, the king said to him: 'Sorrow no more, for peradventure he that hath it hath more need to it than we'; and so the thief escaped and was not pursued.
After, when all things were quiet in the realm, the council of the land assembled for to treat for a marriage for the king, at which thing, when it was moved, he was greatly abashed, dreading to lose the treasure of his virginity, which was kept in a frail and brittle vessel; and what he should do or say he wist not. For, if he should obstinately deny it, he dreaded lest his vow of chastity should be openly known, and if he consented thereto he dreaded to lose his chastity, wherefore he commended himself only to God, saying these words: 'O good Lord, thou deliveredst sometime three children from the flame of fire in the chimney and furnace of the Chaldees; and, by the Lord, Joseph escaped with his chastity from the wife of Potiphar, she holding his mantle, and yet by thy mercy he escaped; and, good Lord, by thy virtue Susanna was delivered from the death to the which the old unchaste priests had damned her to; and by thy might. Lord, Judith escaped when she had slain Holofernes and reserved her from defouling and escaped without hurt; and above all other thou hast preserved thy blessed mother, most best and sweetest lady, she being both wife and virgin; then behold on me thy servant and
