to hear of. The King demanded who they were? He said 'Two of your merchants—George Elliot and George Robinson.' The King appointed a time to speak with them. When they came before his presence in a privy closet, he demanded what they had to say or to show him. One of them said that there was a book come to their hands which they had there to show his Grace. When he saw it he demanded if any of them could read it. 'Yea,' said George Elliot, 'if it please your Grace to hear it.' 'I thought so,' said the King; 'if need were, thou couldst say it without book.'
'The whole book being read out, the King made a long pause, and then said, 'If a man should pull down an old stone wall, and should begin at the lower part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his head.' Then he took the book, and put it in his desk, and commanded them, on their allegiance, that they should not tell any man that he had seen it.'[1]
Symptoms such as these boded ill for a self-reform of the Church, and it was further imperilled by the difficulty which it is not easy to believe that Wolsey had forgotten. No measures would be of efficacy which spared the religious houses, and they would be equally useless unless the bishops, as well as the inferior clergy, were comprehended in the scheme of amendment. But neither with monks nor bishops could Wolsey interfere except by a commission from the Pope, and the laws were unrepealed which forbade English subjects, under
- ↑ Foxe, vol. iv. p. 658.
