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of his prince's ⟨grace⟩ and favour, to allow him a liberal annuity of forty merks a year, for better ſupport of his jolly humour, and the maintenance of his wife Joan, and that he ſhould be admitted one of his courtiers, and might have freedom of his cellar whenever he pleaſed, which being ſo much beyohd expection, did highly exalt the cobbler's humour, much to the ſatisfaction of the king.
PART II.
CHAP. I.
Of the Cobbler's return from Court to his wife Joan, and the comical discourse that past between them.
Christopher Crispin, for ſo was the cobbler named, with whom King Henry VIII. had made himſelf ſo exceeding familiar; this cobbler, I ſay, having been at court, where he made much mirth, and was made much of on account of that mirth, returned home in the afternoon full fraughted with wine and wonderful expectations; his heart and head being light, he went capering along ſinging up his cap, crying, 'Long live Harry Tudor, long live Harry Tudor,' with a hundred boys at his heels hooping and hallowing; his wife ſtanding at the door, and ſeeing him prancing along in ſuch a poſture, immediately put on one of her accuſtomed crabbed looks, crying, High, tittie, what's come to you now? I'll Harry Tudor you with a vengeance? was it for this that I dreſt you up in pimlico, in all your beſt apparel, to have you come home like one juſt out of Bedlam!' 'Peace, wife, quoth the cobbler, for I am upon preferment, I am promiſed to be made a courtier, that I am.' 'A courtier, quoth Joan, ads-foot, more likely cuckold, you drunken ſcoundrel.'
