contradiction. The Cardinal, at length, "being inveighed at by his pen, and charged with too much truth," issued orders for his arrest, and the satirist fled for sanctuary to Westminster, where Islip the Abbot afforded him an effectual safeguard.
One of the charges afterwards preferred against Wolsey bears a striking resemblance to a passage in one of Skelton's poems. In "Why come ye not to Court?" he writes:
"In the Chamber of Stars
All matters there he mars:
Clapping his rod on the board,
No man dare speak a word,
For he hath all the saying,
Without any renaying;[1]
He rolleth in his records,
He saith, How say ye, my lords?
Is not my reason good?
Good even, good Robin Hood![2]
Some say yes, and some
Sit still as they were dumb:
Thus thwarting over them[3]
He ruleth all the roast
With bragging and with boast;
Borne up on every side
With pomp and with pride."
Turning to the articles of impeachment, we find the fifteenth runs thus: "Also the said Lord Cardinal, sitting among the lords and others of your most honourable Privy Council, used himself, that if any man should show his mind, according to his duty, contrary to the opinion of the said Cardinal, he would so rake him up with his accustomable words that they were better to hold their peace than to speak, so that he would hear no man speak but one or two personages, so that he would have all the
