out. Yet in both states he was patient and virtuous, that he may be considered a pattern of most perfect virtue, as he was a worthy exemplar of fortune's inconsistency.[1] He was plain, upright, fair from fraud, wholly given to prayer, reading of [the] Scriptures and Almsdeeds; of such integrity of life that the Bishop, who had been his confessor for ten years, avouched that he had not all that time committed any mortal crime. So continent, as suspicion of such in life never touched him. . . . He was so religiously affected (as the time was then) that on principal holy days he would wear sackcloth next his skin. . . . He was of seemly stature, of body slender, his face beautiful, of his own natural inclination, he abhorred all the vices as well of the body as of the soul."
An old historical "chart of English History," now in the English College, Rome, written in the reign of King Henry VIII, whom it describes as the present King (modernus rex), says of Henry VI: " This King was most holy during the whole of his life,
- ↑ Much of the account given by Stow is obviously taken from Blackmail's life, although it is not named as his authority.
