Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/65

1537.], a defender of iniquity, a merchant and occupier of all deceits.

'You have bleared mine eyes once. Your credit shall never more serve you so far to deceive me the second time. Your part was to do us the King your sovereign lord had commanded you. Your praise was to be sought in obeying his Highness's pleasure, and not in serving your foolish fantasy. But now, to stick unto a rebel, to follow a traitor, to serve a friend of his which mortally hateth your sovereign lord, what folly is it to excuse such mad lewdness? Your good master, who has lately entered into the religion which has been the ruin of all religion, cannot, ye say, but be the King's high friend. He will, as ye write, declare unto the world why the King taketh him for a traitor. In this thing he needeth to travel never a deal. All princes almost know how well he hath deserved this name; yea, the King's Highness is much beholden unto some of them from whom his Grace hath learned the godly enterprisas that this silly cardinal went about. Now, if those that have made him thus mad can also persuade him to print his detestable book, where one lie leapeth in every line on another's neck, he shall be then as much bound to them for their good council as his family to him for his wise dealing. He will, I trow, have as little joy thereof as his friends and kinsfolk are like to take profit of it. Pity it is that the folly of one brainsick Pole, or, to say better, of one witless fool, should be the ruin of so great a family. Let him follow ambition as fast as he can, these that little have offended (saving