Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/378

358 goes all to your private commodity and wealth. Ye had a single too much, and now ye have double too much; but let the preacher preach till his tongue be worn to the stump, nothing is amended. This one thing I will tell you; from whom it cometh I know, even from the devil. I know his intent in it. If he bring it to pass that the yeomanry be not able to put their sons to school—as, indeed, the Universities do wondrously decay already—and that they be not able to marry their daughters, to the avoiding of whoredom, I say ye pluck salvation from the people, and utterly destroy the realm; for by the yeomen's sons the faith of Christ is and hath been maintained chiefly.'

Bernard Gilpin, of whom Fuller says, half plaintively, that 'he hated vice more than error,' followed before the Court in the same strain.

'Look,' Gilpin said, 'how Lady Avarice has set on work altogether. Mighty men, gentlemen, and all rich men do rob and spoil the poor, to turn them from their livings and from their rights; and ever the weakest go to the wall; and being thus tormented and put from their rights at home, they come to London as to a place where justice should be had, and this they can have no more. They are suitors to great men, and cannot come to their speech. Their servants must have bribes, and they no small ones; all love bribes. But such as be dainty to hear the poor, let them take heed lest God