Page:Life and transactions of Mrs. Jane Shore, concubine to K. Edward 4th.pdf/18

18 ferred our heroine much above her, and would often merrily say, I have two mistresses, of quite different tempers, one the most religious, and the other the merriest in England: and indeed she was had in great favour all the reign of the King, having crowds of petitioners waiting at her chamber door, or at the chariot side, when she was to ride abroad, whose suits, to the utmost of her power, she preferred. As for Mrs. Blague, who least deserved of her, she procured of the King a stately house and manor, worth 280l. a year. The Romish priests much spited her, because she sheltered many from their rage and fury, after they had burned John Huss for an heretic.

As no wordly pomp nor greatness is of long continuance, so now her glory was ended, and her days of inexpressible misery began; for, the King dying at Westminster, in the fortieth year of his reign, no sooner was he buried in the chapel of his own founding, at Windsor, but