Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/175

 much as loke nor let lye by me any boke of the tother part, albeit that I gladly red afterward diuers boxes that were made on his part. Nor neuer would I rede the boke that Maister Abel made on the tother side, nor other bokes which wer (as I hard say) made in Latten beyonde the sea, nor neuer gaue eare to the Pope's proceding in the mater. Moreouer where I had found in my study, a booke that I had before borrowedde of my Lord of Bathe, which boke he had made of the matter at such time as the legates sate here thereupon, which boke had ben by me neglegently cast aside, and that I shewed him I wold sende him home his boke againe, he told me that in good faith he had longe time before discharged hys minde of the matter, and hauing forgotten that coppy to remaine in my hand, had burned his own copy that he had therof at home: and because he no more minded to meddle any thing in the matter, he desired me to burn the same boke to. And vpon my faith so did I. Besides this, dyuers other ways have I so vsed my self, that if I rehersed them al, it should wel apere that I never haue had against his Grace's marriage any maner demenure wherby his Highnes might have ani maner cause or occasion of displesure toward me. For likewise as I am not he which either can, or whom it could become to take vpon me the determinacion or decision of such a weighty matter, wherof diuers pointes a gret way passe my lerning, so am I he, that among other his Grace's faithful subjects, his Highnes being in possession of his marriage, will most hartely pray for the prosperous estate of his Grace, longe to continue to the pleasure of God. As touching the thirde point, the primacy of the Pope, I nothing meddle in the mater. Trouth it is, that as I told you, when ye desired me to shew you what I thought therin, I was my self sometime not of the minde that the primacy of that se, should be begun by thinstitucion of God, vntil that I red in that mater those thinges that the Kinge's Highnes had written in his most famous boke against the heresies of Martine Luther. At the first reding whereof, I moued the Kinge's Highnes, either to leaue out that point, or els to touch it more slenderly, for dout of such thinges as after might hap to fal in question betweene his Highnes and some pope, as betweene princes and popes diuers times haue done. Wherunto his Highnes answered me, that he would