Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/32

 witte, and that men shulde have sene therein that ther wer nothing clone among princes but that he was fully advertised of all the secretes, and that so farre furthe that he knewe the privie practise made betweene the King's Highnesse and the late Lord Cardinall and the reverend father Cuthbert then Bishop of London, and me, that it was devised wilily that the Cardinall should leave the Chauncellorship to me, and the Bishopricke of Durham to my said Lord of London for a while, till he list himself to take them both againe.'

So in another place Sir Thomas tells a story of a childe who was a servant in his house, and had by his father been set to attend upon George Jaye or Gee otherwise called Clarke, that this George Jaye taught this childe his ungraciouse heresie against the blessed sacrament of the Aulter: and that into his house at Antwerpe the two nunnes were broughte which Jhon Byrt, otherwise called Adrian, stale out of their cloyster. But to these stories Joye, so he wrote his name, in his answer to Sir Thomas published by him next year, makes the following reply, which I shall set downe in his owne words.

'The nonnes sayd playnely, and yet affirme it, that they came forthe lest they shulde have bene made harletts in the cloister by a vyciouse prieste called Syr Johan Larke their stewarde, whiche by theyr saynge was not mete to be chaplayne unto nonnis, nor nonnes to have siche a stewerd: and therfore came they their waye. It is a perrellous poynt for nonnes chastite to be reclused in siche a cloister