r when some occasion is giuen by the hearer to induce such
a pleasaunt speach, and in many other cases whereof no generall rule can
be giuen, but are best knowen by example: as when Sir _Andrew Flamock_
king _Henry_ the eights standerdbearer, a merry conceyted man and apt to
skoffe, waiting one day at the kings heeles when he entred the parke at
Greenewich, the king blew his horne, _Flamock_ hauing his belly full, and
his tayle at commaundment, gaue out a rappe nothing faintly, that the king
turned him about and said how now sirra? _Flamock_ not well knowing how to
excuse his vnmannerly act, if it please you Sir quoth he, your Maiesty
blew one blast for the keeper and I another for his man. The king laughed
hartily and tooke it nothing offensiuely: for indeed as the case fell out
it was not vndecently spoken by Sir _Andrew Flamock_, for it was the
cleaneliest excuse he could make, and a merry implicatiue in termes
nothing odious, and therefore a sporting satisfaction to the kings mind,
in a matter which without some such merry answere could not haue bene well
taken. So was _Flamocks_ action most vncomely, but his speech excellently
well becoming the occasion.

But at another time and in another like case, the same skurrillitie of
_Flamock_ was more offensiue, because it was more indecent. As when the
king hauing _Flamock_ with him in his barge, passing from Westminster to
Greenewich to visite a fayre Lady whom the king loued and was lodged in
the tower of the Parke: the king comming within sight of the tower, and
being disposed to be merry, said, _Flamock_ let vs rime: as well as I can
said _Flamock_ if it please your grace. The king began thus:
_Within this towre,
There lieth a flowre,
That hath my hart._

_Flamock_ for aunswer: _Within this hower, she will, &c._ with the rest in
so vncleanly termes, as might not now become me by the rule of _Decorum_
to vtter writing to so great a Maiestie, but the king tooke them in so
euill part, as he bid _Flamock_ auaunt varlet, and that he should no more
be so neere vnto him. And wherein I would faine learne, lay this
vndecencie? in the skurrill and filthy termes not meete for a kings eare?
perchance so. For the king was a wise and graue man, and though he hated
not a faire woman, liked he nothing well to heare speeches of ribaudrie:
as they report of th'emperour _Octauian: Licet fuerit ipse
incontinentissimus, fuit tamen incontinense feuerissimus vltor._ But the
very cau