life, not
by his failure under a single and peculiar trial. The apostle, though
forewarned, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that
Master, who knew his nature in its strength and its infirmity, chose
him for the rock on which He would build His church.

{p.260} CHAPTER V.

CALAIS.

Not far from Abingdon, on the London road, was a house belonging to a
gentleman named Christopher Ashton. Here, on their way to and fro
between the western counties and the capital, members of parliament,
or other busy persons, whom the heat of the times tempted from their
homes, occasionally called; and the character of the conversation
which was to be heard in that house, may be gathered from the
following depositions. On the 4th of January, Sir Nicholas Arnold
looked in, and found Sir Henry Dudley there.

"Well, Sir Nicholas, what news?" said Ashton.

"None worth hearing," Arnold answered.

"I am sure you hear they go about a coronation," Dudley said.

"I hear no such matter," said Arnold. "The news that are worth the
hearing, are in such men's heads that will not utter them, and the
rest are not to be credited."[549]

[Footnote 549: Saying of Sir Nicholas Arnold: _MS.
Mary, Domestic_, vol. vii.]

"There be news come out of Flanders, as I heard from Sir Peter
Mewtas," said Ashton, laughing, to another visitor:[550] "The king has
written to the queen that he will not come hither a great while, or,
as men think, any more; and the queen was in a rage, and caused the
king's picture to be carried out of the privy chamber, and she in a
wonderful storm, and could not be in any wise quieted."[551]

[Footnote 550: The conversations with Ashton were
sometimes at his own house; sometimes at an inn by
the waterside, near Lambeth; sometimes at other
places. The localities are not always easy to make
out.]

[Footnote 551: Deposition of Thomas White: _MS.
Mary, Domestic_, vol. vii.]

"They have put me in the Tower for their pleasures," said Sir Anthony
Kingston; "but so shall they never do more."[552]

[Footnote 552: Wotton to the Queen, cypher: _French
MSS._, bundle 13. State Paper Office. Kingston was
one of the members of the House of Commons who was
imprisoned at th