imens of these informations will throw curious light on the feelings of
a portion at least of the people. The English licence of speech, if not
recognised to the same extent as it is at present, was certainly as fully
practised. On the return of the Abbot of Whitby from the convocation at
York in the summer of 1532, when the premunire money was voted, the
following conversation was reported as having been overheard in the abbey.

The prior of the convent asked the abbot what the news were. "What news,"
said the abbot, "evil news. The king is ruled by a common ---- Anne Boleyn,
who has made all the spiritualty to be beggared, and the temporalty also.
Further he told the prior of a sermon that he had heard in York, in which
it was said, when a great wind rose in the west we should hear news. And he
asked what that was; and he said a great man told him at York, and if he
knew as much as three in England he would tell what the news were. And he
said who were they? and he said the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Wiltshire,
and the common ---- Anne Boleyn."[366]

The dates of these papers cannot always be determined; this which follows,
probably, is something later, but it shows the general temper in which the
clergy were disposed to meet the measures of the government.

"Robert Legate, friar of Furness, deposeth that the monks had a prophecy
among them, that 'in England shall be slain the decorate rose in his
mother's belly,' and this they interpret of his Majesty, saying that his
Majesty shall die by the hands of priests; for the church is the mother,
and the church shall slay his Grace. The said Robert maintaineth that he
hath heard the monks often say this. Also, it is said among them that the
King's Grace was not the right heir to the crown; for that his Grace's
father came in by no line, but by the sword. Also, that no secular knave
should be head of the church; also that the abbot did know of these
treasons, and had made no report thereof."[367]

Nor was it only in the remote abbeys of the North that such dangerous
language was ventured. The pulpit of St. Paul's rang Sunday after Sunday
with the polemics of the divorce; and if "the holy water of the court" made
the higher clergy cringing and cowardly, the rank and file, even in London
itself, showed a bold English front, and spoke out their thoughts with
entire recklessness. Among the preachers on Catherine's side, Father
Forest, famous afterward in Catholic martyrologie