t the Reformation, and
allowed themselves to be hurried forward either to victory or to
destruction.

The first revelation being apparently confuted by facts, a second was
produced as an interpretation of it; which, however, was not published like
the other, but whispered in secret to persons whose dispositions were
known.[643]

"When the King's Grace," says the report of the commissioners, "had
continued in good health, honour, and prosperity more than a month, Dr.
Bocking shewed the said Nun, that as King Saul, abjected from his kingdom
by God, yet continued king in the sight of the world, so her said
revelations might be taken. And therefore the said Nun, upon this
information, forged another revelation, that her words should be
understanded to mean that the King's Grace should not be king in the
reputation or acceptation of God, not one month or one hour after that he
married the Queen's Grace that now is. The first revelation had moved a
great number of the king's subjects, both high and low, to grudge against
the said marriage before it was concluded and perfected; and also induced
such as were stiffly bent against that marriage, daily to look for the
destruction of the King's Grace within a month after he married the Queen's
Grace that now is. And when they were deluded in that expectation, the
second revelation was devised not only as an interpretation of the former,
but to the intent to induce the king's subjects to believe that God took
the King's Grace for no king of this realm, and that they should likewise
take him for no righteous king, and themselves not bounden to be his
subjects; which might have put the King and the Queen's Grace in jeopardy
of their crown and of their issue, and the people of this realm in great
danger of destruction."[644]

It was no light matter to pronounce the king to be in the position of Saul
after his rejection; and read by the light of the impending
excommunication, the Nun's words could mean nothing but treason. The
speaker herself was in correspondence with the pope; she had attested her
divine commission by miracles, and had been recognised as a saint by an
Archbishop of Canterbury; the regular orders of the clergy throughout the
realm were known to regard her as inspired; and when the commission
recollected that the king was threatened further with dying "a villain's
death;" and that these and similar prophecies were carefully written out,
and were in private circulatio