Indeed, this last matter preys on my father's soul. He hath even knelt to the king to refrain from exacting compliance with his grace's will concerning it; movingly reminding him, even with tears, of his grace's own words to him on delivering the great seal, "First look unto God, and, after God, unto me." But the king is heady in this matter; stubborn as a mule or wild ass's colt, whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle if they be to be governed at alle; and the king hath taken ye bit between his teeth, and there is none dare ride him. All for love of a brown girl, with a wen on her throat, and an extra finger. * * * * * How short a time agone it seemeth, that in my prosperity I sayd, "We shall never be moved; Thou, Lord, of Thy goodness hast made our hill soe strong!" ... Thou didst turn away Thy face, and I was troubled! * * * * * Thus sayth Plato: of Him whom he soughte, but hardly found: "Truth is his body, and Light his shadow." A marvelous saying for a heathen. Hear also what St. John sayth: "God is Light; and in him is no darkness at all." "And the Light was the life of men: and the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Hear also what St. Augustine sayth: "They are the most uncharitable towards error who have never experienced how hard a matter it is to come at the Truth." Hard, indeed. Here's father agaynst Will, and agaynst Erasmus, of whom he once could not speak well enough; and now he says that if he upholds such and such opinions, his dear Erasmus may be the devil's Erasmus for what he cares. And here's father at issue with half ye learned heads in Christendom concerning ye king's marriage. And yet, for alle that, I think father is in the right. He taketh matters soe to heart that e'en his appetite fails. Yesterday he put aside his old favorite dish of brewis, saying, "I know not how 'tis, good Alice; I've lost my stomach, I think, for my old relishes" ... and this, e'en with a tear in his eye. But 'twas not the brewis, I know, that made it start. * * * * * He hath resigned the Great Seal! And none of us knew e'en of his meditating it, nor of his having done soe, till after morning prayers to-day, when, insteade of one of his gentlemen stepping up to my mother in her pew with the words, "Madam, my Lord is gone," he cometh up to her himself, with a smile on's face, and sayth, low bowing as he spoke, "Madam, my Lord is gone." She takes it for one of the manie jests whereof she misses the point; and 'tis not till we are out of church, in ye open air, that she fully comprehends my Lord Chancellor is indeed gone, and she hath onlie her Sir Thomas More.