One day there rode into the village an old doctor, of strange aspect; he wore no shirt, but was covered with a long gown that reached down to the horse’s heels, ‘all bedirted like a slobber,’ says a chronicler.[190] He took no care for the things of the body, in order that people should believe he was the more given up to the contemplation of the interests of the soul. He dismounted gravely from his horse, proclaimed his intention of fasting, and began a series of long prayers. This person, by name Hubberdin, the Don Quixote of Roman-catholicism, went wandering all over the kingdom, extolling the pope at the expense of kings and even of Jesus Christ, and declaiming against Luther, Zwingle, Tyndale, and Latimer. On a feast-day Hubberdin put on a clerical gown rather cleaner than the one he generally wore, and went into the pulpit, where he undertook to prove that the new doctrine came from the devil—which he demonstrated by stories, fables, dreams, and amusing dialogues. He danced and hopped and leaped about, and gesticulated, as if he were a stage-player, and his sermon a sort of interlude.[191] His hearers were surprised and diverted; Latimer was disgusted. ‘You lie,’ he said, ‘when you call the faith of Scripture a new doctrine, unless you mean to say that it makes new creatures of those who receive it.’ Hubberdin being unable to shut the mouth of the eloquent chaplain with his mountebank tricks, the bishops and nobility of the neighborhood resolved to denounce Latimer. A messenger handed him a writ, summoning him to appear personally before the Bishop of London to answer touching certain excesses and crimes committed by him.[192] Putting down the paper which contained this threatening message, Latimer began to reflect. His position was critical. He was at that time suffering from the stone, with pains in the head and bowels. It was in the dead of winter, and moreover he was alone at West Kington, with no friend to advise him. Being of a generous and daring temperament, he rushed hastily into the heat of the combat, but was easily dejected. ‘Jesu mercy! what a world is this,’ he exclaimed, ‘that I shall be put to so great labor and pains above my power for preaching of a poor simple sermon! But we must needs suffer, and so enter into the kingdom of Christ.’[193]