He first saw light in the year 1491, in the county of Leicester. Hugh's father was an honest yeoman; and accompanied by one of his six sisters, the little boy had often tended in the pastures the five score sheep belonging to the farm, or driven home to his mother the thirty cows it was her business to milk.[469] In 1497, the Cornish rebels, under Lord Audley, having encamped at Blackheath, our farmer had donned his rusty armour, and mounting his horse, responded to the summons of the crown. Hugh, then only six years old, was present at his departure, and as if he had wished to take his little part in the battle, he had buckled the straps of his father's armour.[470] Fifty-two years afterwards he recalled this circumstance to mind in a sermon preached before king Edward. His father's house was always open to the neighbours; and no poor man ever turned away from the door without having received alms. The old man brought up his family in the love of men and in the fear of God, and having remarked with joy the precocious understanding of his son, he had him educated in the country schools, and then sent to Cambridge at the age of fourteen. This was in 1505, just as Luther was entering the Augustine convent. [469] My mother milked thirty kine. Latimer's Sermons, (Parker ed.) p. 101. [470] I can remember that I buckled his harness. Ibid. [Sidenote: AN OBSTINATE PAPIST.] The son of the Leicestershire yeoman was lively, fond of pleasure, and of cheerful conversation, and mingled frequently in the amusements of his fellow-students. One day, as they were dining together, one of the party exclaimed: _Nil melius quam lætari et facere bene_!--"There is nothing better than to be merry and to do well."[471]--"A vengeance on that _bene_!" replied a monk of impudent mien; "I wish it were beyond the sea;[472] it mars all the rest." Young Latimer was much surprised at the remark: "I understand it now," said he; "that will be a heavy _bene_ to these monks when they have to render God an account of their lives." [471] Eccles. iii. 12. [472] I would that _bene_ had been banished beyond the sea. Latimer's Sermons, p. 153. Latimer having become more serious, threw himself heart and soul into the practices of superstition, and a very bigoted old cousin undertook to instruct him in them. One day, when one of their relations lay dead, she said to him: "Now we must drive out the devil. Take this holy taper, my child, and pass it over the body, first longways and then athwart, so as always to make the sign of the cross." But the scholar performing this exorcism very awkwardly, his aged cousin snatched the candle from his hand, exclaiming angrily: "It's a great pity your father spends so much money on your studies: he will never make anything of you."[473] [473] Ibid. p. 499.