“Please it your Grace to understand that there hath been the greatest and sorest hold in the House that ever was seen, I think, in any Parliament. There was such a hold that the House was like to be dissevered, but that the Speaker did mediate graciously between your Highness and the greedy Jews that bearded me.” “Mediate, I trow! And why not command, as beseems the Speaker?” cried the King, glancing angrily on More. “In his bearing the Speaker is meek,” observed Wolsey, with some malice in his tone. “His words were dutiful, and the lowness of his obeisance an ensample to the whole Parliament.” “And what were his acts?” “He informed me that the Commons are not wont to be reasoned with by strangers, and that the splendour of my poor countenance must needs bewilder their deliberations.” “So be it. We have deliberated too long and too deeply for our royal satisfaction on the matter of filling our coffers. We expect our Commons to fill them without deliberation. Wherefore this repining and delay?” asked Henry of More. "Because your Grace’s true servants would that this vast sum should be well and peaceably levied, without grudge——" “We trouble not ourself about the grudge, if it be surely paid,” interrupted Henry. “We would that your Grace should not lose the true hearts of your subjects, which we reckon a greater treasure than gold and silver,” replied the Speaker. “And why lose their hearts? Do they think that no man is to fare well, and be well clothed but themselves?” “That is the question they have this morning asked of the Lord Cardinal,” replied More, “when my Lord discoursed to them of the wealth of the nation, as if it were a reason why they should make such a grant as your Majesty’s ancestors never heard of. One said that my lord had seen something of the wealth of the nation, in the form of a beautiful welcoming of your Majesty; but of the nation’s poverty, it is like the Lord Cardinal has seen less than he may see, if the benevolence is finally extorted.” “And who is this one that beards my Lord Cardinal?” “The one who spoke of the nation’s poverty is one who hath but too much cause to do so from what his own eyes have seen within his own household. He is one Richard Read, an honourable alderman of London, once wealthy, but now, as I said, entitled, through his service to your Majesty, to discourse of poverty.” “Marry, I would that he would discourse of our poverty as soothly as of his own. Has he been bearded by France? Is he looking for an invasion from Scotland? Has he relations with his Holiness, and enterprizes of war to conduct?” “Such were the questions of my Lord Cardinal. He seems to be fully possessed of your Grace’s mind.” “And what was the answer?”