In the same autumn appeared Udall's translation of Erasmus's _Apophthegms_[302] and--after his return south--he was connected for the following three years with a great literary undertaking, which was not only favoured by the Court, but progressing under its auspices and with its collaboration,--Princess Mary taking the most active part. This was the English translation of Erasmus's _Paraphrase of the New Testament_.[303] Under Edward VI., Udall devoted himself to theological works; he stood up for the royal prerogative in religious matters in his _Answer to the articles of the commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall_ (summer 1549[304]); he took his share in a memorial volume published in 1551, after Bucer's death, and he translated in the same year Peter Martyr's _Tractatus_ and _Disputatio De Eucharistia_. A royal patent[305] (of 1551) granted him the "privilege and lycense ... to preint the Bible in Englyshe as well in the large volume for the use of the churches wᵗʰin this our Realme ... as allso in any other convenient volume." This privilege was not the only sign of royal favour: we find Udall in November, 1551, presented by the King to a prebend in Windsor,[306] and later (in March, 1553) to the Parsonage of Calborne, in the Isle of Wight. After such favours received from Edward, and such services in the Protestant camp, we should expect to find Udall in disgrace under Queen Mary, and sharing with his fellow-Protestants at least the bitter fate of exile, but Mary had apparently preserved a grateful memory for her former fellow-worker in the Erasmian translation. If, indeed, she did not use him as a theologian, she remembered his dramatic talents, and so we find that a special warrant was issued, December 3, 1554, which shows us Udall in the rôle of playwright. The Office of the Queen's Revels was directed by the warrant referred to, to deliver to Udall such "apparel" at any time as he might require for the "setting foorth of Dialogues and Enterludes" before the Queen, for her "regell disporte and recreacion." In the beginning of the document[307] appears an allusion to Udall as having shown previously "at soondrie seasons" his "dilligence" in arranging "Dialogues and Enterludes"--important documentary evidence of his connection with the "Revels," a connection apparently begun with the pageant for which he furnished such poor verses at Anne Boleyn's coronation. This evidence for the fact that Udall was known as a writer of "plays" before 1554 is singularly corroborated by the quotation of Roister's letter to Custance (Act III., Scene iv.) as an example of "ambiguity" in the 1553 edition of Wilson's _Rule of Reason_.[308]