“No Christen booke, Maye thou on looke, Yf thou be an Englishe strunt, {xciii} Thus dothe alyens us loutte, By that ye spreade aboute, After that old sorte and wonte. You allowe they saye, Legenda aurea, Roben Hoode, Bevys, & Gower, And all bagage be syd, But God’s word ye may not abyde, These lyese are your churche ‘dower.’” See also before, p. lxxii.[75] So in Laurence Ramsey’s “Practise of the Divell” (n. d. 4to, b. l.): “Exclude the scriptures, and byd them reade the storie Of Robin Hood, and Guye, which was both tall and stout, And Bevis of Southampton, to seeke the matter out.” (31) “_His service to the Word of God._”] “I came once myselfe,” says Bishop Latimer (in his sixth sermon before King Edward VI.), “to a place, riding on a jorney homeward from London, and I sent worde over night into the towne that I would preach there in the morning, bicause it was a holy day, and methought it was an holydayes worke. The churche stode in my way; and I tooke my horse and my company and went thither (I thought I should have found a great companye in the churche), and when I came there, the churche dore was faste locked. I taried there half an hower and more; at last the keye was founde; and one of the parishe commes to me, and sayes, Sir, this is a busie day with us, we cannot heare you; it is Robin Hoodes daye. The parishe are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hoode, I pray you let them not. I was fayne there to geve place to Robin Hoode. I thought my rochet shoulde have bene regarded, thoughe I were not; but it woulde not serve, it was fayne to geve place to Robin Hodes men. {xciv} “It is no laughyng matter, my frendes, it is a weepyng matter, a heavy matter, under the pretence for gatherynge for Robin Hoode, a traytour[76] and a theefe, to put out a preacher, to have his office lesse esteemed, to preferre Robin Hoode before the ministration of God’s worde, and all this hath come of unpreaching prelates. Thys realme hath bene ill provided for, that it hath had suche corrupte judgementes in it, to preferre Robin Hoode to God’s worde. If the bishoppes had bene preachers, there shoulde never have bene any such thing,” &c. (32) —“_may be called the patron of archery._”] The bow and arrow makers, in particular, have always held his memory in the utmost reverence. Thus, in the old ballad of London’s Ordinary: “The hosiers will dine at the Leg, The drapers at the sign of the Brush, The fletchers to Robin Hood will go, And the spendthrift to Beggar’s-bush.”[77]