“Alas! poor verdingales must lie in the street; To house them no door in the City’s made meet. Since at our doors they in cannot win, Send them to Oxford, at Broadgate to get in.” Soon after the death of Queen Mary, in 1558, her orthodox jester, who hated and ridiculed Protestantism as vigorously as any French court fool launched his little quips against the faith of the Huguenots, withdrew from England, and took refuge in the fair Flemish city of Mechlin. It was a likely place of refuge for a lively and “orthodox” voluntary exile. Mechlin, like Troyes in Champagne, was worthy of supplying any Court with fools, for it was the wise men of that city who once tried to put out the moon! It was a jovial place also. Near the gate of St. Catherine, on the Antwerp side, stood the church and monastery of St. Alexis. This monastery contained fifteen hundred nuns, and full as many lady boarders. The good sisters enjoyed the very merriest of privileges. They were not only permitted to receive all sorts of visitors within the monastery, but to return the visit when and wheresoever they pleased. They might, if they chose, live unrestrained in the city; and might either marry or leave it alone, just as their humour prompted. The old and anonymous author of ‘Les Païs Bas’ (Bruxelles, 1692, p. 123), assures his readers that the old-established custom had never been followed by ill effect; and that the pious and pretty sisters had even employed themselves in respectable and praiseworthy matters, to the edification of the population which had before them so excellent an example.