[105] These intrigues, in which the cardinal bore so large a part, did not redound to the glory of his country. Our merry neighbours even then had begun to make our diplomatic inferiority the subject of their sport and ridicule. William Tindall, in his _Practice of popish Prelates_, referring to these events, tells us, "The Frenchmen of late dayes made a play or a disguising at Paris, in which the emperour daunsed with the pope and the French king, and weried them, the king of England sitting on a hye bench, and looking on. And when it was asked, why he daunsed not, it was answered, that he sate there, _but to pay the minstrels their wages onely_: as who should say, wee paid for all mens dauncing." _Tindall's Works_, p. 375. A. D. 1572. _W._
[106] A _brake_ here seems to signify a _snare_ or _trap_. The word has much puzzled the commentators on Shakspeare (See Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1). One of its antient significations was a _sharp bit_ to break horses with. A farrier's _brake_ was a machine to confine or trammel the legs of unruly horses. An antient instrument of torture was also called _a brake_; and a thorny _brake_ meant an intricate thicket of thorns. Shakerly Marmion, in his comedy of 'Holland's Leaguer', evidently uses the word in the same sense with Cavendish:
"-------Her I'll make A stale to catch this courtier in _a brake_."
[107] The 3d Day of July (1526), the Cardinal of Yorke passed through the City of London, with many lords and gentlemen, to the number of twelve hundred horse----The 11th day of May he took shipping at Dover, and landed at Calais the same day.
[108] _Lanzen-Knechts_, the name by which these bands of German mercenaries were then designated.
[109] Cavendish uses this word again in his poems:
"Wherin was found a certyn _defuse_ clause Wrested by craft to a male intente." p. 139.
"_Cook._ Then answere me, What sayest thou to the blessed sacrament of the altar? Tell me:
"_Jackson._ I answered; it is a _diffuse_ question, to aske me at the first dash, you promising to deliver me." See also p. 1574. "_Diffuse_ and _difficult_."
It appears to have been used in the sense of _obscure_, but _difficult_ is the reading of Grove's edition. I find _diffused_ explained by Cotgrave "_diffus_, _espars_, OBSCURE." And in a Latin Greek and English Lexicon by R. Hutton, printed at London by H. Bynneman, 1583, the Latin adverb, _obscure_, is interpreted "darkely, obscurely, DIFFUSELY."