¶ And this is by the reason that the chief instrument of youre lawe ye[a] the chief of your counsell and he whiche hath your swerde in his hond to whome also all the other instrumentes are obedient is alweys a spirituell man.
So much, then, as to the certain approximate date of the publication. FOX is quite wrong in assuming as he does in the following paragraph that this work was the occasion of Bishop TONSTAL's _Prohibition_ of the 24th October 1526, _i.e._ more than two years previously.
After that the Clergye of England, and especially the Cardinall, vnderstoode these bookes of the _Beggars supplication_ aforesayd, to be strawne abroade in the streetes of London, and also before the kyng. The sayd Cardinall caused not onely his seruauntes diligently to attend to gather them vp, that they should not come into the kynges handes, but also when he vnderstode, that the king had receaued one or two of them, he came vnto the kynges Maiesty saying: "If it shall please your grace, here are diuers seditious persons which haue scattered abroad books conteyning manifest errours and heresies" desiryng his grace to beware of them. Whereupon the kyng putting his hand in his bosome, tooke out one of the bookes and deliuered it vnto the Cardinall. Then the Cardinall, together with the Byshops, consulted _&c._
We now come to the only authoritative account of our Author, as it is recorded in the same Third Edition of the _Actes and Monumentes &c., p. 896. Ed. 1576_.
¶ _The story of M_[_aster_]. _Simon Fishe._
Before the tyme of M[aster]. Bilney, and the fall of the Cardinall, I should haue placed the story of Symon Fish with the booke called the _Supplication of Beggars_, declaryng how and by what meanes it came to the kynges hand, and what effect therof followed after, in the reformation of many thynges, especially of the Clergy. But the missyng of a few yeares in this matter, breaketh no great square in our story, though it be now entred here which should haue come in sixe yeares before.
FOX is writing of 1531, and therefore intends us to understand that the present narrative begins in 1525.
The maner and circumstaunce of the matter is this:
After that the light of the Gospel workyng mightely in Germanie, began to spread his beames here also in England, great styrre and alteration followed in the harts of many: so that colored hypocrisie and false doctrine, and painted holynes began to be espyed more and more by the readyng of Gods word. The authoritie of the Bishop of Rome, and the glory of his Cardinals was not so high, but such as had fresh wittes sparcled with Gods grace, began to espy Christ from Antichrist, that is, true sinceritie, from counterfait religion. In the number of whom, was the sayd M[aster]. Symon Fish, a Gentleman of Grayes Inne.
