be recalled. He had for his associate in this affair, the afterwards too famous Bonner, Bishop of London. This mean spirited and vindictive man, thinking himself humbled by the ascendency of Wyatt's talents, and the respect shewn to him by the Emperor, meditated the design of revenging himself, and accordingly accused him of corresponding with Cardinal Pole, at that time a proclaimed traitor, and of speaking disrespectfully of the King. He was at length permitted to return, which he did in June 1539, and immediately requested a public enquiry into his conduct, as connected with the subjects of Bonner's charges. He was assured by Cromwell, then in power, that the whole had been submitted to investigation during his absence, and dismissed as unfounded.

A short time only was allowed Sir Thomas Wyatt for the repose he longed to enjoy at his favourite residence in Kent, which was now his own, and which he took a great delight in improving. In the latter part of the year 1539, circumstances again required that he should resume his situation at the Emperor's court.This embassy seems to have been as unproductive of beneficial consequences as the former; it was however of short duration, and Sir Thomas Wyatt returned to England in the following spring. Motives of a private nature seem to have induced him to press earnestly for his recall in this instance. He was aware that the party inimical to Cromwell was gaining an ascendency over the King, and he deemed it necessary to be upon the spot to defend himself from the consequences of that great man's fall. His suspicions were well founded, within two months from the arrival of Wyatt, the ruin of the minister was accomplished.

Bonner selected this time as a fit one again to bring forward his charges against his late colleague. He did so, and so effectually, as to produce an immediate command for the apprehension and confinement of Sir Thomas Wyatt; who was committed to the Tower upon the double charge, of holding a treasonable correspondence, and of using disrespectful language in speaking of the King, in the latter part of the year 1540, or beginning of 1541. He was treated with more than common rigour, and has recorded the event in one of his best short pieces, addressed to Sir Francis Bryan :

Sighs are my food; my drink they are my tears;
Clinking of fetters such music would crave:
Stink and close air away my life wears;
Innocency is all the hope I have.-

Rain, wind, or weather I judge by mine ears;

Malice assaults that righteousness should have.

Sure I am, my Bryan, this wound shall heal again;
But yet alas! the scar shall still remain.

In this confinement, Wyatt spent several months, At length Bonner having prepared his evidence, a hearing took place before the Privy Council, some time about the month of June, 1541. Wyatt in his defence, delivered an oration, which has been fortunately preserved, and is a monument of the speaker's wisdom, eloquence, firmness, and command of language. As there cannot be a better production from which to select a specimen of Wyatt's prose, the following is submitted as curious in more particulars than one.-After having refuted the principal charges, he remarks :—

"But what thing is that, that these men would not wrest for their purpose, that wrest such things. They found fault that I did not them the honour that belongs to the King's ambassadors.-I lent not them my horses when they went out of Barcelona; nor I did not accompany them on the way."

"First I report me to my servants, some of whom are gentlemen, right honest men; to their servants; yea! and let them answer themselves, Did ye not sit always at the upper end of the table? Went we abroad at any time together, but either the one or the other was at my right hand? Came any man to visit me, whom I made not do ye reverence, and visit ye too? Had ye not in the galley the best and most commodious places? Had any man a worse than I? Where ye were char

ged with a groat, was I not charged with five? Was not I for all this first in the commission? Was not I ambassador resident? A better man than either of ye both, should have gone without that honour that I did you, if he had looked for it. I know no man that did you dishonour, but your unmannerly behaviour, that made ye a laughing stock to all that came into your company; and me sometimes to sweat for shame to see you; yet let others judge how I hid and covered your faults. But I have not to do to charge you; I will not spend the time about it.

"But mark I pray you! I lent not them my horses.' They never desired to go into the town, to walk or stir out of their lodgings, but they had mule, or horse, or both, ready for them, foot cloth, and harnessed with velvet, the best that I had for mule or hackney.Marry! it was thought indeed among us that Bonner could have been content to have been upon a genet with gilt harness. These men came in post and went again in post. At their parting, my servants had gotten their post horses ready; would they have had without necessity, my horse to have ridden post? I brought them to their horse; would they I should have accompanied them riding in post? Children would not have

C

played the fool so notably. Was not this a pretty article towards treason to have been alledged against me by Bonner? Some men might think that hereby a man might perceive the malice that hath moved my trouble. But yet it shall be more manifest.

"Another occasion there is, that I should say,"They were more meet to be parish priests than ambassadors." By my truth, I never liked them indeed for ambassadors; and no more did the most part of them that saw them, and namely, they that had to do with them. But that I said not, on my faith, to any stranger. But if I said they were meeter to be parish priests, on my faith I never remember it; and it is not like I should say so, for as far as I could see, neither of them both had greatly any fancy to mass; and that ye know were requisite for parish priests; for this, all that were there can report, that not one of them all the while they were there, said mass, or offered to hear mass, though it was but a superstition. I say both Mason and I, because of the name that Englishmen then had to be all Lutherans, were fain to entreat them that we might sometimes shew ourselves in the church together, that men conceived not an ill opinion of us. Let Mason be asked of this. It was not like then that the Bishop of London should sue to have the scripture in English taken out of the church.

"But because I bound myself to make this malice of my accusers to appear manifest to you, let me come to another part of their accusing, which was, by Bonner's letters to the Earl of Essex, that I lived viciously amongst the Nuns of Barcelona.

"To the end ye be fully persuaded and informed of the matter, there be many Nuns in the town, and most

of them gentlewomen; and many here and there talk with those ladies, and when they will, go in and sit company together with them, talking in their chambers. Gentlemen of the Emperor's chamber, Earls, Lords, Dukes use the same, and I among them. I used not the pastime in company with ruffians, but with such as these; or with the ambassadors of Ferrara, of Mantua, or of Venice, a man of forty years old, and such vicious company.

"I pray you now let me turn my tale to Bonner, for this riseth of him; yea! and so I think doth all the rest; for his crafty malice I suppose in my conscience abuseth the other's simpleness.

“Come on now my Lord of London,-what is my abominable and vicious living? Do ye know it ?—or have ye heard it? I grant I do not profess chastity; but yet I use no abomination. If ye know it, tell it here, with whom, and when? If ye heard it, who is your author? Have you seen me have any harlot in my house whilst ye were in my company? Did you ever see woman so much as dine or sup at my table? None, but for your pleasure! The woman that was in the galley; which I assure you may be well seen, for before you came, neither she nor any other came above the mast. But because the gentlemen took pleasure to see you entertain her, therefore they made her dine and sup with you; and they liked well your look, your carving to Madonna, your drinking to her, and your playing under the table. Ask Mason, ask Blage, (Bowes is dead,) ask Wolf that was my Steward; they can tell how the gentlemen marked it, and talked of it. It was play to them; the keeping of your bottles that no man might drink but yourself; and,