BISHOP AYLMER. 153 



&quot; or windes; so disturbed or maymed common weal thes are CHAP. 



&quot;V f T 



&quot; sone overturned and cast under foot by soden and straung __ 

 &quot; mutations. Seing therefore that by frowning fortune and 

 &quot; Gods wrath, for thoffences of thinhabitantes, Englande 

 &quot; is of late, both in honour and possessions, not a lytle 

 &quot; maimed ; yea, takinge a fall through the negligence of 

 &quot; the nurse, [viz. Queen Mary,] half made a creple ; it is 

 &quot; necessary for all good men, and the dutie of all faithful 

 &quot; subjects, to have an eye to it, that it runne not upon the 

 &quot; rockes, and make shippwrake. And as in great cities 

 &quot; great hede is given, that neither by negligence of the ci- 

 &quot; tezins, nor malice of evil- wilier s, it be consumed by fyre, 

 &quot; or hurt by any other casualtie ; so in commonwelthes 

 &quot; must it be provided, that no fyre-brandes of sedicion be 

 &quot; cast into the houses of mens hartes, to impayre thobedi- 

 &quot; ence of good subjects, to kindle the hearts of the froward, 

 &quot; and to destroy honest, godly, and comly order. For 

 &quot; mans nature being such, as it can hardly be brought to 

 &quot; stupe, and easily stirred up to disturbe, all occasions must 

 &quot; be cut off, whereby the evyl may be encoraged to cast of 

 &quot; the yocke of obedience, and the simple brought into doubt 

 &quot; what thei ought to follow. 



&quot; Happening therefore not long agone to rede a lytle 

 &quot; book, straungely written by a straunger, to prove that 

 &quot; the rule of women is out of rule, and not in a common 

 &quot; welth tollerable ; and waying at the first what harme 

 &quot; might come of it, and feling at the last, that it hath not a 

 &quot; lytle wounded the conscience of some symple, and almost 

 &quot; cracked the dutie of true obedience, I thought it more 

 &quot; then necessary to lay before mens eyes the untruth of the 

 &quot; argument, the wekenes of the proufes, and the absurditie 

 &quot; of the whole. In the sifting whereof I mynd to use such 

 &quot; modestie, that it shall appear to all indifferent men, that 

 &quot; I seke to defend the cause, and not to deface the man ; 

 &quot; seing this errour rose not of malice, but of zeal ; and by 

 &quot; loking more to the present crueltie [viz. under Queen 

 &quot; Mary] that then was used, then to the inconvenience that 

 &quot; after might follow. Wherein surely his doing is some- 



