has printed, from the Registers of the Bishops of London, the Confession in 1528 of Robert Necton (a person of position, whose brother became Sheriff of Norwich in 1530), by which it appears that during the previous eighteen months, that is from about the beginning of 1527, our Author was "dwellyng by the Wight Friars in London;" and was actively engaged in the importation and circulation of Tyndale's New Testaments, a perfectly hazardous work at that time.
Possibly this Confession was the occasion of a first or a renewed flight by Fish to the Continent, and therefore the ultimate cause of the present little work in the following year.
We now resume Fox's account, which was evidently derived from Fish's wife, when she was in old age.
Vpon occasion wherof the next yeare folowyng this booke was made (being about the yeare 1527) and so not long after in the yeare (as I suppose) 1528 [which by the old reckoning ended on the 24 Mar. 1529]. was sent ouer to the Lady Anne Bulleyne, who then lay at a place not farre from the Court. Which booke her brother seyng in her hand, tooke it and read it, and gaue it [to] her agayne, willyng her earnestly to giue it to the kyng, which thyng she so dyd.
This was (as I gather) about the yeare of our Lord 1528 [–1529].
The kyng after he had receaued the booke, demaunded of her "who made it." Whereunto she aunswered and sayd, "a certaine subiect of his, one Fish, who was fled out of the Realme for feare of the Cardinall."
After the kyng had kept the booke in his bosome iij. or iiij. dayes, as is credibly reported, such knowledge was giuen by the kynges seruauntes to the wife of ye sayd Symon Fishe, yat she might boldly send for her husband, without all perill or daunger. Whereupon she thereby beyng incouraged, came first and made sute to the kyng for the safe returne of her husband. Who vnderstandyng whose wife she was, shewed a maruelous gentle and chearefull countenaunce towardes her, askyng "where her husband was." She aunswered, "if it like your grace, not farre of[f]." Then sayth he, "fetch him, and he shal come and go safe without perill,
