and no man shal do him harme," saying moreouer, "that hee had [had] much wrong that hee was from her so long:" who had bene absent now the space of two yeares and a halfe,
Which from Christmas 1526 would bring us to June 1529, which corroborates the internal evidence above quoted. Fox evidently now confuses together two different interviews with the King. The first at the Court in June 1529; the other on horseback with the King, followed afterwards by his Message to Sir T. More in the winter of 1529–30, within six months after which S. Fish dies. His wife never would have been admitted to the Court, if she had had a daughter ill of the plague at home.
In the whiche meane tyme, the Cardinall was deposed, as is aforeshewed, and M[aster]. More set in his place of the Chauncellourshyp.
Thus Fishes wife beyng emboldened by the kynges wordes, went immediatly to her husband beyng lately come ouer, and lying priuely within a myle of the Court, and brought him to the kyng: which appeareth to be about the yeare of our Lord. 1530.
When the kyng saw hym, and vnderstood he was the authour of the booke, he came and embraced him with louing countenance: who after long talke: for the space of iij. or iiij. houres, as they were ridyng together on huntyng, at length dimitted him, and bad him "take home his wife, for she had taken great paynes for him." Who answered the kyng agayne and sayd, he "durst not so do, for fear of Syr Thomas More then Chauncellor, and Stoksley then Bishop of London. This seemeth to be about the yeare of our Lord. 1530.
This bringing in of Stokesley as Bishop is only making confusion worse confounded. Stokesley was consecrated to the see of London on the 27th Nov. 1530. By that time, S. Fish had died of the plague which occurred in London and its suburbs in the summer of 1530; and which was so severe, that on 22nd June of that year, the King prorogued the Parliament to the following 1st October, Letters &c. Henry VIII. Ed. by J. S. Brewer, M.A., IV, Part 3, No. 6469. Ed. 1876.
The Martyrologist, throughout, seems to be right as to his facts, but wrong as to his dates.
