Page:A Supplication for the Beggars.djvu/35

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S. Fish. 1529.
The kingdom of the Blood-Suppers.]
9

theyre charge by any wey of accion, and if he do then is he by and by by theyre wilynesse accused of heresie. ye[a] they will so handle him or he passe that except he will bere a fagot for theyre pleasure he shal be excommunicate and then be all his accions dasshed. So captyue are your lawes vnto theym that no man that they lyst to excommunicat may be admitted to sue any accion in any of your courtes. If eny man yn your sessions dare be so hardy to endyte a prest of eny suche cryme he hath or the yere [ere he] go out suche a yoke of heresye leyd in his necke that it maketh him wisshe that he had not done it. Your grace may se whate a worke there is in London, howe the bisshoppe rageth for endyting of certayn curates of extorcion and incontinency the last yere in the warmoll quest. Had not Richard hunne commenced accyon of premunire ageinst a prest he had bin yet a lyue and none heretik at all but an honest man.

¶ Dyd not dyuers of your noble progenitours seynge theyre crowne and dignite runne ynto ruyne and to be thus craftely translated ynto the hondes of this myscheuous generacyon make dyuers statutes for the reformacyon therof, emong whiche the statute of mortmayne was one? to the intent that after that tyme they shulde haue no more gyuen vnto theim. But whate avayled it? haue they not gotten ynto theyre hondes more londes sins then eny duke in ynglond hath, the statute notwithstonding? Ye[a] haue they not for all that translated ynto theyre hondes from your grace half your kyngdome thoroughly? The hole name as reason is for the auncientie of your kingdome whiche was bifore theyrs and out of the whiche theyrs is growen onely abiding with your grace? and of one kyngdome made tweyne: the spirituall kyngdome (as they call it) for they wyll be named first, And your temporall kingdome, And whiche of these, ij. kingdomes suppose ye is like to ouergrowe the other, ye[a] to put the other clere out of memory? Truely the kingdome of the bloudsuppers for to theym is giuen daily out of your kingdome. And that that is ones gyuen theim comith neuer from theim agein. Suche lawes haue they that none of theim may nether gyue nor sell nothing.

¶ whate lawe can be made so stronge ageinst theim that they other with money or elles with other policy will not breake and set at nought? whate kingdome can endure that