for ended, and then meaning no farther to proceed in that matter, appointed the Bishop of Durham and Sir Thomas More to go ambassadors to Cambray, a place neither imperial nor French, to treat a peace between the emperor, the French king and him. In the concluding whereof Sir Thomas More so worthily handled himself, procuring in our league far more benefits unto this realm, than at that time, by the king or his council was thought possible to be compassed, that for his good service in that voyage, the king, when he after made him Lord Chancellor, caused the Duke of Norfolk openly to declare to the people, as you shall hear hereafter more at large, how much all England was bounden unto him. Now upon the coming[1] home of the Bishop of Durham
- ↑ Sir Thomas More in the latter end of the harvest 1528, being returned from Cambray in Flanders rode immediately to the King to the Court at Woodstock. And while he was there with the King, newes was brought to him by his Son in law Heron that part of his dwelling house at Chelsea, and all his barnes there full of corne sodenly fell on fire and were burnt, and all the corne therein by the negligence of one of his neighbour's cartes, and by occasion thereof were divers of his next Neighbours barns burnt also. On this he wrote a letter to his Lady, in which after comforting her under the loss, and exhorting her to bear it with patience and Submission to the Will of God: He prayes her to make searche what his poor neighbours have loste, and to bid them take no thought therfore, for tho' he should not leave himselfe a Spoone, there should no poor Neighbour of his bere any losse by any chaunce happened in his house.—More's English Works, p. 1419, col. 1.
