pray you, is treason suche a straunge and vnketh thyng in your popecatholike churche, that your burning zeale of obedience to kings and princes, can not read the story of the L. Cobham & sir Roger Acton, but your pen must needes be inflamed to wryte against them, and yet so many traytors in your owne Calenders neither seene, nor once spoken of? And if the traiterous conspiracy and rebellion of so many your Calender Saintes committed against Emperours, Kings, and Princes, can not stirre your zeale, nor moue your pcn: Nor if the treason of pope Gregory 9. raising warre against his owne city of Rome, and causing 30. thousande citizens in one battaile to be slaine, pag. 281. deserueth not to be espied, and accused as much as this treason of the Lorde Cobham: yet what will you or can you answer to me (M. Cope) as touching the horrible treason of pope Gregory the 7. committed not against Emperour nor king, nor any mortall man, but against the Lord hymselfe, euen against your God of your owne making, being therein as you say no substance of bread, but the very personall body, flesh, bloud, and bone of Christ himself, which body notwythstanding the foresayd Pope Gregory the 7. tooke and cast with his owne hands into the burning fire, because he would not aunswere him to a certaine doubt or demaund Benn. Card. pag. 172.Marginalia

Pope Gregory 7 a traytor against the Lords owne body.

Vide supra. pag. 172.

Finally and simply to conclude wyth you (M. Cope) and not to flatter you, what is þ^e whole working, the procedings, actions, & practises of your religion, or hath bene almost these 500. yeares, but a certaine perpetuall kinde of treason, to thrust downe your princes and magistrates, to derogate from their right and iurisdiction, and to aduance your owne maiesties and dominations: as hath bene sufficiently aboue proued and laid before your faces in a parliament holden in Fraunce by the Lord Peter de Cugnerijs. vide pag. 383.MarginaliaVide supra. pag. 383. Wherefore if the assemble of these forenamed persons, either within or wythout S. Giles field be such a great mote of treason in your eies, first loke vpō the great blocks and milstones of your owne traytors at home, and whē you haue well discussed the same, then after poure out your wallet of your trifeling Dialogues or Trialogues if ye list against vs and spare vs not. Not that I so thincke thys to be a sufficient excuse to purge the treason of these men, if your popish Calenders and legeands be found ful of traytours. Multitudo enim peccatorum non parit errori patrocinium: MarginaliaReligion cōmōly maketh treasō among the papistes.But thys I thincke, that the same cause whyche made them to suffer as traitors, hath made you also to rail against them for traitors, that is, mere hatred only against their Relygion, rather then any true affection you haue to your princes and gouernors. Who if they had bene as feruent in your Popery, and had suffred so much for the holy father of Rome, or for þ^e liberties of the holy mother church of Rome, I doubt not, but they as holy children of Rome had bene rong into your Romish Calendare with a festum duplex, or at least with a festum simplex of 9. lessons, also w^t a vigil peraduenture before them.

Nowe because they were on the contrary profession, & enemies to your Magna Diana Ephesiorum, you playe wyth them as the Ephesian caruers dyd wyth Saint Paule and worse. Ye thrust them out as seditious rebels, not only out of life and body, but also can not abide them to haue any poore harbour in theyr owne friendes houses, among our Actes and Monuments to be remembred. In the whyche Actes and Monumentes, and if gentle maister Ireneus, with hys fellow Critobulus in your clerkely Dialogues, will not suffer them to be numbred for martyrs: yet speake a good word for them (M. Cope) they may stande for testes or witnesse bearers of the trueth. And thus muche for defence of them.

MarginaliaAūswere to the second part of Copes accusatiō concerning his vntrue charging of the booke of Actes & Monu.Now to the other part of his accusation, wherein this Alanus Copus Anglus in hys εξαπλα, or sixfolde Dialogues contēdeth and chafeth against my former edition, to proue me in my history to be a lier, forger, impudent, a misreporter of trueth, a deprauer of stories, a seducer of the worlde, and what els not? whose virulent words and contumelious termes, howe wel they become his popish persone, I knowe not. Certes for my part I neuer deserued thys at his handes wittingly, that I do know. Maister Cope is a man whome yet I neuer sawe, and lesse offended, nor euer heard of him before. And if hee had not in the fronte of hys booke intituled himself to be an English man, by his wryting I would haue iudged hym rather some wilde Irishman, lately crept out of S. Patrikes Purgatory, so wilde-ly he wryteth, so fumishly he fareth.

But I cease here, and temper my selfe considering not what M. Cope deserueth to be sayd vnto, nor howe fare the pen here could run if it had his scope, but cōsidering what the tractatiō rather of suche a serious cause requireth. And therfore seriously to say vnto you (M. Cope) in thys matter, wher you charge my history of Acts and Monuments so cruelly, to be full of vntruthes, false lies, impudent forgeries, deprauations, fraudulent corruptions, and fayned fables, briefly and in one woord to answere you, not as the Lacones answered to the letters of their aduersary, wyth si, but with osi. MarginaliaThe booke of Actes & Monum. to true, if it had pleased god otherwise.Would God (M. Cope) that in al the whole booke of Actes and Monumentes, from the beginning to the latter end of the same, were neuer a true storie, but that all were false, all were lies, & all were fables. Would God the cruelty of your Catholikes had suffred all them to liue, of whose death ye say now that I doe lie. Although I deny not but in that booke of actes and monumentes containing such diuersity of matter, some thing might ouerscape me: yet haue I bestowed my poore diligence. My intent was to profit all men, to hurt none.

If you (maister Cope) or any other can better my rude doings, and finde things out more finely or truely, with al my hart, I shall reioyce with you and the commō wealth, taking profit by you. In perfectiō of wryting, of wit, cunning, dexterity, finenes or other induments required in a perfect writer, I contend neither with you, nor any other. I graunt that in a laboured story, such as you seeme to require, conteyning suche infinite varietie of matter, as thys doth, much more time would be required: but such time as I had, þ^t I did bestow, if not so laboriously as other could, yet as diligently as I might.

But here partly I heare what you will say: I shoulde haue taken more leysure and done it better. I graunt and confesse my fault, such is my vice. I can not sitte all the day (M. Cope) fining and minsing my letters, and coming my head, aud smoothing my selfe all the day at the glasse of Cicero. Yet notwythstanding doing what I can, and doing my good will, me thinkes I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed on at maister Copes hand. Who if he be so pregnant in finding faulte with other mens labours (which is an easy thing to do) it were to be wished, that hee had enterprised himselfe vppon the matter, and so should haue proued what faults might haue bene found in him. Not that I herein doe vtterly excuse my selfe, yea rather am ready to accuse my selfe, but yet notwythstanding thynke my selfe vngently dealt with all at Maister Copes hande: Who being mine owne countreyman, an English man as he sayeth, also of the same vniuersitye, yea colledge and schoole that I was of: knowing that the first edition of these Acts and monumentes was begon in the farre parts of Germany, where few frendes, no conference, small information coulde be had. And the same edition afterwarde translated out of Latin into English by others, while I in the meane time was occupied about other Registers. And now the sayde Cope hearing moreouer and knowing that I was about a new edition of the same Actes and Monuments, at this present time, to be set foorth, for the amēding of diuers things therein to be reformed: if he had knowen any fault nedefull to be corrected, he might gentlely by letters admonished me therof. Gentlenes so would haue required it. Time would well haue suffred it. Neither was he so far off, but might sooner haue wrytten a letter to me, then a boke against me. Neither was I so ingratefull and inhumane, but wold haue thanked him for hys monition: neither yet so obstinate, but being admonished, wold haue corrected willingly where any fault had bene committed.

MarginaliaVngentelenes noted in Cope.But herein your nature (M. Cope) doth right wel appeare. First in the sayde booke of Actes and Monuments, where many other good things be conteyned, not vnfrutefull nor vnprofitable peraduēture for þ^e instruction of your cōscience, and wherin my labors perhaps might haue deserued your thanks, all that you dissemble and pass ouer, only excerping those matters whych make for cauillation. MarginaliaThe nature of the spider. Thus the blacke spider out of the pleasant flowers sucketh his poison. And what booke is so pleasant or frutefull, though it were the popes owne Portous, yea hys own decretals, yea hys owne very Masse booke, to the reading whereof if I brought the like minde so disposed to cauil, as you bring to the reading of my hystorie, but I coulde finde out twise as many mendacia, maculas, impudentias, dolos malos fabulas, fucos, as you haue done in these Actes and Monumentes. And yet you haue done pretely well.

Besides al this, yet better to marke the goodnes of your gentle nature: Be it so I had bene in some piece of my story deceiued, as I do not iustify my selfe in all poynts therin: yet you vnderstanding that I was about the correction