<221> Of Mr. Edmond Grindal, whereas my author writes he was blind, I have heard by those that knew somewhat in those days, that he kept his house upon a strange occasion, the secret whereof is known to few, and the certainty is not easy to find out; but thus I was told it.

            There was an Italian Doctor (as I take it, of Physic) that having a known wife alive, yet bearing himself on the countenance of some great lord, <222> did marry another gentlewoman, (which to do now, is by his Majesty's most godly laws made felony.) This good archbishop, (not winking at so public a scandal,) convented him for it, and proceeded by ecclesiastical censures against him. Letters were presently written from this great lord to the archbishop, to stay the proceeding, to tolerate, to dispense, or to mitigate the censure; but the bishop remained still unmoved and unmoveable. When no subject's entreaty could be found to prevail, they entreat the sovereign to write in the doctor's behalf; but this John Baptist not only persisted in his non licet habere eam,<223> but also in a reverent fashion, required an account of her Majesty's faith, in that she would seem to write in a matter that (if she were truly informed) was expressly against the word of God. The Queen in a gracious disposition was purposed to have yielded an account in writing; but the great lord not only dissuaded her from it, as too great an indignity, but incensed her exceedingly against him; whereupon, he was privately commanded to keep his house; where bycause he was sometime troubled with sore eyes, his friends gave out he was blind. But if he were blind, it was like to the soothsayer Tiresias that foresaw and foretold Pentheus' ruin, as Ovid writes,

Eveniet, (neque enim dignabere numen honore:)
Meque sub his tenebris nimium vidisse quereris.<224>

            For that lord, that so persecuted this prelate about his physician's two wives, dying twenty years since, left two wives behind him, <225> that can hardly be yet agreed which was his lawful wife. And so much for Archbishop Grindal.

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