Nugae Antiquae
Of this ancient bishopric, or rather archbishopric, of St. Davis, (as the old true Britons do call it,) in Latin called Menevia, and the bishop Menevensis, I was told of an old indulgence granted by Calixtus the 2, of a very special note, ascribing thereby great holiness to this place, viz. that two pilgrimages to St. Davy should be equal in merit to one pilgrimage to Rome, expressed since for brevity's sake by some friar in a rhyming verse,
Roma semel quantum,
Bis dat Minevia tantum.
This place hath yielded many excellent bishops, as well for learning as good life,<473> and for abstinence miraculous, if we believe stories that 33 bishops successively eat no flesh. I can add little of the bishops, save of him that now lives,<474> whom, if I knew not, yet by his look I should guess to be a grave and austere man, even like St. David himself; but knowing him as I do, he was in more possibility to have proved like to St. John Baptist, in my opinion. There is almost none that waited in Queen Elizabeth's court, and observed anything, but can tell, that it pleased her much to seem, and to be thought, and to be told, that she looked young.<475> The Majesty and gravity of a sceptre, borne 44 year, could not alter that nature of a woman in her. This notwithstanding, this good bishop being appointed to preach before her in the Lent of the year 1596, the court lying then at Richmond, and wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she would think some time of mortality, being then full 63 years of age; he took this text, fit for that purpose, out of the Psalms, Ps. 90. Ver. 12. "O teach us to number our days, that we may incline our hearts unto wisdom;" which text he handled so well, so learnedly, and so respectively,<476> as I dare undertake he thought, and so should I, if I had not been somewhat better acquainted with her humour, that it would have well pleased her, or at least no way offended her. But when he had spoken a while of some sacred and mystical numbers, as 3 for the Trinity, 3 times 3 for the heavenly Hierarchy,<477> 7 for the Sabbath, and 7 times 7 for a Jubilee; and lastly, (I do not deliver it so handsomly as he brought it in,) 7 times 9 for the grand climaterical year; she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled with it. The bishop discovering all was not well, (for the pulpit stands there vis a vis to the closet,) he fell to treat of some more plausible numbers, as of the number 666, making Latinus, with which (he said) he could prove the pope to be Antichrist; also; of the fatal number of 88, which being so long before spoken of for a dangerous year, yet it had pleased God that year not only to preserve her, but to give her a famous victory against the united forces of Rome and Spain: and so (he said) "there was no doubt but she should pass this year also, and many more, if she would, in her meditations and soliloquies with God, as he doubted not she often did, and would say thus and thus." So making indeed an excellent prayer, by way of prosopopeia;<478> in her Majesty's person acknowledging God's great graces and benefits, and praying devoutly for the continuance of them, but withal interlarding it with some passages of Scripture, that touch the infirmities of age; as that of Ecclesiastes, 12. "When the grinders shall be few in number, and they wax dark that look out of the windows, &c. and the daughters of singings shall be abased;" and more to like purpose, he concluded his sermon. The Queen (as the manner was) opened the window, but she was so far from giving him thanks, or good countenance, that she said plainly, "he should have kept his arithmetic for himself; but I see (said she) the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;" and so went away for the time discontented. The Lord Keeper Puckering, though reverencing the man much in his particular, yet for the present to assuage the Queen's displeasure, commanded him to keep his house for a time, which he did. But of a truth, her Majesty showed no ill nature in this, for within days after she was not only displeased at his restraint, but in my hearing rebuked a lady, yet living, for speaking scornfully of him and his sermon. Only, to show how the good bishop was deceived in supposing she was so decayed in her limbs and senses, as himself, perhaps, and other of that age are wont to be; she said, "she thanked God that neither her stomach nor strength, nor her voice for singing, nor fingering for instruments, nor lastly, her sight was any whit decayed;" and to prove the last before us all, she produced a little jewel that had an inscription of very small letters, and offered it first to my Lord of Worcester, and then to Sir James Crofts, to read, and both protested bona fide they could not; yet the Queen herself did find out the poesy, and made herself merry with the standers-by upon it; and thus much for St. David's.<479>.
Yet I have been told of a strange stone, of huge weight and bigness, that hath a pretty quality; namely, that with one finger you may stir it, yet twenty yoke of oxen cannot remove it; but I rather think it is mistaken; for the stone Mr. Camden writes of, is near Penzance, in your country of Cornwall, called Mamamber, (of which he writes page 136) hath the very like quality.
