what had passed; and in the course of the week Peto went down from Greenwich to attend a provincial council at Canterbury, and perhaps to communicate with the Nun of Kent. Meantime a certain Dr Kirwan was commissioned to preach on the other side of the question the following Sunday.
Kirwan was one of those men of whom the preacher spoke prophetically, since by the present and similar services he made his way to the archbishopric of Dublin and the bishopric of Oxford, and accepting the Erastian theory of a Christian's duty, followed Edward VI. into heresy, and Mary into Popery and persecution. He regarded himself as an official of the State religion; and his highest conception of evil in a Christian was disobedience to the reigning authority. We may therefore conceive easily the burden of his sermon in the royal chapel. 'He most sharply reprehended Peto,' calling him foul names, 'dog, slanderer, base beggarly friar, rebel, and traitor,' saying 'that no subject should speak so audaciously to his prince:' he 'commended' Henry's intended marriage, 'thereby to establish his seed in his seat for ever;' and having won, as he supposed, his facile victory, he proceeded with his peroration, addressing his absent antagonist. 'I speak to thee, Peto,' he exclaimed, 'to thee, Peto, which makest thyself Micaiah, that thou mayest speak evil of kings; but now art not to be found, being fled for fear and shame, as unable to answer my argument.' In the royal chapel at Greenwich there was more reality than decorum. A voice out of the rood-loft cut short the eloquent declamation.
