Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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to thank those that accept, and to shake off each
reproof of the envious as lightly as it is lent me, I
take my leave.
Yours in all friendship,
T.L.
The Life and Death of William Longbeard.
How William Longbeard Betrayed His Elder
Brother unto His Death, of His Falling in
Acquaintance with the Abbot of Cadonence
in Normandy, and How Cunningly and
Colourably They Got Authority from the
King to Accomplish Their Ambitious
Pretences. [Chapter 1].
Whilst all the world was in uproar and schisms
reigned in the Church, when God by prodigious
signs, threatened pestilent plagues: at such time as
two suns appeared in our horizon in England, and
three moons were discovered in the west in Italy,
William with the long beard was born in the
famous city of London, of greater mind than of
high parentage, a graft of mighty hope at the first,
though (as it afterwards proved) his parents spent
too much hope on so little virtue. This free citizen
born, tenderly fostered in his infancy, was afterwards
trained up in good letters, wherein he profited
so suddenly, that most men wondered at his
capacity, and the wisest were afraid of the conclusion;
1 and for that the age wherein he was bred
(being the third year of Henry the Second 2 ) was
full of troubles, this young man’s rare gifts were
raked up in the embers, little regarded because not
yet ripened. But at last, as years increased, the
mind ordained for mighty things began to mount,
the rather because ambition sealed his eyes, which
made him with the dove soar so high, till his own
cunning and labour made him be overturned. For
when he perceived his father’s foot already prepared
for the grave, his mother seized by age, and
1 conclusion outcome, result.
2 being the third year of Henry the Second Henry II reigned 1154-89,
dating Longbeard’s birth to 1156-57.
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more besotted with affection, himself at man’s
estate and without maintenance, he thus began the
first fruits of his impiety, the sequel whereof
exceedeth all conceit, and testifieth his devilish
and damnable nature. He had a brother, elder than
himself in years but younger in policy, who
(having by his own frugality gotten wealth) was
called to be a burgess of the city, a man beloved of
all men for his upright dealing, and lamented of all
men for his untimely death. For William little
regarding the benefits he had received of him in
his youth, the brotherly kindness, the bountiful
courtesies, sought all means possible to betray him
who had trained him up, to suck his heart blood
who had sought his heart’s rest, and to that intent
seeing the opportunity fitted him, in the reign of
Richard the first, 3 that noble prince of famous
memory, he suborned certain lewd and sinister
confederates of his to accuse him of treason; for
which cause [the] poor innocent man being suddenly
apprehended, his goods were confiscate, his
body imprisoned, his wife and children left succourless,
4 whilst wicked William being both complotter,
informer, and witness wrought so cunningly
with the King’s Council 5 that the goods
were his, which his brother with his long labour
had gotten and the poor innocent man brought
out before the judges with weeping eyes, beheld
his younger brother both revelling in his riches
and rejoicing at his ruin. Many were his obtestations
6 before God and protestations to the judges,
many his exhortations to his brother, and detestations
of his perjury. But William, whose heart was
the very harbour of all impiety, ceased not in his
own person to solicit, and by his companions to
incense, the judges in such sort that his brother
was at last by them condemned and a-judged to
death, as some writers suppose for coining. And
3 in the reign of Richard the first Richard I (the “Lionheart”) reigned
1189-99.
4 succourless without aid or comfort; destitute.
5 the King’s Council the Privy Council, the government’s executive
body comprised of the monarch’s ministers of state.
6 obtestation the action of calling upon God (Heaven) to witness [the
truth of one’s statement]; oath.