Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Jetter. Would they had made him Regent in the place of Margaret of Parma ! Soest. Nay, nay ; fair play. I 'll not hear Margaret abused. It's my turn now. Long live our gracious mistress! Long live the Regent! Soest. Of a truth there are excellent women in the family. Jetter. She 'a wise and moderate in all she does; if she only would not be so formal, and stick so to the priests. She's in part to blame, too, for our having fourteen new bishoprics in the country. And why, forsooth ? Why, to put strangers into the good places, for which abbots used to be chosen out of the chapters — and they want to make us believe it's all for the good of religion! A pretty story ! Three bishops were quite enough : things went on fairly and properly then. But now every one feels called on to do something, and that makes disturbance and ill-will every moment. And the more you trouble the matter, the muddier it becomes. (They drink.) Soest. But this was the will of the king: she has nothing to do with it, one way or another. Jetter. And then we are not allowed to sing the new psalms. The words are really very finely rhymed, and set to the best of tunes. And yet we must n't sing them, but rantipole songs, as much as we please. And why, pray ? — because they are full of heresies, they say, and God knows what! I 've sung some of them, though. They are something new, but I see no harm in them. BuYCK. Catch me asking any body's leave! In our province we sing what we like. That's because Count Egmont is our Stadtholder, and he does not meddle in such matters. In Ghent, Ypres, and through all Flanders, any body sings them that pleases. (Loud to Ruysum) There 's nothing more harmless than a good psalm — is there, father ? Ruysum. Ay, indeed! A service to Go...
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