ill-fated fair with the fullest vigour. She could not resist the
solicitations of a youthful monarch, the handsomest man of his time. On
his death she was reduced to necessity, scorned by the world, and cast
off by her husband, with whom she was paired in her childish years, and
forced to fling herself into the arms of Hastings. "In her penance she
went," says _Holinshed_ "in countenance and pase demure, so womanlie,
that, albeit she were out of all araie, save her kirtle onlie, yet went
she so faire and lovelie, namelie, while the woondering of the people
cast a comlie rud in hir cheeks, (of which she before had most misse)
that hir great shame won hir much praise among those that were more
amorous of hir bodie than curious of hir soule." She lived to a great
age, but in great distress and miserable poverty; deserted even by those
to whom she had, during prosperity, done the most essential services.

From this time the Cross continually occurs in history. "It was used not
only for the instruction of mankind by the doctrine of the preacher, but
for every purpose, political or ecclesiastical; for giving force to
oaths; for promulgating of laws, or rather the royal pleasure; for royal
contracts of marriage; for the emission of papal bulls; for
anathematizing sinners; for benedictions; for exposing of penitents
under the censure of the church; for recantations; for the private ends
of the ambitious; and for the defaming of those who had incurred the
displeasure of crowned heads."

Bishop King preached the last sermon here, of any note, before James I.,
and his court on _Midlent Sunday_, 1620. The object of the sermon was
the repairing of the cathedral; and the ceremony was conducted with so
much magnificence, that the prelate exclaims, in a part of his
sermon,--"But will it almost be believed, that a King should come from
his court to this crosse, where princes seldom or never come, and that