78 THE PLEASANT HISTORY OF CHAP.

and humbly besought the King, for the safety of
his own royal person, to take some pity of the
fox, and to command all his subjects to hold
their peace, and keep silence till he had spoken
the uttermost of his knowledge; all which was
presently done, and the fox proceeded in this
manner :

‘Since it is the pleasure of my Sovereign
‘Lord the King, and that his royal life lieth in
the balance with my present death, I will freely
and boldly unfold this capital and foul treason,
and in the relation not spare any guilty person
for any respect whatsoever, whether it be
blood, greatness, or authority. Know then,
my dread Sovereign Lord the King, that my
father by a strange accident, digging in the
ground, found out King Ayvmerick's treasure,
being a mass infinite and innumerable; of
which being possessed, he grew so proud and
haughty, that he held in scorn all the beasts
of the wilderness, which before had been his
kinsmen and companions. At last he caused
Tibert the cat to go into the vast forest of
Arden to Bruin the bear, and to tender to him
his homage and fealty, saying, “If it would
please him to be king, he should come into
Flanders, where he would show him means