ABSTRACT
About that time that the terror of the world and fever quartan of the French, Henry the Eighth, the only true subject of chronicles, advanced his standard against the two hundred and fifty towers of Tournay and Térouanne, and had the Emperor and all the nobility of Flanders, Holland, and Brabant as mercenary attendants on his full-sailed fortune, I, Jack Wilton, a gentleman at least, was a certain kind of an appendix or page belonging or appertaining in or unto the confines of the English Court, where what my credit was a number of my creditors that I cozened can testify. Coelum petimus stultitia—which of us all is not a sinner? Be it known to as many as will pay money enough to peruse my story that I followed the Court or the camp—or the camp and the Court—when Térouanne lost her maidenhead and opened her gates to more than Jane Tross did. There did I (soft, let me drink before I go any further) reign sole King of the Cans and Black Jacks, Prince of the Pigmies, County Palatine of Clean Straw and Provant, and, to conclude, Lord High Regent of Rashers of the Coals and Red-herring Cobs.
