I was desperate. I gazed round looking for a way out and suddenly glimpsed old Tunstall, Bishop of London, who was riding down to St Paul's for his daily verbal assault on the Almighty. Now I had met Tunstall when I had been with Benjamin at court so I seized Waller by the wrist. 'You see over there?' I cried. 'Who?' the wretch replied.

'His Grace the Bishop of London. He agreed to stand surety for the money I have used to send the sick and the poor on a pilgrimage to St James Compostella!' Waller drew his sour face back like a viper about to strike. 'I don't believe you!' he snapped.

'Look.' I drew off my boots. 'Hold these and I'll go across and prove it to you.'

Waller held my boots and I tiptoed across the cobbles towards the bishop. 'My Lord Bishop!' I gasped. 'Your Grace!'

The bishop, surrounded by his flunkeys, reined in and looked down at me. 'Yes, my son?'

'A petition, My Lord Bishop. A petition. Your holiness may remember me?'

The old hypocrite stared sourly back, gathering his reins as if to move on.

'I am the manservant to Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to the great Cardinal.'

Well, that stopped the old bugger in his tracks. He forced a smile. (Have you noticed how priests do that? As if they were God Almighty and everyone else some poor benighted wretch?) 'What is it, my son?'

I pointed back to where Waller stood like an idiot, holding my boots.

'My Lord Bishop, I was in violent disputation with that man over the nature of the Trinity when you passed by. My Lord,' I lied, 'your reputation as a theologian is known to all. I offered you as an arbiter in our debate. My friend said he did not believe me so I left him with my boots as an assurance that you will grant him an audience and clarify the error of his ways.' Tunstall drew himself up and nodded wisely.

'My Lord, I know you are busy,' I continued breathlessly, 'but if you will just agree to fix a time and place where you can see him…?' Again the holy nod and Tunstall beckoned Waller over. He, the old fool, approached bobbing and curtseying.