There was I, John Longbowe, an English yeoman,--I, who but that day had held converse with Will Shakespeare and been cognizant of the revels of Her Most Christian Majesty even to the spying of her garter!--I was kidnapped at the age of forty-five or thereabout--for I will not be certain of the year--and forced to sea for that my Lord of Southampton had provoked the jealousie and envy of divers other great nobles..