He got into some trouble with the chancellor, Gardiner, over a ribald play, "Pammachius," performed by the students, deriding the old ecclesiastical system, though Bonner wrote to Parker of the assured affection he bore him.

ribald songs with explicit amorous lyrics such as " Where did the spider bite you, dear?

The Florence streets rang with Lorenzo's ribald songs (the "canti carnascialeschi"); the smooth, cultured citizens were dead to all sense of religion or morality; and the spirit of the fashionable heathen philosophy had even infected the brotherhood of St Mark.

Many ribald comments were made by the cheeky cockneys, which although ignored by dad were deeply embarrassing to Peter!

ribald humor, the overuse of which might potentially have ruined this bodice ripper, is also kept in check.