“But I’m worried. I’ve been thinking of Gammer, my wife, and all the children, and their children and their children’s children. They can’t be getting on too well without me.”

His "Poem Beginning with a Line from Gammer Gurton's Needle" is one of the oldest extant English comic plays.

A few years later came “Gammer Gurton’s Needle.”

Straying from ye others, to a remote corner of the meadow, or ever I was aware, I came close upon Gammer Gurney, holding somewhat with much care.

"How hast fared, of late, Gammer?" quoth I. "Why, well enow for such as I," she made answer; "since I lost ye use o' my right hand, I can nowther spin, nor nurse sick folk, but I pulls rushes, and that brings me a few pence, and I be a good herbalist; and, because I says one or two English prayers and hates ye priests, some folks thinks me a witch."