Entrance to Charter House, London. This photograph was loaned by Mr. Howard M. Chapin, Librarian of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence.] A delightful and, at the same time, amusing love story has come to light which reveals one of the last glimpses of Roger Williams in the Old World. It seems that the wife of his patron, Lady Masham, had a cousin, Jane Whalley, with whom the young chaplain fell in love. He proceeded to write two letters to Miss Whalley’s aunt and guardian, Lady Barrington, asking for the hand of her niece. In the first, he mentions the fact that the affair has caused considerable talk and he hints that Miss Jane returns his affection. Then he sums up his worldly possessions--an expected trifling legacy from his mother, a little money (“sevenscore pieces”) and a small library (“a little yet costly study of books”). Pitiful means, indeed, for winning a young lady of rank! Yet Roger Williams frankly pointed out to the aunt that the advantages were not all on one side, for in spite of Miss Whalley’s high birth, she had a most passionate temper. Everything considered, it is not strange that the struggling minister was flatly rejected. The second letter addressed to Lady Barrington is such as only a disappointed, angry lover could write. He says in plain language that the Lord is very angry with her ladyship and that if she does not repent, all sorts of dreadful things are likely to happen to her. The lengthy sermon-letter is filled with Scriptural quotations. Still, although he asserts, “We hope to live together in the heavens though the Lord have denied that union on earth,” time proved a rapid healer. In less than two years he had transferred his affection to a Miss Mary Warnard, or Barnard, and made her his wife. The sequel of the unfortunate love affair is rather interesting. Of course Miss Jane married another man, but, as it happened, he was a clergyman like her former sweetheart. In turn she came to know the pioneer life of New England as did Roger Williams, being located for some years in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She later returned to old England, where her husband became chaplain to her cousin, Oliver Cromwell, who was also a friend of Roger Williams. In fact, Cromwell’s real family name was Williams and some historians have even asserted that he was related to Roger Williams. The correspondence with Lady Barrington is of importance aside from the disappointing love passages it records. For here is given an early inkling of that unrest and dissatisfaction in religious matters that was to play so large a part in the future life of the youthful chaplain. Already beginning to protest against the established forms of worship, he writes, “A tender conscience hath kept me back from honor and preferment.” Then follows the merest hint of having received a call from New England.