The following letter was written from Dieppe in April 1559 with the hope of procuring these favours from the great statesman. "As I have no plaisure with long writing to trouble you, Rycht Honourable, whose mind I know to be occupied with most grave matters, so mind I not greatly to labour by long preface to conciliate your favour, which I suppose I have already (howsomever rumours bruit the contrarie) as it becometh one member of Christ's body to have of another. The contents, therefore, of these my presents shall be absolved in two points. In the former I purpose to discharge in brief words my conscience towards you, and in the other somewhat I must speik in my own defence and in defence of that poor flock of lait assembled in the most godly Reformed church and city of the world Geneva. To you Sir, I say, that as from God ye have received life, wisdom, honours and this present estate in which ye stand, so ought you wholly to employ the same to the advancement of His glory, who only is the Author of life, the fountain of wisdom, and who, most assuredly, doth and will honour those that with simple hearts do glorify Him; which, alas, in times past ye have not done; but being overcome with common iniquity ye have followed the world in the way of perdition. For to the suppressing of Christ's true Evangell, to the erecting of idolatrie, and to the shedding of the blood of God's dear children, have you by silence consented and subscribed. This, your most horrible defection from the truth known and once professed, hath God to this day mercifully spared; yea, to man's judgement He hath utterly forgotten and pardoned the same. He hath not entreated you as He hath done others (of like knowledge), whom in His anger (but yet most justly according to their deserts) He did shortly strike after their defection. But you, guilty in the same offences, He hath fostered and preserved as it were in His own bosom. As the benefit which ye have received is great, so must God's justice require of you a thankful heart; for seeing that His mercy hath spared you being traitor to His Majesty; seeing, further, that among your enemies He hath preserved you; and last, seeing that although worthy of Hell He hath promoted you to honour and dignity, of you must He require (because He is just) earnest repentance for your former defection, a heart mindful of His merciful providence, and a will so ready to advance His glory that evidently it may appear that in vain ye have not received these graces of God--to performance whereof of necessity it is that carnal wisdom and worldly policy (to the which both ye are bruited too much inclined) give place to God's simple and naked truth--very love compelleth me to say that except the Spirit of God purge your heart from that