"_August_ 4, 1637.--Dr. Antony has spent the evening with us, and is to remain some days, at father's entreaty, to recruit his strength; Aunt Dorothy having knowledge of medicinal herbs, and Aunt Gretel of savory dishes, which may be of use to him. He hath narrowly escaped the jail-sickness, having of late visited many afflicted good people in the prisons through the country, as is his custom. 'Sick and in prison,' Dr. Antony saith, 'and ye visited me,' is plain enough to read by the dimmest light, whatever else is hard to understand. He told us of two strange things which happened lately. At least they seem very strange to me. "In the Palace Yard at Westminster, on the 30th of last June (while Roger and I were making hay in the pleasant sunshine of the orchard), Dr. Antony saw three gentlemen stand in the pillory. The pillory is a wooden frame set up on a platform, where wicked people are fastened helplessly like savage dogs, with their heads and hands coming through holes, to make them look ridiculous, that people may mock and jeer at them. But father and Dr. Anthony did not think these gentlemen wicked, only at worst a little hasty in speech. And the people did not think them ridiculous; they did not mock and jeer at them, but kept very still, or wept. Their names were Mr. Prynne, a gentleman at the bar, Dr. John Bastwick, a physician; and Mr. Burton, a clergyman of a parish in London. There they stood many hours while the hangman came to each of them in turn and sawed off their ears with a rough knife, and then burnt in two cruel letters on their cheeks, S.L., for seditious libeler. Dr. Anthony did not say the three gentlemen made one cry or complaint, but bore themselves like brave men. But the bravest of all, I think, was Mrs. Bastwick, the doctor's wife. She stayed on the scaffold, and bore to see all her husband's pain without a word or moan, lest she should make him flinch, and then received his ears in her lap, and kissed his poor wounded face before all the people. Sweet, brave heart! I would fain have her home amongst us here, and kiss her faithful hands like a queen's, and lay my head on her brave heart, as if it were my mother's! The sufferers made no moan; but the people broke their pitiful silence once with an angry shout, and many times with low, hushed groans, as if the pain and shame were theirs (Dr. Anthony said), and they would remember it. And Mr. Prynne, when the irons were burning his face, said to the executioner, 'Cut me, tear me, I fear not thee; I fear the fire of hell.' Mr. Burton spoke to the people of God and his truth, and how it was worth while to suffer rather than give up that. And at last he nearly fainted, but when he was borne away into a house near, he said, with good cheer, 'It is too hot to last.' (He meant the persecution.) But the three gentlemen are now shut up in three prisons--in Launceston, Lancaster, and Caernarvon. And father and Dr. Antony say it is Archbishop Laud