“May it please your gracious Majesty to admit excuse of my long silence and discontinuance from those dutiful offices intercepted upon the removal of your royal person from the ancient place of your abode to the custody of a wicked Puritan and mere Leicestrian, a mortal enemy both by faith and faction to your Majesty and to the Catholic estate. I held the hope of our country's weal depending on the life of your Majesty to be desperate, and therefore resolved to depart the realm, determined to spend the remainder of my life in such solitary manner as the miserable and wretched state of my country doth require; only expecting, according to the just judgment of God, the present confusion thereof, which God for His mercy's sake prevent. The which my purpose being in execution, and standing upon my departure, there was addressed to me from the parts beyond the seas by one Ballard, a man of virtue and learning, and of singular zeal in the Catholic cause and your Majesty's service. This man informed me of great preparations by the Christian princes, your Majesty's allies, for the deliverance of our country from the extreme and miserable state wherein for a long time it hath remained; which, when I understood, my special desire was to advise by what means I might, with the regard of my life and all my friends in general, do your Majesty one day's good service. Whereupon, according to the great care which these princes have of the preservation and safe deliverance of your Majesty's sacred person, I advised of means and considered of circumstances accordingly, to and with so many of the wisest and most trusty so as with safety I might commend the secrecy thereof. I do find, by the assistance of the Lord Jesus, assurance of good effect and much fruit of our travail. These things are first to be advised in this great and honourable action, upon the issue of which dependeth not only the life of your Majesty, which God long preserve to our inestimable comfort, and to the salvation of English souls and the lives of all actors therein, but also the honour and weal of our country, far more dear than our lives unto us, and the last hope to recover the faith of our forefathers, and to redeem ourselves from the servitude and bondage which heretofore hath been imposed upon us with the loss of many thousand souls. First, for the assuring of invasions sufficient strength on the invaders' part to arrive is appointed, with a strong party at every place to join with them and warrant their landing, the deliverance of your Majesty, _the despatch of the usurping competitor_. For the effecting of it all may it please your Majesty to rely upon my service. I protest before the Almighty, who hath long miraculously preserved your royal person, no doubt to some universal good, that what I have said shall be performed or all our lives happily lost in the execution thereof. Which vow all the chief actors have taken solemnly, and are, upon assurance by your