“After having deferred for a long time on account of the imminent danger of the undertaker, at last I have consented to the proposition which has often been made to me to escape. You will hear what has happened from the doctor and other servants, who till now are left to me, I know not for how long, nor whether I can have leisure to make my will. And having that, I do not know if I shall have power, all my money and papers having been taken away, and having nobody to help me to write, although I have asked to have my almoner, that being more suitable if it could be done; but I have had no answer. If that is refused, will you entreat His Holiness, the most Christian King, the King of Spain, the Duke of Lorraine, and other Christian friends my relations, that my papers and money be restored, also the furniture which has not been distributed to my servants, in order that my conscience may be relieved towards my poor servants and creditors. You will find this language strange if you have not been told by Buckhurst, Amias Paulet, Drew Drury, and Beale, that the Assembly of Estates has condemned me to death, and they have declared it to me on the part of their Queen, exhorting me to confess and acknowledge my offences towards her. And in order to incite me to die well and patiently and to discharge my conscience, she proposed to send me a bishop and Dean, saying that her people have made constant requests for my death, considering that I being still alive and her rival, as it would appear by my having taken the name and arms of her crown, and not willing to give them up except on condition of being declared next heir to the throne, she could not live secure in her kingdom; also being called by the Catholics their Sovereign, her life had been so often attempted for this end, that so long as I live her religion was not secure in her kingdom. I thanked God and them for the honour they had done me in considering me such a necessary instrument for re-establishment of religion in this island, of which, although unworthy, I wished to consider myself a very zealous defender. In witness of which (as I had before protested) I offered voluntarily to shed my blood in the quarrel of the Catholic Church, and if the people thought that my life would help the welfare and peace of this island, I would not refuse to give it as a reward for the twenty years they have kept me prisoner. As to their bishops, I praise God that without them I know well enough my offences towards God and the Church, that I do not approve of their errors, and wish to have no communication with them. If it please them to allow me a Catholic priest, I said I would accept it willingly, even demanding it in the name of Jesus Christ in order to satisfy my conscience and participate in the holy sacraments on leaving this world. They told me I had done well, but do what I would I could not be either saint or martyr, as I was to die for conspiring against