LETTER TO THE KING. CCclxxi 



These his last hopes were vain: the King did not, he 

 could not interpose. 



of my business, and therein prostrate myself again, by my 

 letter at your majesty s feet. 



Your majesty can bear me witness, that at my last so 

 comfortable access, I did not so much as move your majesty 

 by your absolute power of pardon, or otherwise, to take 

 my cause into your hands, and to interpose between the 

 sentence of the house. And according to my desire, your 

 majesty left it to the sentence of the house by my Lord 

 Treasurer s report. 



But now if not per omnipotent! am, as the divines say, 

 but per potestatem suaviter disponentem, your majesty will 

 graciously save me from a sentence, with the good liking 

 of the house, and that cup may pass from me, it is the 

 utmost of my desires. This I move with the more belief, 

 because I assure myself, that if it be reformation that is 

 sought, the very taking away of the seal, upon my general 

 submission, will be as much in example, for these four 

 hundred years, as any further seventy. 



The means of this I most humbly leave unto your 

 majesty, but surely I should conceive, that your majesty 

 opening yourself in this kind to the Lords, Counsellors, 

 and a motion of the Prince, after my submission, and my 

 Lord Marquis using his interest with his friends in the 

 house, may affect the sparing of the sentence : I making 

 my humble suit to the house for that purpose, joined with 

 the delivery up of the seal into your majesty s hands. 

 This is my last suit that I shall make to your majesty in 

 this business, prostrating myself at your mercy-seat, after 

 fifteen years service, wherein I have served your majesty 

 in my poor endeavours, with an entire heart. And, as I 

 presume to say unto your majesty, am still a virgin, for 

 matters that concern your person or crown, and now only 

 craving that after eight steps of honour, I be not precipitated 

 altogether. 



