320 DECLARATION OF THE TREASONS 



letter, desired to be spared, as that which would 

 have wounded him for ever, as he affirmed, but in 

 a more private manner, at my lord-keeper s house. 

 Neither was the effect of the sentence, that there 

 passed against him, any more than a suspension of 

 the exercise of some of his places : at which time 

 also, Essex, that could vary himself into all shapes 

 for a time, infinitely desirous, as by the sequel now 

 appeareth, to be at liberty to practise and revive 

 his former purposes, and hoping to set into them 

 with better strength than ever, because he conceived 

 the people s hearts were kindled to him by his trou 

 bles, and that they had made great demonstrations 

 of as much ; he did transform himself into such a 

 strange and dejected humility, as if he had been no 

 man of this world, with passionate protestations that 

 he called God to witness, That he had made an utter 

 divorce with the world ; and he desired her majesty s 

 favour not for any worldly respect, but for a prepa 

 rative for a &quot; Nunc dimittis&quot; ; and that the tears of 

 his heart had quenched in him all humours of ambi 

 tion. All this to make her majesty secure, and to 

 lull the world asleep, that he was not a man to be 

 held any ways dangerous. 



Not many days after, Sir Richard Barkley, his 

 keeper, was removed from him, and he set at liberty 

 with this admonition only, That he sjiould not take 

 himself to be altogether discharged, though he were 

 left to the guard of none but his own discretion. But 

 he felt himself no sooner upon the wings of his 

 liberty, but, notwithstanding his former shews of a 



