MARY RICH, COUNTESS OF WARWICK 153 



not anything ; and by the great cut I had in my knee 

 I was a long time so very lame that I could not go out 

 at all, and had like to have been always so if God had 

 not mercifully, by His blessing on the use of means, 

 restored me to my legs again." Then at Mark's Hall 

 lived " my Lady Honeywood," and Sir John Dawes at 

 Becking. Some twelve miles away, in the parish of 

 Finchingfield, stood the Tudor mansion of Spains Hall, 

 and thither the Countess would sometimes travel to 

 pay her compliments to Mistress Kempe. She would 

 see the seven fishponds in the well-wooded park which 

 commemorated the strange vow of silence which only 

 fifty years before "Mr. William Kempe Esqre" had 

 imposed upon himself, and she would doubtless visit 

 his tomb in the chapel of the grand old Norman 

 church, and read with wonder the unique epitaph 

 which tells us he was " Pious, just, hospitable, master 

 of himself so much that what others scarce doe by 

 force and penalties, He did by a voluntary constancy, 

 Hold his peace for seven years." And so, troubled 

 and perplexed, she would turn home again to her 

 beloved Leeze. 



For some years after her husband's death the 

 widowed Countess remained mistress of the beautiful 

 priory. She had often prayed, "Grant that in the 

 evening of life I may have the most serene and quiet 

 times, that so I may undisturbedly prepare for my 

 change." And after the settlement of her lord's 

 affairs, which for a time took her constantly up to 

 London, she settled down to the quiet seclusion of her 

 Essex home. The old life of peaceful meditation in 

 her much-loved " wilderness " went on, together with 

 her acts of charity to the poor around. She had often 

 expressed the wish " to die praying," and so suddenly 



