PENRY. 61 fatherless, will reward, my desolate orphans and friendless -widow, whom I leave behind me, and even hear their cry, for he is merciful. And being likely to trouble your lord- ship with no more letters, I do with thankfulness acknow- ledge your honour's favour towards me, in receiving the writings, which I have presumed to send unto you from . time to time ; and in this my last, I protest before the Lord God, that, so far as I know, I have written nothing but the truth. " Thus -preparing myself, not so much for an unjust verdict, and an undeserved doom in this life, as for that blessed crown of glory, which, of the great mercy of my God, is ready for me in heaven, I humbly commit your lordship into the hand of our righteous Lord. In great haste, titan close prison, this 2d of the fifth month, May, 1593. " Your lordship's most humble servant in the Lord, " JOHN PENRY.". , Iu his protestation, enclosed in the above letter, Mr. 'Penry declares,- 66 That he wrote the petition and private observations while he was in Scotland. That what he had written was confused, unfinished, and perfectly secret. That it was the sum of certain objections made by others, 'against her majesty and her government, which he had intended to examine at some future period, but, had not so much as looked into them for the last fourteen or fifteen 'months. And that even in these writings, so imperfect, :unfinished, and enclosed within his private study, he had shewn his duty and true loyalty to the queen, nor had he ever the most secret thought to the contrary." Here, he also expressed himself as follows :1' " These my writings" (meaning those from which, the .charges against him were collected) " are not .the most ,imperfect, but even so private, that no, creature under heaven, myself excepted, was privy to them, till they were seized. Mine, I dare. not acknowledge them to be, for a thousand worlds ; because I should thereby most wickedly sin against God and my own conscience, by bearing false -witness against myself. I, never conceived that any man would have made any sense of them ; especially against :myself, by whomsoever they might be intercepted., " Now that secret, confused, and unadvised observations are brought against me, even to the spilling of my blood ; Strype's Whitgift, p. 413, 414. Strype's Whitgift, Appen. p. 116,-181.
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