LORD ADMIRAL SEYMOUR.

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or no, I refer that to God only. What God can do, I can tell. I will not deny but he may, in the twinkling of an eye, save a man, and turn his heart. What he did, I cannot tell. And when a man hath two strokes with an axe, who can tell that between two strokes he doth repent? It is very hard to judge. Well, I will not go so nigh to work; but this I will say, if they ask me what I think of his death, that he died very dangerously, irksomely, horribly.

The man being in the Tower wrote certain papers which I saw myself. They were two little ones, one to my Lady Mary's grace, and another to my Lady Elizabeth's grace, tending to this end, that they should conspire against my lord protector's grace. Surely so seditiously as could be.

Now, what a kind of death was this, that when he was ready to lay his head upon the block, he turns me to the lieutenant's servant, and saith, "Bid my servant speed the thing that he wots of." Well, the word was overheard. His servant confessed these two papers, and they were found in a shoe of his. They were sown between the soles of a velvet shoe. He made his ink so craftily, and with such workmanship, as the like hath not been seen.

I was prisoner in the Tower myself, and I

could never invent to make ink so. It is a

wonder to hear of his pen of the aglet of a from his hose, and thus wrote these letters so seditiously, as ye have heard, enforcing many matters against my lord protector's grace, and so forth. God had left him to himself: he had elean forsaken him. What would he have done, if he had lived still, that went about this gear when he laid his head on the block at the end of his life? Charity, they say, worketh: but godly, not after this sort. Well, he is gone; he knoweth his fare by this time. He is either in joy or in pain. There is but two states, if we be once gone. There is no change. There is no repentance after this life. But if he die in the state of damnation, he shall rise in the same; yea, though he have a whole monkery to sing for him. He shall have his final sentence when he dieth.

subtilty. He made his point that he plucked

And that servant of his, that confessed and uttered this gear, was an honest man. He did honestly in it. God put it in his heart. And as for the other, whether he be saved or no, I But surely he was a wicked man; the realm was well rid of him. It hath a treasure that he is gone. He knoweth his fare by this.

leave it to God.

A terrible example, surely, and to be noted

of every man. Now before he should die, I heard say he had commendations to the king, and spake many words of his majesty. All is "The king, the king." Yea, "Bona verba,” These were fair words, "The king, the king." I have heard much wickedness of this man, and I thought oft, Jesu, what will worth, what will be the end of this man? He was a man the farthest from the fear of God that ever I knew or heard of in England. I have heard say, he was of the opinion that he believed not the immortality of the soul; that he was not right in that matter. And it might well appear by the taking of his death.-But ye will say, What! Ye slander him; ye break charity. Nay, it is charity that I do. We can have no better use of him now than to warn other to beware by him. Thus may this man be an example to us. Let us all subjects judge well of our magistrates in such matters, and be content with their doings, and look not to be of the council. And thus took I occasion to speak of him, and to profit you thereby; and I beseech you so to take it. He may be a good warning to us; and this is the best use that we can have of him now.

I was travailed in the Tower myself, (with the king's commandment and the council,) and there was Sir Robert Constable, the Lord

Hussey, the Lord Darcy; and the Lord Darcy was telling me of the faithful service that he had done the king's majesty that dead is. "And I had seen my sovereign lord in the field, (said he,) and I had seen his grace come against us, I would have lighted from my horse, and taken my sword by the point, and yielded it into his grace's hands." Marry, (quoth I,) but in the mean season ye played not the part of a faithful subject, in holding with the people in a commotion and a disturbance. It hath been the cast of all traitors to pretend nothing against the king's person; they never pretend the matter to the king, but to other. Subjects may not resist any magistrates, nor ought to do nothing contrary to the king's laws; and therefore these words, "The king," and so forth, are of small effect.

I heard once a tale of a thing that was done at Oxford twenty years ago, and the like hath been since in this realm, as I was informed of credible persons, and some of them that saw it be alive yet. There was a priest that was robbed of a great sum of money, and there were two or three attached for the same robbery, and to be brief, were condemned, and brought to the place of execution. The first man, when he was upon the ladder, denied the matter utterly, and took his death upon it, that he

never consented to the robbery of the priest, nor never knew of it. When he was dead, the second fellow cometh, and maketh his protes→ tation, and acknowledged the fault; saying, that among other grievous offences that he had done, he was accessary to this robbery; and, saith he, "I had my part of it, I cry God mercy: so had this fellow that died before me his part." Now who can judge whether this fellow died well or no? Who can judge a man's heart? The one denied the matter, and the other confessed it: there is no judging of such

matters.

What should it mean, that God would have us so diligent and earnest in prayer? Hath he such pleasure in our works? Many talk of prayer, and make it a lip-laboring. Praying is not babbling; nor praying is not monkery. It is, to miserable folk that are oppressed, a comfort, solace, and a remedy. But what maketh our prayer to be acceptable to God? It lieth not in our power; we must have it by another

mean.

This is not the missal sacrifice, the popish sacrifice, to stand at the altar, and offer up Christ again. Out upon it that ever it was used! I will not say nay, but that ye shall find in the old doctors this word "Sacrificium;" but there is one general solution for all the