Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/333

Rh four score, and yet were they troubled, all the hours of the day, to keep and contain their own servants from stealing from them; who, notwithstanding all their care, daily left them, being far inferior to Gideon's host in numbers, but far more, in faith or justice of quarrel.

'And so, after that this Catholic troop had wandered a while through Warwickshire to Worcestershire, and from thence to the edge and boarders of Staffordshire, this gallantly armed band had not the honour, at the last, to be beaten with a King's lieutenant, or extraordinary commissioner, sent down for that purpose, but only by the ordinary Sheriff of Worcestershire were they all beaten, killed, taken, or dispersed. 'Wherein, ye have to note this following circumstance so admirable, and so lively displaying the greatness of God's justice, as it could not be concealed, without betraying in a manner the glory due to the Almighty for the same.

'Although divers of the King's proclamations were posted down after these traitors with all the speed possible, declaring the odiousness of that bloody attempt, the necessity to have had Percy preserved alive, if it had been possible, and the assembly together of that rightly damned crew, now no more darkened conspirators, but open and avowed rebels; yet the far distance of the way, which was above 100 miles, together with the extreme deepness thereof, joined also with the shortness of the day, was the cause that the hearty and the loving affections of the King's good