Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/344

324 wretches who found themselves condemned by the accident of a few more days or months of life to perpetual imprisonment, made piteous entreaties for an extension of the terms of freedom. At Fordham, in Cambridgeshire, Dr Legh wrote to Cromwell, 'the religious persons kneeling on their knees, instantly with humble petition desire of God and the King and you, to be dismissed from their religion, saying they live in it contrary to God's law and their consciences; trusting that the King, of his gracious goodness, and you, will set them at liberty out of their bondage, which they are not able to endure, but should fall into desperation, or else run away.' 'It were a deed of charity,' he continued, fresh from the scene where he had witnessed the full misery of their condition, 'that they might live in that kind of living which might be most to the glory of God, the quietness of their consciences, and most to the commonwealth, whosoever hath informed you to the contrary.' Similar expressions of sympathy are frequent in the visitors' letters. Sometimes the poor monks sued directly to the vicar- general, and Cromwell must have received many petitions as strange, as helpless, and as graphic, as this which follows. The writer was a certain Brother Beerley, a Benedictine monk of Pershore, in Worcestershire. It is amusing to find him addressing the vicar-general as his 'most reverend lord