Page:History of the life & sufferings of the Rev. John Welch (2).pdf/23

 That they should enjoy the liberty of their religion, their civil privileges, and their walls should not be demolished: only the king desired for his honours that he might enter the city with his servants in a friendly manner. This the city thought fit to grant, and the king with a few more entered the city for a short time.

But within a short time thereafter the war was renewed, and then Mr. Welch told the inhabitants of the city, that now their cup was full, and thoythey [sic] no more escape; which accordingly came to pass, for the king took the town, and as soon as  it fell into his hand, he commanded Vitry, the captain of his guard, to enter the town, and preserve his minister from all danger and then  horses and waggons provided for Mr. Welch, to remove him and his family for Rochel, where remained till he obtained liberty to come to England, and his friends made hard suit, that he might be permitted to return to Scotland; because the physicians declared there was other way to preserve his life, but by the  he might have in his native air. But this king James would never yield,  he should never be able to establish his  bishops in Scotland, if Mr. Welch were  to return thither; so he languished at  a considerable time, his disease was judged  some to have a tendency to a sort of leprosy;  say he had been poisoned; a langour he had, together with a great weakness in his knees,  by his continual kneeling at prayer; by  it came to pass, that though hohe [sic] was able to move his knees, and to walk, yet he was wholly  in them, and the flesh became hard like  of horn. But when in the time of his weakness