Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume I.djvu/132

Rh thought him previously, though in his heart of hearts he was right glad the poor lady had not to suffer for the pleasure she had given him. I have known sundry, both men and women, ready to excuse the lady in question, and to hold she did well so to suffer her own undoing in order to save her husband and set him back again in his Sovereign's favour.

Ah! how many examples are to be found to match this; as that of a great lady who did save her husband's life, the which had been condemned to death in full Court, having been convicted of great peculations and malversations in his government and office. For which thing the husband did after love her well all his life.

I have heard speak again of a great Lord, who had been condemned to have his head cut off; but lo! he being already set on the scaffold, his pardon did arrive, the which his daughter, one of the fairest of women, had obtained. Whereon, being come down off the scaffold, he did say this word, and naught else at all: "God save my girl's good motte, which hath saved my life!"

Saint Augustine doth express a doubt whether a certain citizen of Antioch, a Christian, did sin, when to acquit him of a heavy sum of money for the which he was in strict confinement, he gave his wife leave to lie with a gentleman of greath wealth, who undertook to free him from his debt.

If such is the opinion of Saint Augustine, what would he not allow to many women, widows and maids, who to redeem their fathers, kinsmen, yea! sometimes their husbands themselves, do surrender their gentle body under stress of many and sundry trials that fall to their lot, as imprisonment, enslavement, peril to life itself, assaults