y 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_."[510] 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 in God." I preserve the spelling, which,
however, will with some difficulty be found intelligible.

[Sidenote: Letter of a monk of Pershore to Cromwell.]

"We do nothing seyrch," says this good brother, "for the doctryn of
Chryst, but all fowloys owr owne sensyaly and plesure. Also most gracyus
Lord, there is a secrett thynge in my conchons whych doth move mee to go
owt of the relygyon, an yt were never so perfytt, whych no man may know
but my gostly fader; the wych I supposs yf a man mothe guge [is] yn
other yong persons as in me selfe. But Chryst saye _nolite judicare et
non judicabimini_, therefore y wyll guge my nowne conschons fyrst--the
wych fault ye shall know of me heyrafter more largyously--and many other
fowll vycys done amonckst relygyus men--not relygyus men, as y thynck
they owt not to be cald, but dyssemblars wyth God.

"Now, most gracyus Lord and most worthyst vycytar that ever cam amonckes
us, help me owt of thys vayne relygyon, and macke me your servant
handmayd and beydman, and save my sowlle, wych shold be lost yf ye helpe
yt not--the wych ye may save wyth one w