compassion excludes the explanation that Lady
Ralegh was her mother, whether before or after marriage. Ralegh
proceeded to ask his wife's 'kindness for his brother Adrian Gilbert,'
and for Keemis, 'a perfect honest man who hath much wrong for my sake.'
He advised her to marry, not to please sense, but to avoid poverty, and
in order to preserve their son. Very bitterly he cries: 'That I can live
never to see thee and my child more! I cannot. I have desired God, and
disputed with my reason, but nature and compassion hath the victory.
That I can live to think you are both left a spoil to my enemies, and
that my name shall be a dishonour to my child--I cannot. I cannot endure
the memory thereof. For myself, I am left of all men, that have done
good to many. All my good turns forgotten; all my errors revived and
expounded to all extremity of ill. All my services, hazards, and
expenses for my country--plantings, discoveries, fights, councils, and
whatever else--malice hath now covered over. I am now made an enemy and
traitor by the word of an unworthy man. He hath proclaimed me to be a
partaker of his vain imaginations, notwithstanding the whole course of
my life hath approved the contrary, as my death shall approve it. Woe,
woe, woe be unto him by whose falsehood we are lost. He hath separated
us asunder. He hath slain my honour, my fortune. He hath robbed thee of
thy husband, thy child of his father, and me of you both. O God! Thou
dost know my wrongs. Know then, thou my wife and child; know then, thou
my Lord and King, that I ever thought them too honest to betray, and too
good to conspire against. But, my wife, forgive them all, as I do. Live
humble, for thou hast but a time also. God forgive my Lord Harry, for he
was my heavy enemy. And for my Lord Cecil, I thought he would never
forsake me in extremity. I would not have done it him, God knows. But do
not thou know it, for he must be master of my child, and may have
compassion of him. Be not dismayed that I died in despair of God's
mercies. Strive not to dispute it. But assure thyself that God hath not
left me, nor Satan tempted me. Hope and despair live not together. I
know it is forbidden to destroy ourselves; but I trust it is forbidden
in this sort, that we destroy not ourselves despairing of God's mercy.
The mercy of God is immeasurable; the cogitations of men comprehend it
not. In the Lord I have ever trusted; and I know that my Redeemer
liveth. Far is it from me to