assist the bearer, and to see the same order speedily performed."
The chief occasion of this, had been a person, not long before my near neighbour and acquaintance, Owa Matteral by name, who knew my manner of life, and had often been at my house; but now was taken in and employed at Court: and he out of friendship and goodwill to me, was one of the chief actors in this business, that he might bring me to preferment at Court.
Upon the abovesaid summons, there was no remedy, but to Court I must go. Where I first applied myself to my said old neighbour, Owa Matteral, who was the occasion of sending for me. I signified to him "that I was come in obedience to the warrant, and I desired to know the reason why I was sent for." To which he answered, "Here is good news for you. Your are to appear in the King's presence, where you will find great favour and honourable entertainment; far more than any of your countrymen yet have found." Which the great man thought would be a strong inducement to persuade me joyfully to accept of the King's employments. But this was the thing I always most dreaded, and endeavoured to shun; knowing that being taken into Court would be a means to cut off all hopes of liberty from me; which was the thing that I esteemed as equal unto life itself.
Seeing myself brought into this pass, wherein I had no earthly helper, I recommended my cause to God; desiring Him in whose hands are the hearts of kings and princes, to divert the business: and my cause being just and right, I was resolved to persist in a denial. My case seemed to me to be like that of the four lepers at the gate of Samaria. No avoiding of death for me. If out of ambition and honour, I should have embraced the King's service; besides the depriving myself of all hopes of liberty, in the end I must be put to death, as happens to all that serve him: and to deny his service, could be but death; and it seemed to me, to be the better death of the two. For if I should be put to death, only because I refused his service; I should be pitied as one that died innocently: but if I should be executed in his service, however innocent I was, I should be certainly reckoned a rebel and a traitor; as they all are, whom he commands to be cut off.
