them, and I wot well they will accuse me. My worldly friends have forsaken me. I have cried and called after them to answer for me; and they have answered me full straitly and unfriendly that they neither dare nor can, nor will answer for me, nor excuse me; and shortly they be departed from me. My Good Angel first, Reason, Dread, and Conscience and my Five Wits, hasteth them from me-ward, and leaveth me destitute and alone: and where to have succour I wot not, nor help. But as it fortuneth me in good time, may I say, I met with Faith, Hope, and Charity; and they have promised me that they will speak to your most excellent benign grace and mercy for me: and so I trust they have. For certainly of your most pure, chaste virginity, and un-wemmed[1] maidenhead was I never in doubt, and I have hoped and trusted to your mercies always. I have heard say that ye be Mother of orphans, and I wis I am a very orphan, fatherless and motherless. Ye be comfort and succour to all those that be destitute, desolate and succourless. I wis Lady, that am I. For I have neither help, succour, nor comfort of no creature, but only the trust that I have in your benign grace. Ye be guide to them that be out of the way and seek the means to come to the right way. Ah, blessed Lady, I have been so long out of the right way that I sore dread and fear to call upon you for grace: but as Faith, Hope, and Charity have put me in comfort how loth ye be to sec your Son's precious passion lost in any creature, and they have given me hardiness to
- ↑ i.e. unstained.
