The stern Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, had been
vanquished by the gentle graces of his prisoner and he sought from her
some memorial in writing. In a manual of manuscript prayers she wrote
a few sentences of farewell:
Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so
worthy a book, good Master Lieutenant, therefore I shall, as a
friend, desire you, and as a Christian require you, to call upon
God to incline your heart to His laws, to quicken you in His
way, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your
mouth. Live still to die, that by death you may purchase eternal
life, and remember how Methuselah, who, as we read in the
Scriptures, was the longest liver that was of a man, died at the
last; for, as the Preacher saith, there is a time to be born and
a time to die; and the day of death is better than the day of
our birth.--Yours, as the Lord knoweth, as a friend,