“Farther, the petitioner was robbed of divers goods, by one Lightborn, Graves, and others, officers and servants of the Fleet, amounting towards the value of thirty pounds, for which Lightborn offered composition (by a second hand) upon the hearing of the approach of parliament; but your petitioner (notwithstanding his necessity) refused to hearken to any such illegal and dangerous way. To innumerate the rest of your petitioner’s heavy pressures, would take up a volume; with which he will not burden your honours, till further opportunity.
“And therefore, he humbly and heartily entreateth, that you would be graciously pleased to take this his petition into your serious thoughts, and to command deliverance, that he may plead his own cause, or rather Christ’s, and the state’s. As also to afford such cost and damages as he has suffered in body, estate, and family; having been prisoner (and that many times) in the most nasty prisons, eleven years, not suffered to breathe in the open air: to which, give him leave to add his great sufferings in all those particulars, some sixteen years ago, for publishing a book, called, ‘The Looking-Glass of Holy War.’
“Farther, as the cause is Christ’s and the states, so your petitioner conceiveth (under correction) that the subject of the book will be the prime and main matter of your agitation, to whose wisdom he hopeth the book shall approve itself.
“Also your petitioner’s wearing age, going now in seventy-two years, together with the sicknesses and weakness of his long distressed wife, require a speedy deliverance.
“Lastly, the sons of death, the jesuits and jesuited, have so long insulted in their own licentious liberty, and over the miseries of your servant, and others; who, forbearing more motives, craves pardon for his prolixity, being necessitated thereto from the depth and length of his miseries. In all which he ceaseth not to pray, &c. and,
“Kisseth your hands.”
Prov. xxiv. 11.
“Wilt thou not deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain?”
When this merciless sentence on Leighton was pronouncing, Laud stood up in public court, and “pulled off his cap, and gave God thanks for it;” and in his diary he makes this remark on the execution, without one word to discover that his bowels yearned, or his heart relented. “Friday, Nov. 16. He (Leighton) was severely whipped; and being set in the pillory, he had one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose slit, and branded on one cheek with a red-hot iron. And on that day sevennight his sores upon his back, ear, nose and face, not being cured, he was whipped again at the pillory in Cheapside, and there had the remainder of his sentence executed upon him, by cutting off the other ear, slitting the other side of his nose, and branding the other cheek.”[cheek.”]
These, and the like instances are specimens of this most reverend prelate’s humanity, compassion, and christian moderation. I shall only consider him in one view more, viz. his constant regard to the laws and liberties of his country.