"Well," said I, "I have sent for my Bible; and by GOD's grace, therein shall be my daily exercise. I will not hide it from them."
"Sir!" said he, "I am poor; but they will bear with you, for that they see your estate is to pay well; and I will shew you the nature and manner of them: for I have been here a a good while. They both do love music very well; wherefore you with your lute, and I to play with you on my rebeck, will please them greatly. He loveth to be merry, and to drink wine; and she also. If you will bestow upon them every dinner and supper a quart of wine, and some music: you shall be their white son, and have all the favour that they can shew you!" And so it came to pass.
And now I think it good a little to digress from my matter concerning my imprisonment and my deliverance; and to note the great mercy of GOD shewed unto his servants in that great Persecution in Queen Mary's time: how mightily and how many ways he preserved such as did fear Him, even as He preserved Daniel, Jeremy, Paul, and many in the old time.
Some were moved by His Spirit to flee over the seas. Some were preserved still in London, that, in all the time of persecution, never bowed their knees unto Baal: for there was no such place to shift [hide] in, in this realm, as London, notwithstanding their great spiall and search; nor no better place to shift the Easter time [to avoid being houselled, i.e., taking the sacrament] than in Queen Mary's Court, serving in the room I did, as shall be shewed hereafter [p. [88]].
A great number, God did strengthen constantly to stand to His Word, to glorify His name, which be praised for ever and ever, world without end! And some be preserved for these days.
And now again to prosecute the matter of my trouble and wonderful deliverance out of that loathsome gaol of Newgate.
When that I had been there about two weeks [5th-18th August, 1553], through the evil savours, and great unquietness of the lodgings, as also by occasion of drinking of a draught of strong Hollock The Keeper and his wife offered me his own parlour, where he himself lay: which was furthest from noise; but it was near the kitchen, the savour of which I could not abide. Then did she lay me in a chamber, where she said never a prisoner lay, which was her store chamber, where all her plate and money lay; which was much. So much friendship I found at their hands, notwithstanding that they were spoken unto, by several Papists. And the Woodmongers of London, with whom I had had a great conflict for presenting them for false marking of billets; they required the Keeper to show me no favour, and to lay irons upon me, declaring that "I was the greatest heretic in London." My very friend Master Recorde, Doctor of Physic, singularly seen in all the seven sciences, and a great Divine, visited me in the prison (to his great peril if it had been known, who long time was at charges and pains with me, gratis), and also after I was delivered. By means whereof, and the Providence of GOD, I received my health.