THat your Petitioner who was once Lord Chancellor of England is now become the lowest of Your Suppliants, and from the first and chiefest Councellor about the Throne, a miserable and dejected Captive in the Tower.

I do not presume to justifie my integrity, that would be an Arrogancy as black as my Crimes; I confess I am as unworthy to Live as I am unwil­ling to Dye, and therefore I Prostrate my self at the Foot-stool of Your Grace and Clemency, that Fountain of inexhaustible Goodness, wherein Mer­cy only can flow upon so notorious a Delinquent.

To Enumerate my Crimes would be as innumerable as the Enemies I have created by them, nor will I presume to Profane Your Sacred Ears with so black a Catalogue, whose precious Minutes are more happily im­ployed in weightier Affairs of this Nation, the restitution of the Laws and Liberties, I by my base and precipitate Counsels have endeavoured to sub­vert: what could be more Pernicious and Destructive to the Fundamental Laws of the Nation than to Establish a Power of Men to Dispence with them▪ what greater inlet to Popery than to take off the Penal Laws and Tests? what deeper stroak to the Protestant Church than to Erect an Ec­clesiastical Court of Commissioners to pull down her Pillars: In all which and many others I (to my shame) I must confess, I have been all along a principal Councellor and Instrument: if Your Highness Please to Pardon all these many Crimes, I do Promise to make Restitution by Discovering some Intreagues of State, which may highly advance Your Highnesses In­terest in this Kingdome.

And Your Petitioner shall ever Pray, &c.