Cardinal Wolsey, in disgrace, describes himself to Henry VIII as "poor, bevy, wretched prest, daily crying for grace, mercy, remission and pardon." Sir Walter Raleigh, writing from the Tower, complains pathetically that after eight years' imprisonment he is "as strayghily lock up as I was the first day. My extreme shortness of breath doth grow so fast on me, with the dispayre of obtaining so much grace to walke with my keeper up the hill within the Tower." The Earl of Essex, another fallen favourite, addresses his letter to Queen Elizabeth with the words "Haste paper, to that happy presence whence only unhappy I am banished."
If there is anyone who still believes that history is merely a dryas-dust recording of wars and treaties, let him spend an afternoon in the museum of the Public Record Office. It will surely dispel the illusion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.