*To the right honorable, and the Queenes highnesse most gracious Commissioners, for the hearing and determining of matters of Religion and causes Ecclesiasticall.
MOst lamentably and woefully complayning, sheweth vnto your gracious and honorable Lordships,* 1.1 your poore & hū∣ble Orator Mathew Cawches, of the Isle of Garnesey, that where Iaques Amy Clerke, Deane of the Isle aforesayd, assisted by the Curates there, agaynst all order, lawe and reason, by colour of a sentence of heresie, pronounced agaynst Katherine Cawches, the Sister of your honours sayd suppliant, and Perrotine and Guille∣mine, her two daughters, did cause the same Katherine, beyng a poore widowe, and her sayd two daughters, moste cruelly to bee burned, although the said persons, ne any of them did hold, main∣teine, or defend any thing directly agaynst the Ecclesiasticall la∣wes then in place, vnder the raigne of the late Queene Mary, but in all thinges submitted themselues obediently to the lawes thē in force, and yet the cruelty of the said Deane and his accompli∣ces in perpetrating such murther as aforesayd, raged so farre, that whereas, whilest the sayd persons did consume with violent fire, the wombe of the sayd Perrotine being burned, there did issue frō her a goodly man childe, which by the Officers was taken vp & handled, and after in a most despightful maner, throwne into the fire, and there also with the sely mother most cruelly burnt. In tē∣der consideration whereof, and for so much as this bloudy mur∣ther was not in due order of any law, or in any maner according to iustice, but of meere malicious hatred, as the true copy of the whole procedinges in this matter, by the sayd Deane and his ac∣complices, here ready to be shewed to your honours, will make very playne and manifest: It may therefore please your good and gracious Lordships, of the zeale that you beare to iustice, and for our Lord Iesu Christes sake, to haue due consideration in iustice of such horrible murther, so cruelly committed as aforesayd, ac∣cording to the right demerite therof. And that it may please your honourable Lordships to order & decree also, that all the goods of all the sayd parties by pretence aforesayd wrongfully taken as confiscate, may be deliuered to your sayd poore beseecher, to whom of right they do belong. And your honors sayd Suppliant will dayly pray to God for your long preseruation, to his glory, and your euerlasting health.
This supplication being presented in maner aforesaid, to the Queenes honourable Commissioners in the yeare 1562. such order therein was taken, that the matter beyng returned agayne downe, to the sayd country, further to be examined, the Deane therupon was committed to prison,* 1.2 and dispossessed of all his liuinges. So that in conclusion, both he, and all other partakers of that bloudy murther, whether of conscience, or feare of the law, were driuen not long after, to acknowledge theyr trespasse, and to submitte themselues to the Queenes Pardon. The tenour of whose seuerall submissiōs, as they are left in ye Rolles, I thought here to publish to the world, for a memoriall of more truth of this story.