18                         HOW SHE LIVED AT HETON.

band going more frequently than att first to London
about law business, that the landlady where the good
man resided, struck with a holy jealousy, feared lest he
should forsake her, and remain at Heton.

Among these children her son Ralph was the first
toutchstone of her virtue. He was a beauty, and so
cry'd up for priviledges profusely confer'd by nature,
that queen Ann'*, moved with the fame of his excellencies
sent for him, set him on her knee, kissed him, honouring
the infant with this motto, of the finest boy shee ever be¬
held. Notwithstanding, shee did not, as many foolish
mothers do, desire to make him a looking glass, or con-
tinuall object for her eyes, but as shee loved him in
God, of whome he was only borrowed, so shee gave him
freely to God, and as soon as maturity of years serv'd,
sent him for better education to Douay, where God ac¬
cepted her oblation, and after a while spent in learning
and virtue, adopted him to a better inheritance. Now
began the first combat that ever shee experienc'd between
nature and grace; and altho* this sad accident had a
naturall product of sense in the tenderness of motherly
affection, yet it was perfectly tempered by an overruling
power of grace, as shall clearly appear in the subsequent
chapters. A large volume were over little to explain the
many changes shee wrought att Heton, I mean in men's
souls ; where, like the sun within the bowells of the ge¬
nerall parent of mortalls, shee produc'd precious effects
of silver, gold, and gemms, dissolving with the warmth of
divine fire those that were congealed with the ice of ob¬
stinacy, illuminating with celestial rayes the ecclyps'd
with ignorance, relieving   the  neccessitated  with alms,

<7 In a deed dated 2S April, 1597, Roger Lawson is described of
th'Inner Temple, gentleman, son and heir apparent of Ralph Law-
son, of Burgh Hall, in the county of York, esq. It would appear
therefore that he was a member of the Inner Temple and continued
in the profession of the law.

/  Anne of Denmark, queen of James 1st.