Many attempts were made upon him, by the instigation of his mother (who was a Lady of another perswasion in religion, and of a most maskulyne understandinge, allayed with the passyon and infirmityes of her owne sex) to perverte him in his piety to the Church of Englande, and to reconcile him to that of Rome, which they prosequted with the more confidence, because he declined no opportunity or occasyon of conference with those of that religion, whether Priests or Laiques, havinge diligently studyed the controversyes, and exactly reade all or the choycest of the Greeke and Latine fathers, and havinge a memory so stupendious, that he remembred on all occasyons whatsoever he reade:  And he was so greate an enimy to that passyon and uncharitablenesse which he saw produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that in all those disputations with Priests and others of the Roman Church, he affected to manifest all possible civillity to ther persons, and estimation of ther partes, which made them retayne still some hope of his reduction, even when they had given over offeringe farther reasons to him to that purpose:  But this charity towards them was much lesned, and any correspondence with them quyte declined, when by sinister Artes they had corrupted his two younger brothers, beinge both children, and stolen them from his house, and transported them beyonde seas, and perverted his sisters, upon which occasyon he writt two large discources against the principle positions of that Religion, with that sharpnesse of Style, and full waight of reason, that the Church is deprived of greate jewells, in the concealment of them, and that they are not published to the world.

He was superiour to all those passyons and affections which attende vulgar mindes, and was guilty of no other ambition, then of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men, and that made him to much a contemner of those Artes which must be indulged to in the transaction of humane affayrs.  In the last shorte Parliament he was a Burgesse in the house of Commons, and from the debates which were then managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence to Parliaments that he thought it really impossible, that they could ever produce mischieve or inconvenience to the kingdome, or that the kingdome could be tolerably happy in the intermissyon of them; and from the unhappy, and unseasonable dissolution of that convention, he harboured it may be some jealousy and praejudice of the Courte, towards which he was not before immoderately inclined, his father havinge wasted a full fortune ther, in those offices and imployments, by which other men use to obtayne a greater.  He was chosen agayne this Parliament to serve in the same place, and in the beginninge of it, declared himselfe very sharply and sevearely against those exorbitances which had bene most grievous to the State; for he was so rigidd an observer of established Lawes and rules, that he could not indure the least breach