I wish, therefore, not alone to record my troubles and to thank God for His gracious support in all the misfortunes that have befallen me, but also to declare to you, my dear children, God's goodness to me, that you may not only admire with me the inconceivable help of the Almighty, but that you may be able to join with me in rendering Him thanks. For you may say with reason that God has dealt wonderfully with me; that He was mighty in my weakness and has shown His power in me, the frailest of His instruments. For how would it have been possible for me to resist such great, sudden, and unexpected misfortunes, had not His spirit imparted to me strength? It was God who Himself entered with me into the Tower-gate; it was He who extended to me His hand, and wrestled for me in that prison cell for malefactors, which is called 'the Dark Church.'
Since then, now for almost eleven years, He has always been within the gate of my prison as well as of my heart; He has strengthened me, comforted me, refreshed me, and often even cheered me. God has done wonderful things in me, for it is more than inconceivable that I should have been able to survive the great misfortunes that have befallen me, and at the same time should have retained my reason, sense, and understanding. It is a matter of the greatest wonder that my limbs are not distorted and contracted from lying and sitting, that my eyes are not dim and even wholly blind from weeping, and from smoke and soot; that I am not short-breathed from candle smoke and exhalation, from stench and close air. To God alone be the honour!
The other cause that impels me is the consolation it will be to you, my dear children, to be assured through this account of my sufferings that I suffer innocently; that nothing whatever has been imputed to me, nor have I been accused of anything for which you, my dear children, should blush or cast down your eyes in shame. I suffer for having loved a virtuous lord and husband, and for not having abandoned him in misfortune. I was suspected of being privy to an act of treason for which he has never been prosecuted according to law, much less convicted of it, and the cause of the accusation was never explained to me, humbly and sorrowfully as I desired that it should be. Let it be your consolation, my dear children, that I have a gracious God, a good conscience, and can boldly maintain that I have never committed a dishonourable act. 'This is thankworthy,' says the apostle St. Peter, 'if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.' I suffer, thank God, not for my misdeeds, for that were no glory to me; yet I can boast that from my youth up I have been a bearer of the cross of Christ, and had incredibly secret sufferings, which were very heavy to endure at such an early age.