The writer was old and infirm, barely able to walk (fol. 37b) and much perplexed; the piece is long and rambling, full of repetitions, probably written in the early time of Q. Elizabeth.

The writer condemns vehemently the worship of images and the modes of fasting in the Roman Church, but as strongly repudiates Protestant teaching respecting the sacrament of the altar, predestination, and purgatory.

He quotes (fol. 56b) from his son’s letter to him thus: "O my good child you cry out in your booke most greevously against me, and sayth, O good father, soe long as you live in the papist religion and beleeve in yt as they doe, you live in a most dampnable sinne, for you hate God and keepe none of his commandements".

The latter part of the reply was written on a Good Friday (fols. 66b–67) in a time of "hard and extreame weather" (fol. 48b).