(Vol. ix., p. 392.)
The long-received account of a very striking act in the martyrdom of
Cranmer is declared to involve an "impossibility." The question is an
important one in various ways, for it involves moral and religious, as well
as literary and physiological, considerations of deep interest; but as I
think the pages of "N. & Q." not the most appropriate vehicle for
discussion on the former heads, I shall pass them over at present with a
mere expression of regret that such a subject should have been so mooted
there. With reference, then, to the literary evidence in favour of the
fact, that the noble martyr voluntarily put forth his hand into the hottest
part of the fire which was raging about him, and burnt it first, the
historians quoted are entirely agreed, differing as they do only in such
details as might seem rather to imply independent testimony than discrepant
authority. But the action is declared to be "utterly impossible, because,"
&c. Why beg the question in this way? "Because," says H. B. C., "the laws
of physiology and combustion show that he could not have gone beyond _the
attempt_;" adding, "If the hand were chained over the fire, the shock would
produce death." Leaving the _hypothetical_ reasoning in both cases to go
for what it is worth, it would surely be easy to produce facts of almost
every week from the evidence given in coroners' inquests, in which persons
have had their limbs burnt off--to say nothing of farther injury--without
the shock "producing death." The only question then which I think can
fairly arise, is, whether a person in Cranmer's position could
_voluntarily_ endure that amount of mutilation by fire which many others
have _accidentally_ suffered? This may be matter of opinion, but I have no
doubt, and I suppose no truly Christian philosopher will have any, that the
man who has faith to "give his body to be burned," and to endure heroically
such a form of martyrdom, would be quite able to do what is attributed to
Cranmer, and to Hooper too, "high medical authority" to the contrary
notwithstanding. I might, indeed, adduce what might be called "high medical
authority" for my view, _i. e._ the historical evidence of the fact, but I
think the bandying of opinions on such a subject undesirable. It would be
more to the point, especially if there really existed any ground for
"historic doubt" on the subject, or if there was any good reason for
creating one, to cite cotemporaneous evidence against that usually
received. With respect to the heart of the martyr being "entire and
unconsumed among the ashes," I must be permitted to say that, neither on
physiological nor other grounds, does even this alleged fact, taken in its
plain and obvious meaning, strike me as forming one of the "impossibilities
of history."