MARY.--SUPPRESSION OF THE REFORMATION.--PERSECUTION OF THE
REFORMERS.--FOX’S ACTS AND MONUMENTS.
That God seeth not as man seeth, is a truth which he, who reads history
aright, must soon be taught. Cranmer, overcome by his apprehensions for
the safety of the reformed church under a Catholic queen, had acted
from a principle of expediency, and placed, as far as an individual
could, the Lady Jane Grey on a throne which did not belong to her. Had
the event turned out as he hoped, had her seat been established, and
Mary been set aside forever, it is probable that the Protestant cause,
the very object which this act of injustice was meant to serve, would
never have been so successful as it proved; for it would have been
still fur-stripped of its temporal supports, and it would not have been
consecrated by the blood of the martyr. God therefore ordained for it
the fiery trial; and the Lady Jane was deposed almost as soon as she
was proclaimed, to make way for her sincere but narrow-minded successor.
Cranmer has fallen upon evil tongues, both in his life and in his
memory. A report was spread that he had declared for the mass; and,
indeed, that it had been actually restored, under his sanction, in
his own cathedral at Canterbury; a charge which he repelled in terms
the most indignant, saying, that it was not he that set it up there,
but “a false, flattering, lying, and dissembling monk,” one Dr.
Thornden; whilst at the same time he challenged the adversaries of the
Reformation to a public discussion of its principles, the soundness
of which he undertook to maintain. Yet Neal, who was not ignorant
of these facts, ungenerously keeps them back till he has indulged in
the repetition of the slander;[421] thus doling out reluctant and
compulsive justice to a man whose character Protestants ought surely
to protect with jealousy, be their denomination what it may. The
challenge, however, though it was not accepted was not overlooked,
and Cranmer was cited before the Queen’s commissioners, whether upon
the charge of heresy or treason or both, and was ordered to keep his
house at Lambeth. In the interval which elapsed before he was finally
committed to the Tower, he had probably ample opportunity to escape,
and was urged by his friends to profit by it, but a sense of what was
due to himself, and to those who looked up to him as the leader of the
Reformation in England, constrained him; and whilst he advised the
less conspicuous persons of his party to flee for their lives, as not
being so deeply pledged, as not in the same degree prejudicing their
cause by the abandonment of their country, and as having Scripture
for their warrant if they fled, he determined for himself to abide
the issue come what might, and if it was so required, to be faithful
even unto death. Perhaps, too, for himself, he might reckon upon some
grateful recollection in Mary, that her life had been spared by her
father at his intercession, and some reluctance on her part to shed
the blood of a man who had saved her as a daughter, though he had done
her some wrong as a queen. But Mary’s gratitude was too brief, or her
bigotry too vehement, to admit of this, and even Sir James Hales,
who had contended for her right succession at the critical moment
single-handed, was nevertheless committed to the Marshalsea, when,
like an honest judge as he was, he acted at the quarter sessions upon
the statutes of Henry and Edward touching the supremacy, which were
still unrepealed, and refused to bend the laws of the land to the
pleasure of the sovereign; and though he was not actually put to death
at the instance of the government, yet life was made intolerable to
him; so that having unsuccessfully attempted to end it with a knife
whilst in prison, on his release he drowned himself in a river near
his own house. The conduct of Mary was marked by the same ungrateful
oblivion of services rendered to her in times past, in the case of
the men of Suffolk. This was a county, in which, for whatever reason,
the Reformation seems to have taken an earlier and deeper root than
elsewhere; and accordingly, the Reformers of Suffolk, before they
declared for Mary against the Lady Jane, stipulated for liberty of
opinion in religious matters, to which proposal a “very hopeful answer”
was given:--She meant graciously not to compel or strain other men’s
consciences otherwise than God should, as she trusted, put in their
hearts a persuasion of the truth, through the opening of his word unto
them.” But no sooner was she firm in her seat, than she repeats the
concession in an artful proclamation, with the ominous addition, “until
such time as further order by common assent may be taken therein.”[422]
And, accordingly, Suffolk was soon to see the faggot lighted within
her borders, and men and women to be baptized with fire. Mary, indeed,
like her father, was of an unforgiving spirit: the memory of Cranmer’s
benefit had perished; and though, at length, he was absolved from the
charge of treason, a boon which could scarcely be refused to him when
it had been conceded to many others far more deeply implicated than
himself, it was only that he might be put upon his trial for heresy; a
commutation, which, however satisfactory to his feelings, was likely
to be equally fatal to his life, a merciful substitution of the stake
for the scaffold, and little more: for now the chief instruments of
the Roman Catholic party were again in activity; and the sword was
commanded to go through the land. Gardiner, again Bishop of Winchester,
in the room of Poynet, and now lord chancellor, and Bonner, Bishop of
London, for Ridley was deposed, began once more to play their tragical
parts, and whatever could be done by the most politic and the most
blood-thirsty of men to put the Reformation down was unscrupulously
adopted. Preachers were every where watched, in order that advantage
might be taken of any heretical doctrines which might escape them;
and the bird of the air told the matter, and denounced them to the
council, by whom they were silenced or imprisoned. Instructions,
moreover, were sent to all the bishops to deprive the married clergy
of their benefices, and to suspend them from officiating in a church;
an edict, by which, according to a computation of Archbishop Parker,
three fourths of all the ministers in England, according to others,
not more than one fourth, were ejected;[423] whilst the principle of
the measure confining its operation chiefly, though not entirely, to
such as maintained the opinions of the Reformers, caused the pulpits
throughout the country, at one swoop, to be again surrendered, in
whole, or in great part, to a Roman Catholic priesthood. From the
accession of Mary, which was in July, to the assembling of her first
parliament in October, there had been an unequal struggle continued
between the old and new forms of faith. It should seem that the feeling
of London had from the first set in for the Reformation. A preacher
at Paul’s Cross,[424] who had ventured to disparage Edward’s memory,
whilst making his court to Bonner, who was one of his hearers, excited
an uproar amongst the people which nearly cost him his life. A queen’s
guard was afterwards in attendance to protect the pulpit; and an order
was issued by the mayor, that the ancients of all companies should
be present, lest the preacher should be discouraged by his small
auditory.”[425] Still in the country the cause of the Pope was far
the more popular; custom pleaded for it; its pageants were agreeable
to the taste of the million; some hope, too, might be entertained of
the recovery of the rights of pasturage, if the abbeys were restored,
and of the charities and hospitalities, which had ceased to flow
since the suppression: then the disposition of the Queen was known
before she positively proclaimed it by her policy; her own practice
was enough to prove her future intentions; and such persons as were
of a neutral character, a very large class in every country, went
over to her side: above all, the Roman Catholic clergy, stimulated by
the recollection of past wrongs (as they would naturally hold), and
alive to the prospect of good things in store for them, put forth all
their strength; so that the parliament now assembled made no scruple
of reversing all the proceedings (save one) of the two former reigns,
and Mary became at once supreme, and her church once more dominant.
The single point to which the parliament, so compliant in points of
doctrine, was resolutely opposed, was a proposal for a relinquishment
of the abbey lands. This met with a vigorous resistance from their
present possessors; and Cromwell’s sagacity was now perceived when
he bound over the leading families of every county to keep the faith
delivered to them, in securities of their newly-acquired estates.
Mary, however, did not preach what she was not prepared to practise;
for her sincere and disinterested devotion to the Roman Catholic
persuasion was the virtue, the passion it might be rather said, of
her life; the piety of her mother had imparted to her in her cradle
a faith, which the subsequent sufferings of that mother must have
hallowed in her sight. She, therefore, with no selfish or secular
purpose, restored of her own free will whatever abbey lands had been
attached to the crown,[426] as well as the first-fruits and tenths,
a branch of papal revenue which Henry had indeed seized, but which
never, it was suspected, passed beyond the hands of Pole, the sole
commissioner for the disposal of it.[427] By Elizabeth, who succeeded
to an exhausted exchequer, it was resumed; nor was it finally restored
to the church, till Queen Anne, as we have said in a former chapter,
generously appropriated it to ecclesiastical purposes; and accordingly
it is now known under the name of Queen Anne’s Bounty, as a fund for
the augmentation of small livings. There were those who reminded Mary
that she was by this measure impairing the dignity of the crown; but
to such she honestly made answer, that “she set more by the salvation
of her soul than by ten kingdoms.” Happy would it have been if her
devotedness to the church in which she had been bred had shown itself
in no less objectionable way than this. Prelates there were, of her
own party too, who, had they been permitted to be keepers of such
a conscience, would have guided it for good, for there was much in
this sturdiness of purpose to be improved. Such a man was Tonstall,
perhaps such a man was Pole; but she had surrendered herself to
cruel advisers; and soon became persuaded, that when she was putting
honest men to death, or driving them into exile, she was doing God
service. Accordingly, a proclamation was now issued for expelling all
foreigners, many of whom had established themselves in England under
the encouragement of Cranmer, and had contributed at once by their
religious opinions and their scholarship to forward the Reformation,
and by their skill in manufactures to develope the industry of the
country. Together with these not fewer than eight hundred Englishmen,
students chiefly, anticipating more unquiet times still, also withdrew;
and betaking themselves to Frankfort, Strasburgh, Basle, Zurich,
Geneva, and other places, there contracted a disaffection for the
church of England, such as paved the way for the crisis which came
with the civil wars. The Queen’s marriage with Philip only tended to
confirm her prejudices. He was a bigot at heart, though sometimes of
fair profession; and of a bigoted nation; and his unwelcome arrival in
England was but a signal for riots among the people, and still greater
severity on the part of the government. Joan of Kent and the Dutchman
had been executed, probably under the law against Anabaptists, enacted
in Henry VIII.’s reign, a sect politically dangerous,[428] since they
maintained community of goods, the duty of destroying the ungodly, and
antinomianism in general. It was now, however, thought advisable to
have a clearer warrant for the death of heretics, which was meditated
upon a great scale; and the statutes against the Lollards, enacted
under Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V., were revived.[429] Gardiner
has the infamous credit of the measure, though in its application he
seems to have had some misgiving; and after convicting a few persons,
and those the leaders of the Reformation, (he was even said to be
bending his bow at the chief deer of all, the Lady Elizabeth,) he
became weary of his work, and made over the service of blood to one
who took his pastime in it like a leech--the brutal Bonner.[430]
Fuller, who has no love for the Bishop of Winchester in general, makes
grateful mention of an act of mercy done by him to his own maternal
great-grandmother, one Mrs. Clark, who having ministered to the wants
of the bishop when threatened with consumption and living in retirement
for a while at Farnham Castle, at that time her residence, was allowed
to abide in her heresy (for she held the reformed faith), with his
connivance, and was even protected from the violence of others by his
authority. It is pleasant to be able to produce any redeeming incident
in these days of horror; for
“as the candle in the dark,
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
Isaac Walton exhorts his fisherman, when baiting with a frog, “to put
his hook through the mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine
needle and silk to sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch
to the arming wire of the hook, and in so doing to use him as though
he loved him.” And in the like compassionate spirit was it required
“in the bowels of the Lord Jesus Christ,” of those whose office it
was to burn men alive, “that the execution and punishment might be
so moderated that the rigour thereof might not be too extreme;”[431]
besides which it was the Queen’s particular desire that, both in London
and elsewhere, there should be “good sermons” preached at the time
of carrying the sentence into effect; so that whatever might be said
of the act itself, there was nothing to offend the most fastidious
philanthropy in the ceremonial.
For a history of that noble army of martyrs of whom it now becomes
our duty to speak, we are indebted to John Fox, himself an exile in
Mary’s reign, and like most of those who then lived abroad, a friend
of the Puritan principles at home. He had access to the archives and
registers of the bishops; Grindal, who was himself a great collector
of such materials, amongst others supplying him with what he knew;
and in many instances to the letters of the martyrs themselves;[432]
of all which documents, says Strype, he has been found, by those who
have compared his books with his authorities, to have made a faithful
use. He lived many years after his first edition was published, which
was in 1563, and in the interval laboured to render it still more
perfect; suppressing where he found reason to doubt, as in the story
of Cranmer’s heart remaining unconsumed when the rest of his body was
reduced to ashes;[433] enlarging where he was furnished with fresh
matter which he thought trustworthy, as in the story of Gardiner’s
being stricken with sickness on the day of Cranmer’s martyrdom;[434]
and taking journeys in order to confront witnesses and sift
evidence when his facts chanced to be called in question;[435] such
was his industry. But, independently of all knowledge of this, his
pains-taking, the internal evidence of the book is enough to establish
its general good faith. There is a simplicity in the narrative,
particularly in many of its minute details, which is beyond all
fiction; a homely pathos in the stories which art could not reach.
Sometimes an expression casually drops out which suffices to prove
the testimony to be that of an eye-witness; thus where the terrible
death of Ridley is described, the martyrologist speaks in general in
his own person; yet we read, that “after the legs of the sufferer were
consumed by reason of his struggling through the pain, he showed that
side toward _us_ clean, shirt and all untouched with flame,” as
though the informant (whose words the historian had here neglected
to accommodate) had been himself the spectator. Sometimes there is a
frank confession of ignorance, where a less scrupulous writer would
have been under a great temptation to supply the defect of information
by conjecture; thus, in the details of the same execution of Ridley
and Latimer, it is observed, that after they rose from their knees the
one talked with the other a little while, but what they said, adds
Fox, “I can learn of no man.” Above all, there is such candour in the
development even of his most favourite characters, their failings
as well as their virtues so fairly told, that it is plain they have
not been packed. Thus it is by him we are taught that Cranmer moved
the king to the execution of Joan of Kent, though Cranmer’s general
disposition would seem repugnant to such an office, and though
no mention is made in Edward’s Journal of any such interference,
or, indeed, of any reluctance on his own part which should render
it needful: thus of Latimer he does not conceal that he probably
subscribed on one occasion certain articles which the bishops presented
to him, of fear rather than of conscience;[436] and of Hooper, his
favourite, if he had one among the martyrs, that he disputed too
pertinaciously and to the breach of mutual charity, with his opponents
on the subject of the episcopal habits, and that the prospect of their
approaching death for the common cause, and nothing less, could effect
the cordial union of the parties. Neither does he suppress any instance
of kindness by which the sufferings of the martyrs were mitigated; and
as St. Luke tells us of the centurion entreating Paul courteously, so
does Fox relate of Saunders, that when his wife came to the prison
gate, with her young child in her arms to visit her husband, the
keeper, though he durst not suffer her to enter the prison, yet took
the little babe out of her arms and brought him to his father, to his
exceeding great joy: and of Hooper’s guard, that they interceded with
the sheriffs of Gloucester on behalf of their charge, that he might
not be sent to the common gaol, they declaring at large how quietly,
mildly, and patiently he had behaved himself in the way, and adding,
that they would rather themselves be at the pains to watch with him
than that he should be so handled: and of Rowland Taylor, that his wife
and son Thomas were permitted to sup with him in the Counter, “by the
gentleness of his keepers,” and afterwards, that of his guard three out
of the four used him friendly. It was to be expected that a work which,
had it been published a few years sooner, (supposing this possible,)
would probably have added its author to the catalogue of his own
martyrs, should excite no small stir among the Catholics, and so it
came to pass. But they weakened the force of their attack by betraying
prematurely the spirit which animated them, sarcastically inquiring,
even before its publication, when the “Golden Legend” was to appear,
and denouncing the “Calendar of Saints,” which they had heard was to
be prefixed to it, as blasphemy against their own. But Fox went on, as
he says, without fear and without favour; and no sooner was Elizabeth
to whom he dedicated, out of the way, than an examination of the book
appeared, by Parsons the Jesuit, in his “Three Conversions of England,”
which has furnished more modern objectors with most of the weapons of
their warfare. But Parsons writes in a temper which defeats itself.
He deals in vague vituperation rather than in specific accusations of
error; or where he ventures upon the latter, he often either wilfully
or ignorantly misreads Fox, as in the vapid pleasantry wasted upon
Joan Lashford, a married maid, as he is pleased to call her;[437] or
he triumphs over him by exposing a flaw in the character of a martyr
with an _eureka_, which the honest martyrologist himself did
not affect to conceal, and for the knowledge indeed of which Parsons
is altogether indebted to him, as where he makes himself merry with
the discordant sentiments of nine martyrs executed together, though
their want of uniformity is a fact which he learns from Fox himself,
who at the same time asserts that their disagreement was in smaller
things only;[438] or he prefers charges against him at random without
troubling himself to ascertain whether there is a foundation for them
or not, as where he accuses him of defacing or destroying the records
of cathedrals, which he had been permitted to use, lest they should
convict him of negligence or fraud, and this not upon investigation of
the fact, but simply, “he presuming it,” as though a charge so serious
was to be an affair of presumption only;[439] or lastly, he comments
upon his author in so fiendish a temper of mind, as would be in itself
enough to satisfy every calm and dispassionate judge that he spoke not
of truth or a love for it, but of mere malice; as where, after debasing
the circumstances of Rowland Taylor’s story throughout, he concludes
with a repetition of his joke about the worms in Hadley church-yard, as
given in Fox, and subjoins, “this noteth Fox in the margin for a goodly
apophthegm of Dr. Taylor, martyr; and with this, he saith he went to
the fire; _where we must leave him eternally, as I fear_;”[440]
and in a similar vein he has the heart to write of Latimer and Ridley,
“they were burned together, each of them taking gunpowder to despatch
himself quickly, as by Fox is seen, which yet is not read to have been
practised by old martyrs, and it seemeth that these men would have
the fame of martyrdom without the pain, and _now they have incurred
the everlasting pain_, if by their end we may judge.”[441] The man
who could write thus can scarcely lay claim to our credence; for his
prejudice has evidently stifled in him every sense by which a regard
for truth can be guaranteed.
It is not thought out of place to introduce here this brief vindication
of a book, which, so far as it is a contemporary history, has been,
both of old, and of late an object of unfair depreciation, but from
which no right-hearted Protestant can rise, without being at once a
sadder and better man;--a book, out of which we shall now fearlessly
draw our information, whilst we offer to our readers a few examples of
those terrible sufferings which it is at once humiliating to think that
man could inflict, and animating to think that man could so nobly bear.
The first called to take up his cross was John Rogers. He had been
brought up in Cambridge, and afterwards became chaplain of the
factory at Antwerp, where he fell into the company of Tindall and
Coverdale, and helped them to produce that translation of the Bible,
which goes by the name of Matthew’s translation. He thence removed to
Wittenberg, where he had the charge of a congregation for many years,
till Edward’s accession having rendered it safe for those who held
his opinions to return to their native land, he repaired thither with
his wife and children (for he was married), and was soon preferred by
Ridley to a prebend of St. Paul’s and to the divinity lectureship in
that cathedral. Thus was he in a situation to attract the attention
of Mary, and to be smitten by her evil eye. Accordingly, he was soon
brought before the council to answer for his doctrine; and having been
first confined to his house, where he remained half a year, and from
which he took no pains to escape, he was afterwards, by the tender
mercies of Bonner committed to Newgate, and lodged amongst the common
desperadoes of a gaol for twelve months more. In his examinations
before Gardiner and the council he played his part with the intrepidity
of one who felt strong in the righteousness of his cause, and with a
force of reasoning which it required the scoffs and brutal laughter of
his judges to smother, for answer it they could not. Kneeling on his
knees, he reminded them of their own acquiescence in the laws of Henry
and Edward; one amongst them, and he, the chief, having been the open
advocate of the King’s supremacy as opposed to that of the Pope. He
defended his own marriage, as being originally contracted in a country
where marriage was permitted to priests; and said that neither did
he bring his wife into England till the laws of England permitted it
too. With regard to service in an unknown tongue, and the doctrine
of the mass, he stayed himself upon Scripture. Gardiner exclaiming
against him, that “he could prove nothing by the Scripture, for that
Scripture was dead, and must needs have a lively expositor.” But all
was in vain, for they were bent to have his life, and having been on
several successive days brought before his judges, that some semblance
of justice might not be wanting, he was at last condemned; and on the
4th of February, in the year 1555, being Monday, in the morning, he
was warned suddenly by the keeper’s wife of Newgate to prepare himself
for the fire. He had been sound asleep; but being at length awakened,
and bid to make haste--“then,” said he, “if it be so I need not to tye
my points;” and so was he had down to Bonner to be degraded, of whom
he craved one petition, that he might talk a few words with his wife
before his burning; but this poor consolation was denied him; and being
led to Smithfield by the sheriffs, singing the Miserere as he went,
his wife, and eleven children, one at the breast, meeting him by the
way, his pardon still offered him at the stake, on condition of his
recantation, he bore himself through this most cruel temptation of
all with a stout heart, and bravely washing his hands in the flame as
he was burning, gave up his spirit to God. Notwithstanding the care
which had been taken to remove his writings, during his confinement in
prison, he had contrived to evade the vigilance of his keepers; and it
was supposed, that when he wished to have a word with his wife before
he was put to death it was to tell her where they were secreted. If
so, however, it proved needless; for when she and her son afterwards
visited his cell, and were on the point of going away, the latter
chanced to cast his eye toward a dark corner under a pair of stairs,
and there perceived a black packet of papers, which on examination
turned out to be an account of his trial, written in his own hand,
wherein was contained, as well many of the details already given, as a
very touching prayer, begging of God to sustain him, and all others,
in the like case, through their great need, and importuning all “to be
good to his poor and most honest wife, being a poor stranger; and all
his little souls, hers and his children; whom (he adds,) with all the
whole faithful and true catholic congregation of Christ, the Lord of
life and death save, keep, and defend, in all the troubles and assaults
of this vain world, and bring at the last to everlasting salvation,
the true and sure inheritance of all crossed Christians. Amen, Amen.”
So perished the first champion of the reformed church; and it has been
observed, in reference to their leader, that of those who underwent the
same fiery trial, married men, and the parents of many children, met
their deaths the most courageously.
On the 9th of February, five days after Rogers, died one who
had been with him in prison, and stood beside him at the same
judgment-seat--Hooper. He had escaped from the Six Acts in Henry’s
time, to the Continent, and returning when Edward reigned in the
room of his father, was promoted to the see of Gloucester. Of his
scruples respecting the habits and oath mention has been made already;
scruples, which his residence abroad had strengthened, and which his
own uncompromising temperament made him slow to abandon. He would have
found little difficulty in securing his safety by flight a second
time, but having now put his hand fairly to the plough, having been
the zealous preacher of the new doctrines, and a bishop under the new
establishment, he felt, that to withdraw from the trial, severe as it
was likely to prove, would be a dereliction of duty, and he determined
to brave the danger, come what might. He ran the gauntlet of the
inquisitional council, as Rogers had done before him, being tried
by the same questions, and taunted by the same scoffs, only, it is
remarkable, that Tonstall, Bishop of Durham, is said to have called
him “beast,” in consideration of his marriage; a reproach which, as
it was scarcely consistent with Tonstall’s general deportment to cast
in his teeth, he being a good man, and a foe to persecution, scarcely
allowing it to enter his own diocese, may be probably assigned to the
humane motive, which Fuller suggests, that he wished to _bark_ the
more, in order that he might be at liberty to bite the less;[442] and
by affecting rudeness of speech, qualify himself for being merciful
without suspicion. Hooper, however, was not to be saved. He was
married--he would not separate himself from his wife; and he did not
believe in the corporal presence in the sacrament; for these heresies
he was deprived and condemned. It was necessary to remove him from the
Clink, a prison not far from the church of St. Mary Overies, where
sentence was passed upon him, to Newgate, one of the worst of the bad
prisons of those times; and the precautions observed show the extreme
unpopularity of these sanguinary measures, and the blindness of a
government which could adopt them. He was kept till dark, and then led
by a sheriff, attended by bills and weapons, through the city, the
sergeants going forward to put out the candles of the costermongers,
who in those days sat in the streets; the people, nevertheless came in
spite of these precautions to their doors with lights to salute him as
he passed, and to strengthen his resolution by their cordial prayers.
On the night after Rogers’ martyrdom in Smithfield, he was informed by
his keeper that he was himself shortly about to die, not in Smithfield,
however, but at Gloucester, amongst the people over whom he had been
pastor. At this he rejoiced greatly; and sending for his boots, spurs,
and cloak, that he might be in readiness for the morrow, prepared
himself to set out with his guard before break of day for the scene
of his sufferings. There he arrived on the third evening after his
departure from London, amidst the tears and salutations of a multitude
of persons, who came out to meet him by the way. The evening before
his execution he retired early to rest, and having slept one sleep
soundly, passed the remainder of the night in prayer. The morrow was
market-day--the country people flocked in; the boughs of an elm tree,
near which the stake was fixed, were loaded with spectators; and over
the college gate, which commanded a view of the spot, stood a company
of priests. He had scarcely kneeled down to recommend his soul to God,
for the last time on earth, when, by a refinement of cruelty common in
those bloody days, a box was brought and laid before him on a stool,
containing his pardon if he would still turn in the eleventh hour. But,
he crying out again and again, “If you love my soul, away with it,”
there remained, it was said, no remedy but to despatch him quickly.
Then did he strip himself to the shirt; and a pound of gunpowder being
placed between his legs, and another under either arm, he mounted upon
a high bench, himself tall, and being bound to the stake by an iron
hoop round his middle, he awaited his end. But the faggots were green,
and kindled slowly; and the wind, which was high, drove the flame from
him, so that he was scorched only, till dry wood was brought, but
still in small quantities; and for a long while nothing but the lower
extremities was consumed; and he cried out in his protracted agony,
“For God’s sake, good people, let me have more fire!” It was not till
a third fire had been lighted that the gunpowder exploded: but neither
did this end his suffering; for he still continued to pray in a loud
voice, “Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me!” At length his tongue became
swollen so that he could not articulate; and one of his arms dropped
off; and after he had thus lingered three quarters of an hour, in
all the bitterness of the bitterest of deaths, he bowed forwards and
yielded up his life.
None of all the martyrs appear to have died so hardly as Hooper; none,
perhaps, to have left a stronger impression upon the minds of their
hearers; to which the austerity of his doctrines and severity of his
death alike contributed. His scruples and his tenets seem to have been
scattered far and wide over the dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol, to
come again after many days; for when Cheny some years afterwards was
appointed to these sees, he being, as was supposed, a Lutheran, and
being certainly a lover of ceremonial, found it impossible to reconcile
the sentiments of his clergy with his own; and, fretted by constant
conflict, became desirous to resign a charge, of which, indeed, he was
eventually deprived by the archbishop, and to return to a life of more
privacy and peace.[443]
But of the many beautiful histories in which Fox abounds, none is more
beautiful than that of Rowland Taylor, rector of Hadley. Though a mere
country parson, (for he had quitted the household of Cranmer, to whom
he was chaplain; in order to reside upon his benefice,)--possessed,
however, of a high spirit and popular talents--he seems to have taken a
lead in his own country; and following in the wake of Bilney, who had
preached in the same quarters, contributed to render Suffolk what we
have already described it--the soil in which the Reformation took the
kindliest root. The collateral effect of his influence and example may
be thought, perhaps, to be discovered in a circumstance which comes out
quite incidentally in the annals of that period; that one Dr. Drakes,
who was afterwards burnt at Smithfield, and one Yeomans at Norwich, had
both, we find, been connected with Rowland Taylor; the former having
been made deacon through his means,[444] the latter having been his
curate at Hadley.[445] We will not enter into all the details of this
thrice-told tale of sorrow--his pastoral faithfulness--his successful
teaching, so that his parish was remarkable for its knowledge of the
Word of God--his efforts to introduce to each other rich and poor,
by taking with him in his visits to the latter some of the more
wealthy cloth-makers, that they might become acquainted with their
neighbours’ wants, and thus be led to minister to their relief--his
bold defiance of the Catholic priest whom he found in possession of
his church, surrounded by armed men, and saying mass--his reply to
John Hull, the old servant who accompanied him to London when he was
summoned there before Gardiner, and who would fain have persuaded him
to fly--his frank and fearless carriage before his judges--his mirth
at the ludicrous apprehensions he inspired into Bonner’s chaplain,
who cautioned the bishop, when performing the ceremony of his
degradation, not to strike him on the breast with his crosier staff,
seeing that he would sure strike again--his charge to his little boy,
when he supped with him in prison before his removal to Hadley, not
to forsake his mother when she waxed old, but to see that she lacked
nothing; for which God would bless him, and give him long life on
earth and prosperity--his coming forth by night to set out upon his
last journey; his wife, daughter, and an orphan foster-child watching
all night in St. Botolph’s church-porch, to catch a sight of him as
he passed--their cries when they heard his company approach, it being
very dark; his touching farewell to them, and his wife’s promise to
meet him again at Hadley--his taking his boy before him on the horse on
which he rode, John Hull lifting him up in his arms--his blessing the
child; and delivering him again to John Hull, saying, “Farewell! John
Hull, the faithfullest servant that man ever had;”--the pleasantries,
partaking, indeed, of the homely simplicity of the times, with which
he occasionally beguiled the way--the joy he expressed at hearing that
he was to pass through Hadley, and see yet once before he died the
flock whom, God knew, he had most heartily loved and truly taught--his
encounter with the poor man who waited for him at the foot of the
bridge with five small children, crying “God help and succour thee! as
thou hast many a time succoured me and mine;”--his inquiry, when he
came to the last of the alms-houses, after the blind man and woman that
dwelt there; and his throwing his glove through the window for them
with what money in it he had left--his calling one Soyce to him out of
the crowd on Aldham Common, to pull off his boots and take them for his
labour, seeing that “he had long looked for them;”--his exclaiming last
of all with a loud voice, as though the moral of his life was conveyed
in those parting words, “Good people, I have taught you nothing but
God’s Holy Word, and those lessons that I have taken out of God’s
blessed book, the Holy Bible; and I am come hither this day to seal it
with my blood;”--these, and other incidents of the same story, combine
so many touches of tenderness with so much firmness of purpose--so
many domestic charities with so much heroism--such cheerfulness with
such disaster, that if there is any character calculated to call forth
all the sympathies of our nature, it is that of Rowland Taylor. God’s
blessing is still generally seen on the third and fourth generation of
them that love him; and if Rowland could have beheld the illustrious
descendant which Providence was preparing for him in Jeremy Taylor,
the antagonist of the Church of Rome, able after his own heart’s
content--the first and best advocate of toleration--the greatest
promoter of practical piety that has ever, perhaps, lived amongst
us--he might have humbly imagined that God had not forgotten this his
gracious dispensation in his own case; and had approved his martyrdom,
by raising from his ashes a spirit more than worthy of his name.
The fate and fortunes of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were so closely
united that their history is a common one. Of Cranmer’s rise and
advancement mention has been made already. Ridley was well born
coming of a good stock in Northumberland; his reputation was great
in Cambridge, where he was first a student and then the Master of
Pembroke College. Henry promoted him to the see of Rochester; and
Edward translated him to that of London. He was a man of vast reading,
ready memory, wise of counsel, deep of wit, and very politic in all
his proceedings. Though abundantly kind to his kinsfolks, he declared
even to his brother and sister, that doing evil they should look for
nothing at his hand; such was his integrity; and when the mother of
Bonner was his near neighbour at Fulham, he gave her a welcome to his
table (an attention which was afterwards but ill returned by her son),
assigning to her a chair of her own; so that even when the king’s
council dined with him, he did not suffer her to be removed, saying,
“By your Lordships’ favour, this place, by right of custom, is for my
mother Bonner;” such was his tenderness. His life, which is probably a
picture of that of the higher ecclesiastics of his time, was conducted
with great regularity. Every morning, as soon as he had put on his
clothes, he prayed in his chamber for half an hour; thence to business
or to study till ten; after which he assembled his household for family
prayers; dinner came next, which, with chess, engaged him for an hour;
when, if there were no suitors, or matters to be transacted abroad,
he returned to his study till five; evening prayers followed, then
supper and his favourite chess; again his books till eleven o’clock,
and so his private devotions performed as in the morning, he ended his
peaceful day. Of the chapters which he selected for the instruction
of his own people (of whom, says Fox, he was marvellous careful), the
13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and the 101st Psalm, were the
most often in his mouth. In his public character Ridley was, doubtless,
one of the brightest lights of the Reformation, yet not such as to
extinguish Cranmer,[446] though some have so accounted him, contrary to
his own modest testimony to the superior knowledge of the Archbishop,
“who passed him,” said he, “no less than the learned master the young
scholar,” and in spite of the numerous acknowledged productions of
Cranmer, and the little we know of Ridley beyond his Examinations,
Treatises, and Letters (all most able indeed), preserved in the pages
of Fox.
Latimer was a man of more humble birth than the two former, being
a small farmer’s son at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire, a condition
in life which qualified him, perhaps, so eminently for spreading
the doctrines of the Reformation amongst the people, whose tastes
and phraseology, as well as their failings and faults, he, of all
the leading Reformers, seems to have best understood; and he was
accordingly honoured by the title of the Apostle of England. Fastidious
hearers would indeed find much to shock them in the homely speech and
extravagant jokes of Latimer, though probably in this he did but follow
an example which the friars had set him; but the earnest sincerity
of the man overcame all obstacles, and recommended him to the court,
as well as to the country, for an engine of the Reformation powerful
beyond most others. The see of Worcester, to which he was elected by
Henry, he took the first opportunity of resigning; an opportunity given
him by the Act of the Six Articles, and when he might have resumed it
he held back, living with Cranmer at Lambeth, as a private individual,
accessible to suitors, whose cases he forwarded to the primate; greeted
by the people still with the title of Lord, for they rejoiced to pay
him honour; and the favourite even of the boys in the streets, who
cheered him as he approached his ever popular pulpit with some hearty
word of encouragement to say on. Still there was something in Latimer
(even in those times, when it was not much the practice of the preacher
to go bridle in hand,) which seems to have stamped him as a humourist
amongst his unrefined contemporaries; and a few words of advice which
Cranmer gives him in a letter written when he was about to make his
first essay as a preacher at court--a situation to which the archbishop
had himself introduced him--indicate that he looked upon the experiment
not without some little apprehension for the result. “Overpass or
omit,” says the discreet adviser, “all manner of speech either apertly
or suspiciously sounding against any _special_ man’s facts,
manners, or sayings, to the intent your audience have none occasion
thereby, namely, to slander your adversaries, which would seem to many
that you were void of charity, and so much the more unworthy to occupy
that room. Nevertheless, if such occasion be given by the word of God,
let none offence or suspicion be unreprehended, especially if it be
_generally_ spoken, without affection. Furthermore, I would that
you should so study to comprehend your matter, that in any condition
you stand no longer in the pulpit than an _hour or an hour and
half_ at the most, for by long expense of time, the King and the
Queen (Anne Bullen) shall peradventure wax so weary at the beginning
that they shall have small delight to continue throughout with you to
the end.”[447]
Ridley and Latimer, like Cranmer, had favoured the usurpation of
the Lady Jane; and, accordingly, were also sent to the Tower on the
accession of Mary. The charge against them, however, was commuted
(as we have seen was the case with the archbishop), and they were
proceeded against as heretics. The tower being full--for the prisons
were then the chambers of the prophets--the three friends, together
with Bradford, were thrust into the same room, where they read over
the New Testament, and confirmed each other in the faith for which
they were to die. Here they remained about six months, during which
time disputations (such as they were) were held in the convocation on
some of the controverted points; from which, however, the reformers in
prison, who were the most learned of the body, were excluded: whilst
the few of that persuasion who were present, and who dared to advocate
their principles, were clamoured down, till at length the Romanists,
awakened to some sense of shame at the scandal of a victory which they
won by confining or silencing their opponents, agreed to transfer the
debate to Oxford; there to be conducted by the ex-bishops on the one
hand, and certain commissioners from both universities on the other;
and for Oxford, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer set out from the Tower,
on the 8th of March, 1554. Here they were consigned to a prison called
Bocardo--a building which it is matter of regret it should have been
needful to pull down not more than about sixty years ago; and, on the
14th of April, they were brought out together to St. Mary’s church,
when the questions submitted to them were these:--
1. Whether the natural body of Christ was really in the sacrament?
2. Whether any other substance did remain after the words of
consecration, than the body of Christ?
3. Whether in the mass there was a sacrifice and propitiation for the
sins of quick and dead?
The dispute was then fixed for Cranmer on the 16th, for Ridley on the
17th, and for Latimer on the 18th of the same month.
In the management of this famous argument, which was conducted by
syllogism and in the schools, we have an excellent example of the
ratiocinations of those days. Certainly, the Roman Catholic doctors
displayed no lack either of policy or acuteness; but it was the policy
of men aware of their weakness, and therefore slow to measure their
strength; and the acuteness of sophists whose object it was rather
to perplex the adversary, than to unravel the truth; it was one of
those cowardly conflicts, “ubi tu cædis, ego vapulo tantum;” where
one strikes and the other must be content to be smitten--the popish
disputants putting objections to the reformers, but refusing to appoint
a second meeting in which the reformers might retaliate, so Cranmer
complains to the council--where a single defendant is assailed by a
multitude of discordant voices, lifted up against him together--and
where, at intervals, the partial prolocutor would translate into
English, after a fashion of his own, for the benefit of the unlearned
spectators, some passage in the dialogue which served as a signal
for hisses, peals of laughter, and shouts of “Vicit veritas!” to the
extinction of all fair argument, and the confusion of all modest men.
“I have but one tongue,” cries Ridley, “I cannot answer at once to
you all.” “O what unright dealing is this!” he again exclaims, on
hearing the perverted quotations which he was not permitted to expose.
Whilst poor Latimer, faint, and afraid to drink for vomiting; making
an appeal moreover to Weston, enough to touch a stone; “Good master,
I pray be good to an old man: you may, if it please God, be once as
old as I am; you may come to this age and this debility,” is subjected
to clamour still more inhuman; for he disputed in English, and was
therefore better understood. “Although,” says he, “I have spoken in
my time before two kings more than once, two or three hours together
without interruption, now (that I may speak the truth by your leave) I
cannot be suffered to declare my mind before you; no, not by the space
of a quarter of an hour, without snatches, revilings, checks, rebukes,
taunts, such as I have not felt the like in such an audience all my
life long.”
The glory of this contest (as we find it detailed in Fox)[448]
certainly rests with Ridley, rather than with Cranmer, who had probably
less nerve, or Latimer who had less learning. He adheres to one line
of argument--that of explaining all the authorities advanced against
him of the _spiritual_ presence only; and this he does with a
knowledge of his subject, as well as a readiness in applying it; such
as argue an extent of reading, a tenacity of memory, and a presence of
mind, quite wonderful. Be they passages from Scripture, from fathers,
or from the canons of councils, with which he is plied, they appear to
be the last things which he had examined, so that a false reading, or
a false gloss, or a packed quotation, never escapes him; and either
a minute knowledge of an author’s text, or (what is often quite as
certain a proof of scholarship) an accurate perception of the general
spirit which influences him, enables him to wrest the weapon from the
hands of his adversaries, and to turn it against themselves. “If there
was an Arian,” exclaimed one of them, in the bitterness of defeat,
“which had that subtle wit that you have, he might soon shift off the
authority of the Scriptures and fathers.” All, however, was to little
purpose before judges who, like Virgil’s Rhadamanthus, were bent upon
punishing first and convicting afterwards. Sentence was passed in St.
Mary’s Church, where Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were convened; in the
course of it, they were asked by the commissioners whether they would
turn or no; but they bade them “read on in the name of God, for that
they were not minded to turn; and so were they condemned all three.”
It was intended to act the same scene over again at Cambridge, where
Hooper, Bradford, Taylor, Philpot, and some others not yet put to
death, were to be baited; but they had received timely information of
the treatment of their companions at the sister university, and refused
to dispute, except in writing, or before the Queen, or either house of
parliament, and, accordingly, the tyrannous scheme was in this instance
abortive.
But though condemnation of heresy was now passed upon these three
leaders of the Reformation, the execution of the sentence was
suspended, in the case of Ridley and Latimer till the October of
the year following, a period of eighteen months; and in the case of
Cranmer, for five months longer still; the two former being committed
to the custody of private individuals, the latter being still kept
in Bocardo. The interval, however, was a busy one; the sentence was
to be confirmed by the Queen in council; but the law itself was not
determinate; and the old penal statutes (as we have said) were
restored. Probably this measure would have been recommended by such
advisers as Mary had about her under any circumstances; but her
marriage with Philip, which was now concluded, blew up the flames; and
the bloody acts were passed and carried into effect, it was understood,
with the greater severity, from a superstitious opinion entertained by
the Queen, who now fancied herself pregnant, that her safe delivery
could not be effected so long as a heretic was suffered to live. But,
trying as must have been the suspense to these brave spirits in prison,
it was not without its benefit to the cause for which they were content
to suffer; for now it was that they had leisure to write those numerous
letters of counsel, of encouragement, and of comfort, (like St. Paul in
his bonds,) to the faithful brethren both individuals and societies,
which are said to have forwarded the Reformation beyond most other
things: a fact at which none will be surprised who will peruse those
which Fox has preserved to us; and above all Ridley’s Letter, entitled
his last farewell to all his true and faithful friends in God, which
has been ever esteemed one of the most pathetic pieces of writing
contained in our language.
“As a man minding to take a far journey,” says he, “and to depart from
his familiar friends; commonly and naturally hath a desire to bid his
friends farewell before his departure; so likewise now, I, looking
daily when I should be called to depart hence from you, bid you all, my
dear brethren and sisters in Christ, that dwell upon the earth, after
such manner as I can, farewell.
“Farewell, my dear brother, George Shipside, whom I have ever found
faithful, trusty, and loving in all states and conditions, and now in
the time of my cross, over all other to me most friendly and steadfast,
and that which he liked me best over all things, in God’s cause ever
hearty.
“Farewell, my dear Sister Alice, his wife. I am glad to hear of thee,
that thou dost take Christ’s Cross, which is laid now (blessed be God!)
both on thy back and mine, in good part. Thank thou God that hath given
thee a godly and loving husband: see thou honour and obey him according
to God’s law. Honour thy mother-in-law, his mother and all those that
pertain unto him, being ready to do them good, as it shall lie in thy
power.
“Farewell, my clearly beloved brother John Ridley, of the Waltown, and
you my gentle and loving sister Elizabeth, whom, besides the natural
league of amity, your tender love which you were said ever to bear
towards me above the rest of your brethren, both bind me to love.
My mind was to have acknowledged this your loving affection, and to
have acquitted it with deeds, and not with words alone. Your daughter
Elizabeth I bid farewell, whom I love for the meek and gentle spirit
that God hath given her, which is a precious thing in the sight of God.
“Farewell, my beloved sister of Unthank, with all your children,
nephews, and nieces. Since the departing of my brother Hugh, my mind
was to have been unto them instead of their father; but the Lord God
must and will be their Father, if they would love and fear him, and
live in the trade of his law.”
He then goes on to take leave of other kindred more distantly related
to him, and to declare the duty which compelled him to lay down his
life. He next reviews and defends the acts of Edward’s Reformation,
to which he had been a party; laments that the wild boar should have
rooted them all up; contrasts the present with the past; and returning
once more to his sorrowful leave-taking, “To whom,” says he, with
feelings far more to be envied than those of Gibbon or Gray, “to whom,
after my kinsfolk, should I offer farewell, before the University of
Cambridge, where I have dwelt longer, found more faithful and hearty
friends, received more benefits (the benefits of my natural parents
only excepted,) than ever I did in mine own native country wherein I
was born?
“Farewell, therefore, Cambridge, my loving mother and tender nurse!
If I should not acknowledge thy manifold benefits, yea, if I should
not for thy benefits at least love thee again, truly I were to be
counted too ungrateful and unkind. What benefits hadst thou ever, that
thou usest to give and bestow upon thy best beloved children, that
thou thoughtest too good for me?... First to be scholar, then to be
fellow, and after my departure from thee, thou calledst me again to
a mastership of a right worshipful college. I thank thee, my loving
mother, for all this thy kindness; and I pray God that his laws, and
the sincere Gospel of Christ, may ever be truly taught and faithfully
learned in thee.
“Farewell, Pembroke Hall, of late mine own college, my care and my
charge! What case thou art now in, God knoweth; I know not well. Thou
wast ever named since I knew thee, which is now thirty years ago, to be
studious, well learned, and a great setter forth of Christ’s Gospel,
and of God’s true word: so I found thee, and, blessed be God, so I
left thee indeed. Woe is me for thee, mine own dear college, if ever
thou suffer thyself by any means to be brought from that trade. In thy
orchard (the walls, buts, and trees, if they could speak, would bear
me witness) I learned without book almost all Paul’s Epistles; yea,
and I ween all the Canonical Epistles, save only the Apocalypse. Of
which study, although in time a great part did depart from me, yet the
sweet smell thereof I trust I shall carry with me into heaven; for the
profit thereof I think I have felt in all my lifetime ever after; and
I ween of late (whether they abide now or no, I cannot tell) there was
that did the like. The Lord grant that this zeal and love toward that
part of God’s word, which is a key and true commentary to all the Holy
Scripture, may ever abide in that college as long as the world shall
endure!”
He then bids farewell to Herne, his parish in Kent, charging himself
with being its debtor for the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper; God not
having at that time revealed it to him.
Then he turns to London, lately his own see, the faithful city now
become an harlot, and exhorts to repentance the lords of the land;
reminding them, that if they had listened to him in times past, when he
preached before the prince and parliament, much more should they now,
when, being appointed to die, he could have no desire of worldly gain,
and no other expectation but shortly to stand before the seat of his
eternal Judge.
Long it was not, before his summons arrived. At the end of September
came down the fatal commissioners from Cardinal Pole, legate and
archbishop elect, authorised to accept the recantation of Ridley
and Latimer, or else to confirm their sentence and pronounce their
degradation. The latter office they were speedily called upon to
discharge, for the future martyrs were not men to flinch from the
flames; and so “were they committed to the secular powers,” (for the
words of these ecclesiastical death-warrants were smoother than oil)
“of them to receive due punishment according to the tenor of the
temporal laws.”
“The night before Ridley suffered, his beard was washed, and his
legs; as he sat at supper the same night at master Irish’s (who was
his keeper), he bade his hostess, and the rest at the board, to his
marriage: ‘For,’ saith he, ‘to-morrow I must be married;’ and so
showed himself to be as merry as ever he was at any time before; and
wishing his sister at his marriage, he asked his brother, sitting at
the table, whether she should find in her heart to be there or no;
and he answered, ‘Yea, I dare say, with all her heart;’ at which word
he said he was glad to hear of her so much therein. So at this talk
mistress Irish wept; but master Ridley comforted her, and said, ‘O,
mistress Irish, you love me not now, I see well enough; for in that you
weep it doth appear you will not be at my marriage, neither are content
therewith. Indeed, you be not so much my friend as I thought you had
been: but quiet yourself; though my breakfast shall be somewhat sharp
and painful, yet I am sure my supper shall be more pleasant and sweet.’
When they arose from the table, his brother offered him to watch all
night with him; but he said, ‘No, no, that you shall not; for I mind,
God willing, to go to bed, and to sleep as quietly to night as ever I
did in my life.’ So his brother departed, exhorting him to be of good
cheer, and to take his cross quietly, for the reward was great.”
The place appointed for the execution was the ditch on the north side
of the town, over against Baliol College, and the Lord Williams was
instructed by the Queen’s letters to marshal the householders, and to
see that no tumult was made. Then came out Ridley in his black furred
gown and velvet cap, walking between the mayor and an alderman. As he
passed Bocardo he looked up, hoping to see Cranmer, but he, says Fox,
was then engaged in dispute with one Friar Soto; others, however, whom
Heylyn and Burnet follow, assert that he beheld the whole sorrowful
spectacle from the roof of his prison, and upon his knees begged God
to strengthen his companions in their agony, and to prepare him for
his own. When Latimer came up, (for the poor old man made what speed
he could, but by reason of his years was slow,) Ridley ran to him and
kissed him, saying, “Be of good heart, brother; for God will either
assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.”
Then they kneeled down both of them, and prayed very earnestly; and
when they had risen and talked together awhile, Dr. Smith, one of
those who had recanted in Edward’s time, and was now, therefore, the
more zealous, preached before them, having the feeling to choose for
his text, “Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity,
it profiteth me nothing.” After a while being commanded to make
ready, Ridley gave away his apparel, a new groat, some nutmegs, rases
of ginger, a dial, and such other things as he had about him, the
bystanders but too happy to get “any rag of him;” and Latimer, who had
left it to his keeper to strip him, now stood in his shroud no longer
the withered and decrepit old man he seemed, but bolt upright, “as
comely a father as one might lightly behold.” Then did Ridley move the
Lord Williams to intercede that the leases which he had made as Bishop
of London might be confirmed; and when he had relieved his conscience
of this his only worldly care, a kindled faggot was laid at his feet;
Latimer, who was fastened to the same stake, exclaiming at the instant,
in words that have become memorable, “Be of good comfort, master
Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by
God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”
Latimer’s sufferings were short: he received the flame as if he were
embracing it; and after he had stroked his face with his hands and
bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died as it appeared, without
pain. Not so Ridley; the faggots were piled up about him so that there
was no vent for the flame, which, burning underneath, consumed all his
lower extremities, he piteously desiring of the people, for Christ’s
sake, to let the fire come unto him. His brother-in-law, who meant
it in mercy, heaped upon him still more fuel, till nothing could be
seen of him, only he was perceived to be leaping up and down under
the faggots, often crying out, “I cannot burn;” at last one of the
spectators, pulling off the wood from above, made a way for the flame
to escape, towards which Ridley leaned himself as towards a welcome
executioner, when the gunpowder with which he was furnished, exploded,
and he fell down dead at Latimer’s feet.
If it was not Gardiner’s jealousy of Pole, who was to succeed
Cranmer in the primacy, which was the occasion of the archbishop’s
respite,[449] the plan of the persecution was arranged with consummate
sagacity. Ridley and Latimer were men of greater animal courage than
Cranmer; and would probably have sustained the insidious temptations
under which he sunk, or at any rate would have imparted their own
constancy to him, had they all suffered together. They, therefore were
taken, and he was left; for though the same legal form which served
for the despatch of the two former would not have sufficed for the
archbishop--it being reserved for the pope himself to take cognizance
of a metropolitan--yet inasmuch as all the parties had been prisoners
so long; ample time had been allowed for making the two processes run
together, and thereby bringing the three bishops together to the stake.
Cranmer, however, was assailed by a separate commission which issued
from the pope, as the other issued from the legate, and since a part of
the form consisted of a citation to appear at Rome within eighty days,
the final sentence was suspended till that period should have expired.
The citation itself was an affair of mere mockery, compliance with it
being impossible, for Cranmer was still detained a close prisoner.
The eighty days at an end, and he “having taken no care to appear at
Rome” (as the papal instrument had the modesty to word it), the pope
pronounces him guilty of heresy; and appoints Bonner Bishop of London,
and Thirlby Bishop of Ely, commissioners to see the same executed.
His degradation having been effected, attended by every aggravation of
insult which the ruthless Bonner could devise, he was delivered over
to the secular power, (the church, forsooth, shrinking from the office
of shedding blood,) to be put to death. One attempt more, however,
was yet to be made to shake the resolution of the martyr; and Cranmer
became the guest of the Dean of Christ Church, and delicate fare was
provided for him; and he played at bowls; and walked at his pleasure;
and wily men distilled their venom into his ear, that the King and
Queen desired his conversion above all things; that the council bore
him good will; that it was but a small thing to set his name to a few
words on a little leaf of paper; that he was not so old but that many
years yet remained of lusty age; that his notable learning, which
might profit so many, should not be extinguished before its time;
that if desire of life were nothing, yet that death is grievous, and
especially such a death; till Cranmer, who had stoutly withstood the
judgment-hall and prison-house, the scoffs and gibes of merciless men,
and all the terrible artillery of persecution in its most angry shape,
was not proof against these crafts and subtleties which the devil or
man wrought against him, and so signed his recantation. “To conceal
this fault,” may we say as Fuller does on the subscription of Jewel,
“had been partiality; to excuse it, flattery; to defend it, impiety; to
insult over him, cruelty; to pity him, charity; to be wary of ourselves
in any like occasion, Christian discretion.” His enemies now had him
in the toils; and, to add to his humiliation, a series of recantations
is exacted of him, each rising above the other in its demands; some
perhaps, of his own dictating; the longest and most abject, apparently,
the wordy composition of Cole; and whilst these very instruments were
in preparation, with a duplicity which is a fit consummation of the
whole, secret orders were given by the Queen to Dr. Cole, provost of
Eton College, to prepare the sermon; and it was not till the day before
his execution, or even, perhaps, the very morning of it, when Cole
visited him in prison, and furnished him with fifteen crowns to give
to the poor--a dole not unfrequent at funerals in those times--that
the eyes of Cranmer were quite opened to the situation in which he
stood, and he found himself, after all the delusive hopes which had
been held out to him, within a few hours of a dreadful end. Better
faith might have been kept with him, and still a thirst for his blood
been gratified; for, had he been spared, Cranmer was not the man to
have borne for any long time the upbraidings of his own conscience,
and, like Bilney, he would have been soon driven to find relief from
sufferings worse than death, by a voluntary surrender of himself to
the flames; as it was, the wisdom of the serpent, for which the church
of Rome was so famous, forsook his persecutors, and by drawing their
bow once too much, they snapped it in their hands;--“Qui nimis emungit
elecit sanguinem.” Cranmer was now brought to St. Mary’s church,
preceded by the mayor and aldermen, and with a friar on either side,
who alternately repeated certain Psalms as the procession advanced; and
being placed on a stage over against the pulpit, he was there made to
listen to Cole’s address. This ended, all the congregation joined with
him in prayer, and “never,” says a spectator, “was there such a number
so earnestly praying together; Cranmer himself an image of sorrow, the
dolour of his heart bursting out at his eyes in plenty of tears,” but
in other respects retaining “the quiet and grave behaviour which was
natural to him.”
Being exhorted to make a public confession, that all suspicion of
heresy might be removed from him, “I will do it,” said the Archbishop,
“and that with a good will;” whereupon he rose up and addressed to the
people some words of exhortaion, and then a summary of his faith. “And
now,” he continued, “I come to the great thing that so much troubleth
my conscience, more than any thing that ever I did or said in my whole
life:” then he revoked his former recantation: “and forasmuch,” he
added, “as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand
shall first be punished therefor; for may I come to the fire, it shall
be first burned.” So saying, he was soon plucked down from the platform
on which he stood, and was led away to punishment. He did not tarry
long at his prayers; but putting off his garments, all but his shirt,
which reached to the ground, his feet bare, his head bald, so that not
one hair could be seen upon it, his beard, long and thick, covering
his face with marvellous gravity, he presented a spectacle to move the
heart both of friend and foe; at once the martyr and the penitent. As
soon as the fire began to burn, he stretched forth his right arm, and
thrust his hand into the flame, as he had said, holding it there till
it was consumed, and oftentimes repeating, “This unworthy right hand;”
and as if ashamed of his weakness, and resolved to atone for it now by
an heroic contempt of pain, he took his death with singular courage,
seeming to move no more than the stake to which he was bound.
From John Rogers, the first of the martyrs, who suffered on the 4th of
February, 1555, to the five who were burned at Canterbury on the 10th
of November, 1558, and were the last, two hundred and twenty-seven
persons according to some computations, two hundred and eighty-four
according to others, and two hundred and eighty-eight according to a
third authority, perished in the flames.[450] How many more might have
been added to the number of victims, had Mary’s life been spared, it
is impossible to conjecture, but happily those days were shortened;
and on the 17th of November she herself ended a reign of continued
disaster; Calais, which had been in possession of the English since the
battle of Creçy, and then reckoned the jewel of the crown, lost; and
lost apparently because the government dared not call a parliament to
provide means of defence, such was its unpopularity;[451] a heavy debt
contracted, less for national objects than to minister to the wants
of the Spaniards; an exchequer too much exhausted to right itself;
the learned men in exile; the universities a prey to the same Spanish
rapacity;[452] the kingdom at large corrupted by Spanish vices,[453]
and by a return to the law of clerical celibacy;[454] capital offences
greatly multiplied; fifty-two persons being executed at Oxford at one
session;[455] a pestilence depopulating the country to such a degree
as to excite fears of a French invasion by reason of the nation’s
weakness; for the inhabitants of the villages ceased, might Elizabeth
say on her accession; they ceased in Israel, until that I arose, that
I arose a mother in Israel; so that at length it was discovered that
the Roman Catholic cause, for which alone Mary had lived, and would
have been content to die, had by her own measures or misfortunes been
brought to nought; and above all, that the fires of Smithfield had shed
upon it a baleful and disastrous light. Instead of any attempt being
made to alter the succession, though the queen of Scots was at hand
as a candidate for the crown--of such pretensions, too, as would have
been likely to secure her some support at another time--Elizabeth,
Protestant as she was known to be, was advanced to the throne by
acclamation; bonfires lit in the streets before Mary was cold; tables
spread for merry-making in honour of her successor; costly pageants
prepared for her as she traversed the city, the children crying out,
God save Queen Elizabeth![456] the moderate revolted from a religion
which spake of peace, but had shed blood upon the earth like water; and
all parties weary of a reign of terror under which every man’s safety,
to whatever party he belonged, was only upon sufferance.