II. 1534. arrive at the haven; and desired their prayers. When BOOK he came to the stake, he repeated the creed, to shew the people that he died in the faith of the Apostles ; then he put up his prayers to God with great shews of inward devotion; which ended, he repeated the hundred and forty-third Psalm, and paused on these words of it, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified, with deep re-. collection: and when Doctor Warner, that accompanied him to the stake, took leave of him with many tears, Bilney with a cheerful countenance exhorted him to feed his flock, that at his Lord's coming he might find him so doing. Many of the begging friars desired him to declare to the people, that they had not procured his death; for that was got among them, and they feared the people would give them no more alms: so he desired the spectators not to be the worse to these men for his sake, for they had not procured his death. Then the fire was set to, and his body consumed to ashes. sufferings. Thus it appears, both what opinion the people had of him, and in what charity he died, even towards his enemies, doing them good for evil. But this, though it perhaps struck terror in weaker minds, yet it no less encouraged others to endure patiently all the severities that were used to draw them from this doctrine. Soon after, one Richard Byfield suffered he was a monk of Byfield's St. Edmundsbury, and had been instructed by Doctor Barnes, who gave him some books; which being discovered, he was put in prison, but through fear abjured : yet afterward he left the monastery, and came to London. He went oft over to Antwerp, and brought in forbidden books, which being smelled out, he was seized on, and examined about these books: he justified them, and said, he thought they were good and profitable, and did openly exclaim against the dissolute BOOK lives of the clergy: so being judged an heretic, he II. was burnt in Smithfield the eleventh of November. 1534. AndTewks bury's. sufferings. In December, one John Tewksbury, a shop-keeper in London, who had formerly abjured, was also taken and tried in Sir Thomas More's house at Chelsey, where sentence was given against him by Stokesley, Bishop of London, (for Tonstal was translated the former year to Duresme,) and was burnt in Smithfield. There were also three burnt at York this year, two men and one woman. These proceedings were complained of in the following session of parliament, as was formerly told; and the ecclesiastical courts being found both arbitrary and cruel, the House of Commons desired a redress of that from the King: but nothing was done about it till, three years after that, the new act against heretics was made, as was already told. The clergy were not much moved at the address which the House of Commons made, and therefore went on in their extreme courses; and, to strike a terror in the gentry, they reBainham's solved to make an example of one James Bainham, a gentleman of the Temple: he was carried to the Lord Chancellor's house, where much pains was taken to persuade him to discover such as he knew in the Temple, who favoured the new opinions; but fair means not prevailing, More made him be whipt in his own presence, and, after that, sent him to the Tower, where he looked on and saw him put to the rack. Yet it seems nothing could be drawn from him, that might be made use of to any other person's hurt; yet he himself afterwards, overcome with fear, abjured and did penance, but had no quiet in his conscience till he went publicly to church, with a New Testament in his hand, and confessed, with many tears, that he had denied God, and prayed the people not to do as he had done; and said, that he felt an hell in his own con Fox. 66 II. 1534. science for what he had done. So he was soon after BOOK carried to the Tower; (for now the bishops, to avoid the imputation of using men cruelly in their prisons, did put heretics in the King's prisons.) He was charged for having said, "That Thomas Becket was a murderer, "and damned in hell if he did not repent; and for speaking contemptuously of praying to saints, and saying, that the sacrament of the altar was only "Christ's mystical body, and that his body was not "chewed with the teeth, but received by faith. So he "was judged an obstinate and relapsed heretic, and "was burnt in Smithfield about the end of April 1532." There were also some others burnt a little before this time, of whom a particular account could not be recovered by Fox, with all his industry. But with Bainham, More's persecution ended; for soon after he laid down the Great Seal, which set the poor preachers at Regist. ease. Tonst. which Crome and Latimer were brought before the Convocation, and accused of heresy. They both subscribed Articles the articles offered to them, "That there was a purga-some ab"tory that the souls in it were profited by masses jured. "said for them: that the saints are now in heaven, and as mediators pray for us that men ought to pray to "them, and honour them: that pilgrimages were pious " and meritorious: that men who vowed chastity might "not marry without the Pope's dispensation: that the keys of binding and loosing were given to St. Peter, "and to his successors, though their lives were bad; "and not at all to the laity: that men merited by prayers, fasting, and other good works: that priests "prohibited by the bishop should not preach till they were purged and restored: that the seven sacraments "conferred grace: that consecrations and benedictions "used by the church were good: that it was good and "profitable to set up the images of Christ and the saints II. 1534. Testament. Regist. Fitz-James. BOOK" in the churches, and to adorn them and burn candles "before them; and that kings were not obliged to give "their people the Scriptures in a vulgar tongue." By these articles it may be easily collected, what were the doctrines then preached by the reformers. There was yet no dispute about the presence of Christ in the sacrament, which was first called in question by Frith; for the books of Zuinglius and Ecolampadius came later into England, and hitherto they had only seen Luther's works, with those written by his followers. Tracy's But in the year 1532, there was another memorable instance of the clergy's cruelty against the dead bodies of those whom they suspected of heresy. The common style of all wills and testaments at that time was, first, "I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, and to our Lady St. Mary, and to all the saints in heaven: but "one William Tracy of Gloucester dying, left a will of <6 a far different strain; for he bequeathed his soul only "to God through Jesus Christ, to whose intercession " alone he trusted, without the help of any other saint; "therefore he left no part of his goods to have any pray for his soul." This being brought to the Bishop of London's court, he was condemned as an heretic, and an order was sent to Parker, Chancellor of Worcester, to raise his body. The officious Chancellor went beyond his order, and burnt the body; but the record bears, that though he might by the warrant he had raise the body according to the law of the church, yet he had no authority to burn it. So, two years after, Tracy's heirs sued him for it, and he was turned out of his office of Chancellor, and fined in four hundred pound. Regist. Stokes. Fol. 72. sufferings. Harding's There is another instance of the cruelty of the clergy this year. One Thomas Harding of Buckinghamshire, an ancient man, who had abjured in the year 1506, was now observed to go often into woods, and was seen II. 1534. sometimes reading. Upon which his house was search- BOOK ed, and some parcels of the New Testament in English were found in it. So he was carried before Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; who, as he was a cruel persecutor, so, being the King's Confessor, acted with the more authority. This aged man was judged a relapse, and sent to Chesham, where he lived, to be burnt; which was executed on Corpus Christi eve. At this time there was an indulgence of forty days pardon proclaimed to all that carried a fagot to the burning of an heretic; so dexterously did the clergy endeavour to infect the laity with their own cruel spirit: and that wrought upon this occasion a signal effect; for, as the fire was kindled, one flung a fagot at the old man's head, which dashed out his brains. Fox. In the year 1533, it was thought fit by some signal 1535. evidence to convince the world, that the King did not design to change the established religion, though he had then proceeded far in his breach with Rome; and the crafty Bishop of Winchester, Gardiner, as he complied with the King in his second marriage and separation from Rome, so, being an inveterate enemy to the Reformation, and in his heart addicted to the court of Rome, did by this argument often prevail with the King to punish the heretics; That it would most effectually justify his other proceedings, and convince the world that he was still a good catholic King: which at several times drew the King to what he desired. And at this time the steps the King had made in his separation from the Pope, had given such heart to the new preachers, that they grew bolder and more public in their assemblies. ferings. John Frith, as he was an excellent scholar, which Frith's sufwas so taken notice of, some years before, that he was put in the list of those whom the Cardinal intended to bring from Cambridge, and put in his college at Ox |