Chapter XII (2)

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.