Chapter XIII: The Martyrs (1)

It is doubtful, even had her hopes of an heir not proved vain, whether Mary would have been able to control the revolutionary movement that had now spread from London into various parts of the country. She had formed an alliance with the most powerful nation in Europe, she had reconciled her kingdom to the one stable institution in Christendom, she had worked incessantly to promote peace between the Emperor and the French King, she had earnestly desired peace in her time; and there was no peace.[507]

The enthusiasm with which her advent had been hailed had entirely subsided, except among the poor, in country towns and villages, who loved her to the last, and with whom she came in personal contact, in the most informal manner, distributing alms, counsel and words of kindness and sympathy. Many of her autograph letters in the Cotton Library testify to the fidelity with which she remembered, through life, the claims of her dependants, although she had scanty means wherewith to reward them. The great royal progresses throughout the country, for which Henry VIII. had had so marked a predilection, were often a heavy tax upon the country people. In the time of hay-making or harvesting it was a serious inconvenience to them to be pressed into the royal service, and to have their horses and waggons seized for the transport of household stuff and provisions for the court. As often as not, they received little or no compensation, while their beasts were so fatigued with the additional labour, that a further loss of time was entailed, before they could use them again. Mary seldom went in progress, and when she did, was careful not to trouble and vex the country people, at times when their well-being for the whole year depended on their industry. If she discovered that her Comptroller had not acted fairly by them, she was extremely indignant, and would not rest till she saw the poor folk righted.

She visited them in their own homes, accompanied by two or three of her ladies, would sit down familiarly among them, and inquire into their manner of living, talking kindly to them, while the poor man ate his supper after his day’s work in the fields, little thinking that he was confiding his troubles to the Queen, for Mary would have no special ceremony paid to her by her suite, in order not to embarrass or confuse him.[508] The help she afforded was always substantial and well advised. If her poor neighbours were overburdened with children, she did not content herself with dispensing alms, but took care to advise them to live thriftily, bring up their boys and girls in the fear of God, and sometimes apprenticed these to an honest trade, so that they might be able to earn their living and better their condition. “This she did,” writes the biographer of the Duchess of Feria, “in a poor carpenter’s house, and the house of the widow of a husbandman. And in this sort did she pass some hours with the poor neighbours, with much plainness and affability; they supposing them all to be Queen’s maids, for there seemed no difference. And if any complaints were made, she commended the remembrance very particularly to Jane Dormer.”[509]

No religious or political agitators had as yet disturbed the loyalty of these simple peasants; but in London, pasquinades directed against the Queen had become of constant occurrence. Offensive and scurrilous language was the order of the day. A boy named Featherstone was made to personate Edward VI. in order to dispute her right. Treasonable books, such as John Knox’s _Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_, Goodman’s _Superior Magistrate_, in which Wyatt was invoked as a martyr, Poynet’s treatise on _Politic Power_, were busily circulated, and roused the spirit of revolt in the minds of thousands of hitherto peaceable citizens. The seditious availed themselves boldly of the shibboleth liberty of conscience and of the 270 persons estimated by Foxe, as having suffered for religion during this reign, many were, quite apart from their religious opinions, traitors, assassins and perjurers. The Venetian ambassador says, in a letter to the Doge, dated 13th May 1555:[510] “Certain knaves in this country endeavour daily to disturb the peace and quiet, and present state of the kingdom, so as if possible to induce some novelty and insurrection, there having been publicly circulated of late throughout the city, a _Dialogue_ written and printed in English, full of seditious and scandalous things against the religion and government, as also against the Council, the Parliament, and chiefly against their Majesties’ persons; and although all diligence has been used for the discovery of the authors, no light on the subject has yet been obtained, save that an Italian has been put in the Tower, he being a master for teaching the Italian tongue to Milady Elizabeth, some suspicion having been apparently entertained of him. The edition of the _Dialogue_ was so copious, that a thousand copies have been taken to the Lord Mayor, who by order of their Majesties, commanded all those who had any of them to bring them to him under heavy penalties.”

A royal proclamation was then issued, to the effect that all books, both Latin and English, concerning “any heretical, erroneous or slanderous doctrines, might be destroyed and burnt throughout the realm,” as also against conveying into the kingdom any books, writings or works by writers thereinafter named. All the names of the principal reformers follow, as also that of Erasmus, who was at that time looked upon with distrust. The Book of Common Prayer “set forth by the authority of Parliament” in the reign of Edward VI. was to be delivered up within the space of fifteen days, to be burned or otherwise disposed of.[511]

But these measures only increased the fanaticism. William Thomas, who had been clerk of the Council under Edward, and was a disciple of the preacher Goodman, plotted to murder the Queen, “for which he was sent to the Tower, and afterwards executed, at which time he said he died for his country”.[512] Wriothesley and Machyn both chronicle a murderous attack made on a priest at the altar rails. The former says: “The 4 day of April (1555) being Easter Day was a lewd fact done in the church of St. Margaret, Westminster. Sir John Sleuther, priest, ministering the sacrament to the parishioners, and holding the chalice in his left hand, one William Branch, _alias_ called Flower, in a serving-man’s coat, suddenly drew a wood knife, and struck the priest on the head, that the blood ran down, and fell both on the chalice and on the consecrated bread. The said person was apprehended, and committed to the Gatehouse in Westminster.” Machyn adds that the ruffian assaulted the priest, after saying that “by the idolatory which he committed, he deceived the crowds of souls there assembled, with other disgusting language, and gave him two deep wounds, one in the hand, the other in the head, that he fell as if dead, causing such an uproar and tumult, in part from the shrieks of the women, and the multitude of persons present, who pursued the man as if to put him to death. It was thought for a moment that the English had risen for the purpose of massacring the Spaniards, and all the other foreigners who lived in that quarter. The man was seized, and burnt for the assault, on the 24th April following, outside St. Margaret’s churchyard.”[513]

This outrage was a bold advance on the part of the revolutionists, who the previous year had contented themselves with derisively hanging a cat on the gallows in Cheapside, dressed in full pontificals.

Holinshed, Stow and Strype all tell a story of a fraud, perpetrated by the Queen’s enemies. Strange sounds were heard to issue from a house in Aldersgate Street, interspersed with obscure words, perfectly incomprehensible, until they were interpreted by certain persons who were in the secret. These told the crowds assembled in front of the house, that what they heard was the voice of the Holy Ghost, warning a wicked and perverse generation. It inveighed, they said, against the Queen’s marriage, and the impiety of the Mass; and the citizens were threatened with war, famine, pestilence and earthquakes. The tumult became so great, that the magistrates ordered the front wall of the house to be demolished, when a young woman, named Elizabeth Crofts, crept out of a hiding place, and confessed that she had been hired to commit the fraud. She was put in the pillory, but afterwards pardoned and sent home.[514]

The way in which religion was purposely confused with political grievances, real or supposed, was the cause of more than half the difficulty. The Council were still for prosecuting the criminals for heresy, the Emperor for ever maintained that they should be tried for treason.

The Venetian ambassador notifies a slight insurrection in Essex, whereupon Bonner received an order from the Privy Council to send “certain discreet and learned preachers to reduce the people who hath been of late seduced by sundry lewd persons named ministers there”.[515] The state of affairs is thus seen to have entered into a vicious circle. The lawlessness of the sectaries prompted severe reprisals, and the punishments inflicted did but aggravate the evil instead of suppressing it. “I have never,” said Renard, “seen the people so disturbed and discontented as now.” For six months, he had not ceased urging that Elizabeth, who was, he considered, the cause of all the troubles, should be sent abroad.

The opinion was at that time general, that capital punishment might be inflicted in religious matters. Catholics and Reformers were alike agreed on this subject, differing only as to their definition of heresy. Catholics regarded it as a revolt from the teaching of a divinely appointed Church; each individual Reformer submitted it to the test of his own private judgment. Calvin burned Servetus for his opinions on the Blessed Trinity, an act that was not only attended with as many aggravating circumstances as any death for heresy that had ever been suffered, but which was almost unanimously applauded by the Protestants of that time, Melancthon, Bullinger and Farel all writing to express their approval of it. Those who objected were called by Beza, “emissaries of Satan”. Luther, in his reply to Philip of Hesse, distinctly asserted the right of civil magistrates to punish heresy with death, a right that was maintained by the Helvetic, Belgic, Scottish and Saxon confessions. Calvin, Beza and Jurieu all wrote books to prove the lawfulness of persecution for false doctrine, each having independent views of what was the true.[516] Knox in his famous _Appellation_ says: “None provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death ... it is not only lawful to punish to the death such as labour to subvert the true religion, but the magistrates and people are bound to do so, unless they will provoke the wrath of God against themselves ... and therefore, my Lords, to return to you, seeing that God hath armed your hands with the sword of justice, seeing that His law most straightly commandeth idolaters and false prophets to be punished with death, and that you be placed above your subjects, to reign as fathers over children, and further, seeing that not only I, but with me many thousand famous, godly and learned persons accuse your bishops, and the whole rabble of the Papistical clergy, of idolatry, of murder and of blasphemy against God committed, it appertaineth to your honours to be vigilant and careful in so weighty a matter. The question is not of earthly substance, but of the glory of God and of the salvation of yourselves.”[517]

In Edward’s reign, Cranmer not only pronounced sentence on Joan Bocher, for holding that Christ was not incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but informed the King, in delivering her over to the civil power, that she was to be “deservedly punished,” which meant that she was to be burned.[518] He also pronounced sentence on van Parris, and gave the same recommendation, and handed over several Anabaptists to be burned at Smithfield. In his new code of ecclesiastical discipline, Cranmer classed belief in Transubstantiation, in Papal supremacy, and in the denial of justification by faith alone, as heresy. But Edward died before this code had obtained the sanction of Parliament.[519]

Both in England and Scotland, the Reformation signalised itself by a law, making it penal for any priest to say Mass, for any worshipper to hear it, under pain of death for the one, of confiscation of his goods, heavy fines, exile, and finally death for the other. “One Mass,” exclaimed Knox, “is more fearful to me than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm!” In 1572, the two Houses of Convocation implored Elizabeth to put Mary Queen of Scots to death, giving as one reason, that she had endeavoured to seduce God’s people to idolatry, and that according to the Old Testament, all who did so should be put to death.[520] “There was an express order that no pity should be shown them.” But not only did the Reformers adopt the principle, that heresy, such as each understood it to be, was punishable by death, the newly established Protestant Governments also claimed the right to define heresy, as well as to punish it. Mr. Lecky states no more than bare facts, when he says that, “In Scotland during nearly the whole period that the Stuarts were on the throne of England, a persecution, rivalling in atrocity almost any on record, was directed by the English Government, at the instigation of the Scotch bishops, and with the approval of the English Church, against all who repudiated episcopacy. If a conventicle was held in a house, the preacher was liable to be put to death. If it was held in the open air, both minister and people incurred the same fate. The Presbyterians were hunted like criminals over the mountains. Their ears were torn from the roots. They were branded with hot irons. Their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins. The bones of their legs were shattered in the boots. Women were scourged publicly through the streets. Multitudes were transported to Barbadoes, infuriated soldiers were let loose upon them and encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them.”[521]

It is thus clear, that if the sixteenth century, and the ages preceding it were not acquainted with our modern ideas of religious toleration, neither indeed were the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. As late as 1679, an Irish Franciscan was executed for his priesthood at Ruthin, being hanged, cut down while yet alive, drawn and quartered;[522] and in 1729 died in Hurst Castle another Franciscan, Father Paul Atkinson, who had been apprehended and condemned to perpetual imprisonment for the same crime.[523]

On the Catholic side, two authorities may be quoted in favour of the punishment of heresy as a crime; and the standpoint from which it was so regarded may be briefly stated thus. Before the Reformation, the Catholic Church was universally recognised as the sole depositary of revealed truth. To the mediæval mind, he who was convicted of spreading doctrine contrary to the teaching of this divine institution was worse than a fratricide, since by poisoning the wells of truth, he murdered not his brother’s perishable body, but his immortal soul, and was, therefore, deserving of death. It is difficult for us, whose minds are necessarily imbued with modern ideas, to realise the mode of thought concerning novelties of doctrine which agitated all the countries of Europe in the middle ages, and which still agitated them when so much that was purely mediæval had passed away. Nor can we estimate to the full the depth of those profound convictions, on the subject of revealed religion, which called forth the ecclesiastical and civil enactments, framed to prevent any tampering with dogma. We have in our days no practical experience of a system _universally_ admitted and recognised to be the sole depositary of revealed truth, such as the Catholic Church was acknowledged to be, before the rise and growth of Protestantism. Accustomed to the presence of religious speculation, doubt, and unbelief around us, or at least to the existence of varying creeds, we are familiar with the notion that every man may weigh and consider the credibility of each doctrine proposed to him, and that he is at liberty to accept or reject it, to halve or to double it, according to the promptings of his own individual judgment. Religious truth has come to be considered so much a personal affair, that Roman Catholics are perhaps alone in looking upon it as a divine deposit, a purely objective matter, independent of what this or that man may think, and to be accepted undoubtingly by the faithful. And this was precisely the state of the pre-Reformation mind. But the opinion is sometimes expressed in our own day, that were the Catholic Church again powerful, as in the middle ages, we should see a recurrence of persecution as determined as any that marked with horror the former annals of our country. The notion is as absurd as it would be to imagine that if the Puritans were again masters, they would bring back the thumbkin, the boots, the rack and the sword, in order to enforce the uselessness of good works. No organised persecution could ever be possible where the general trend of ideas was not in its favour. Our thicker-skinned ancestors had far less sympathy with bodily suffering, and a much lower appreciation of the value of human life than ourselves. In an age when coiners and forgers were punished with death, it would have seemed incongruous that apostates and heretics should fare more softly.[524] The Reformers, who rejected nearly every tenet held by the universal Church, were almost all agreed to retain the punishment by which those tenets had been vindicated. St. Thomas Aquinas says:—

“The crime of heresy must be considered first in itself and then in its connexion with the Church. If we consider the crime in itself, heretics deserve not only to be cut off from the Church by excommunication, but to be cut off from the world by death. They are more guilty than those who coin false money, for it is more grave to corrupt the faith which is the life of the soul, than to falsify coins, by which that of the body is supported; and thus they are justly put to death like other malefactors. Considered in connexion with the Church, it is clear that she, ever merciful and desirous of obtaining the conversion of those who are in error, does not at once condemn the heretic, but exhorts him to repentance, according to the teaching of the apostle. It is only when he shows himself obstinate, and if she despairs of his salvation, that she cuts him off from herself, and abandons him to the secular arm that he may be put to death.”[525]

The fourth Lateran Council decreed, that no beneficed clerk, or any clerk in holy orders, might take any part, even the most mechanical and subordinate, in the judicial doing to death of a criminal.[526] Heresy was, however, looked upon as an ecclesiastical as well as a civil offence, the delinquent first committing a grave crime against God, by denying and attacking the truths which He had revealed, so that by his example he led other men astray. Secondly, by so doing he raised tumults, and endangered the peace of the commonwealth. He was, therefore, tried in the ecclesiastical courts, and if found guilty and obdurate, was handed over to the State for punishment. “Cognisance of heresies, errors and Lollardies appertaineth to the judge of holy Church.”[527]

Long before the rise of Lollardy, burning at the stake was the recognised punishment for heresy, just as decapitation and hanging were the penalty for the crimes of treason and murder. An obstinate Albigensian was burned in London in 1210, and in 1222 a deacon suffered death at Oxford, for turning Jew, and marrying a Jewess.[528] The first Act of Parliament against heresy was passed in the reign of Henry IV. (1401) and dealt with the suppression of Lollardy. Nevertheless, the placing of the new law on the statute book was not followed by any great increase in the number of punishments, and there were more burnings in the reign of Henry VIII. than in the whole of the previous century.

The second authority on the Catholic side on the subject of the punishment of heresy is an Englishman, Sir Thomas More, who says:—

“As touching heretics, I hate that vice of theirs, and not their persons, and very fain would I that the one were destroyed and the other saved. And that I have toward no man any other mind than this—how loudly soever these blessed new brethren and professors and preachers of heresy belie me—if all the favour and pity that I have used among them to their amendment were known, it would, I warrant you well and plain appear; whereof, if it were requisite, I could bring forth witnesses more than men would ween. Howbeit, because it were neither right nor honesty, that any man should look for more than he deserveth, I will that all the world wit it on the other side, that whoso be so deeply grounded in malice, to the harm of his own soul, and other men’s too, and so set upon the sowing of seditious heresies, that no good means that men may use unto him can pull that malicious folly out of his poisoned, proud, obstinate heart, I would rather be content that he were gone in time, than overlong to tarry to the destruction of other.”[529]

Mary’s Parliament of 1554, which abolished her title of Supreme Head of the Church of England, threw out the bill for reviving the Act of 1401 against heresy, chiefly on Paget’s motion, but it was brought in again in the following January, and in four days it had passed through both Houses without opposition.

It was felt that a breakwater had become imperatively necessary to stop the inflowing tide of sedition. Ross, a reformed preacher, prayed openly, that God would “either convert the heart of the Queen, or take her out of this world”. It was then made treason to pray in public for the Queen’s death. But those who had been already committed for this offence might recover their liberty, by making humble protestation and promise of amendment.

While the Council were debating on the manner in which the revived Act should be enforced, the Queen sent them a message, written in her own hand, in which, after expressing her wishes with regard to several points of ecclesiastical discipline, she said:—

“Touching punishment of heretics, me thinketh it ought to be done without rashness, not leaving in the meanwhile to do justice to such as by learning would seem to deceive the simple: and the rest so to be used, that the people might well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion, whereby they shall both understand the truth, and beware to do the like: and especially within London, I would wish none to be burnt without some of the Council’s presence, and both there and everywhere good sermons at the same”.[530]

From the fact that the Queen advocated sermons at the stake it has been inferred that Philip exercised considerable influence on the persecution, as it was the Spanish custom for preachments to be held at the _autos da fe_ of heretics. But indeed the custom was quite as much an English as it was a Spanish one. At the burning of Friar Forest, for refusing to acknowledge Henry’s ecclesiastical supremacy, Hugh Latimer preached for three hours against the Papal claims, when the martyr fixing his eyes on him said: “Seven years back thou durst not have made such a sermon for thy life!”

It is probable, that neither Philip nor Mary was keen to punish as heresy, the rebellious spirit manifested by the religionists. The persecution was a movement of expediency, set on foot by the Council, as a means of coping with the disturbances. The Emperor and Renard were distinctly opposed to it, and now the Spanish friar, Alfonso de Castro, Philip’s confessor, in preaching before the court, strenuously denounced the measure, which he would scarcely have ventured to do in so public a manner, if it had been ardently desired by the King and Queen. Moreover, the most enlightened among the English clergy, including the Bishop of London, who had at first been in favour of it, though agreeing in the general principle, that erroneous thinking led to erroneous acting, were against its adoption at this juncture. But Parliament willed it, and “it was not therefore,” says an authority on English law, “the policy of the church but of the crown, and not merely of the crown but of the state. It was the act of the crown with the authority of Parliament, and the assent of the council.”[531]

The same writer, accentuating this opinion, which appears incontrovertible, says in another place:—

“With reference to this unhappy persecution, it appears important to observe, that it was not the will of the church but of the state, that it was the result not of the religious bigotry of ecclesiastics, but of state policy, and there is reason to believe not a little, of the worst and vilest state craft. It did not commence until after the marriage with the Spanish King, nor until after the lapse of two years after the restoration of the ancient religion, and then it was not only not instigated but it was rather discouraged by the prelates; and though it was no doubt authorized by the sovereign, it was at the advice of her council, composed chiefly of laymen. The Cardinal Legate opposed it, the King’s confessor preached against it, the prelates acted only upon compulsion, and there is reason to believe from the Queen’s reply to the representation of the council, that she rather yielded to their advice, and desired the execution of the measure not only to be moderated, but to be directed rather against popular agitators, than against mere private holders of heretical opinions.”[532]

Our principal data for the history of this persecution are derived from John Foxe’s _Acts and Monuments_, and the martyrologist’s spirit of animosity, wilful misrepresentation and neglect to rectify obvious errors, have exposed his book to everlasting reproach. On the death of his last descendant, the greater number of his manuscripts were either given to Strype, or allowed to remain in Strype’s hands till his death in 1737, when many of them were purchased for the Harleian Collection, now in the British Museum. A few found their way into the Lansdowne Library. They include amongst a mass of heterogeneous documents of the most unequal value and interest—such as the depositions of some who were really present at the different executions for religion in the reign of Queen Mary, minutes of the examination of prisoners, apparently written on the spot, fantastic stories of his favourite theory concerning the judgments of God, on those who persecuted the followers of the reformed doctrines, and the thrilling legend of Pope Joan—several statements sent to Foxe for the purpose of correcting portions of his work, but of which he never made any use. Nearly, if not quite all the material for that part of the _Acts and Monuments_, which deals with the reign of Mary, was collected by others for Foxe and Grindal, during their absence from England. Grindal handed over to Foxe the accounts of the various prosecutions for heresy sent to him by his correspondents at home, taking care, however, at the same time, to warn the martyrologist against placing too much confidence in them, he himself suspending his judgment, “till more satisfactory evidence came from good hands”. He advised him for the present, only to print separately the acts of particular persons, of whom they had authentic accounts, and to wait for a larger and completer history, until they had reliable information of the whole persecution.[533] But the careful investigation which Grindal recommended did not fall in with the particular genius and uncritical methods of Foxe, who, perhaps on account of his necessitous condition, worked with a will, on the unsifted tales and reports, as they came to hand, so that the book in its Latin form was completed, almost to the end of Mary’s reign, and was published at Basle, before his return to England in 1559. He afterwards made an English translation of the work, but without seeing fit to revise his material, and it was given to the public under the title of _Acts and Monuments_. It was at once popularly styled the _Book of Martyrs_.

When attacked by Alan Cope (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracies, Foxe replied, “I hear what you will say; I should have taken more leisure, and done it better. I grant and confess my fault; such is my vice. I cannot sit all the day (M. Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. Yet notwithstanding doing what I can, and doing my good will, methinks I should not be reprehended.”[534] Parsons in his _Three Conversions of England_[535] makes “a note of more than a hundred and twenty lies uttered by John Foxe in less than three leaves of his _Acts and Monuments_,” and he proceeds to point them out, beginning with the lie concerning John Marbeck, and some others, whom he counts among the martyrs, although they were never burned at all. John Marbeck was an eminent musician and a controversial writer on the Protestant side. As in consequence of Parsons’ remark, Foxe acknowledged the error, in his second edition, he may be held excused thus far; but his delinquencies in this respect were not infrequent, and gave rise to the saying that “Many who were burnt in the reign of Queen Mary drank sack in the days of Queen Elizabeth”.[536]

Two similar mistakes which he was in a position to correct and did not, relate to the supposed death by the vengeance of God, of Henry Morgan, Bishop of St. David’s, and of one Grimwood, another “notorious Papist”.

Anthony à Wood, the famous antiquary and historian, who wrote his _History of the Antiquities of Oxford_ about a hundred years after Foxe had become celebrated as a martyrologist, and who in his youth spoke with people who remembered the days of persecution in the reign of Mary, says that “Henry Morgan was esteemed a most admirable civilian and canonist; he was for several years the constant Moderator of all those that performed exercise for their degrees in the civil law in the school or schools, hall and church pertaining to that faculty, situated also in the same parish.... He was elected Bishop of St. David’s upon the deprivation of Robert Ferrar.... In that see he sate till after Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown, and then being deprived ... retired among his friends, and died a devoted son to the Church of Rome, on the 23 of December following (1559) of whose death, hear I pray what John Fox saith in this manner: _Morgan, Bishop of St. David’s who sate upon the condemnation of the blessed Martyr Bishop Ferrar, and unjustly usurped his room, was not long after stricken by God’s hand, after such a strange sort, that his meat would not go down, but rise and pick up again, sometimes at his mouth, sometimes blown out of his nose, most horribly to behold, and so he continued till his death_. Thus Fox followed by Thomas Beard, in his _Theatre of God’s Judgments_. But where or when his death happened they tell us not, nor any author hitherto, only when. Now therefore be pleased to know, that the said Bishop Morgan, retiring after his deprivation to and near Oxon, where he had several relations and acquaintance living, particularly the Owens of Godstow in the parish of Wolvercote, near the said city, did spend the little remainder of his life in great devotion at Godstow, but that he died in the condition which Fox mentions, there is no tradition among the inhabitants of Wolvercote. True it is that I have heard some discourse many years ago from some of the ancients of that place, that a certain Bishop did live for some time, and exercised his charity and religious counsel among them, and there died, but I could never learn anything of them of the manner of his death, which being very miserable as John Fox saith, methinks that they should have a tradition of it, as well as of the man himself, but I say there is now none, nor was there any thirty years ago, among the most aged persons then living at that place, and therefore whether there be anything of truth in it may be justly doubted; and especially for this reason, that in the very same chapter and leaf containing the severe punishment upon persecutors of God’s People, he hath committed a most egregious falsity in reporting that one Grimwood, of Higham in Suffolk, died in a miserable manner, for swearing and bearing false witness against one John Cooper, a carpenter of Watsam in the same county; for which he lost his life. The miserable death of the said Grimwood was as John Fox saith thus, that _when he was in his labour, staking up a gosse of corn, having his health, and fearing no peril, suddenly his bowels fell out of his body, and immediately most miserably he died_. Now it so fell out that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, one Prick became parson of the parish where the said Grimwood dwelt, and preaching against perjury, being not acquainted with his parishioners, cited the said story of Fox, and it happening that Grimwood being alive, and in the said church, he brought an action upon the case against the parson, but Judge Anderson, who sate at the assizes, in the county of Suffolk did adjudge it not maintainable, because it was not spoken maliciously.”[537]

That the case was not maintained on this ground, as against the parson, was no doubt fair and just, but Foxe cannot himself be as reasonably acquitted, for although he went into Suffolk to investigate the matter, he never made any alteration in his story, which has appeared in all the subsequent editions of his work.

It would be beyond the scope of the present volume to indicate all the misstatements and distorted facts of which he was guilty, some being, no doubt, as much the result of the far too ambitious scheme of his undertaking, as of his preconceived malice.

Thirty years after the death of Sir Thomas More, the martyrologist proceeded to collect all the traditional gossip afloat concerning the Chancellor’s treatment of certain individuals accused of heresy; and he gravely introduces it into his _Acts and Monuments_ as historical fact. All these fables had been refuted by More himself, in his famous _Apology_, made at a time when, although he stood alone, defenceless and obnoxious, none were bold enough to challenge his truth.

We shall, later on, have occasion incidentally to notice cases of Foxe’s glaring inaccuracy; suffice it here to mention one instance, which is fairly representative of his manner. He chronicles the martyrdom at Newent, on the 25th September 1556, of “Jhon Horne and a woman”. On investigation it transpires, that the story is nothing more than an amplification of the burning of Edward Horne, who suffered on the 25th September 1558, and that no woman suffered at either of these times. This confusion was first notified by John Deighton, a friendly critic of the _Acts and Monuments_, clearly not disposed to magnify its imperfections.

It is one of the many anomalies which confront the student of sixteenth century methods, that the _Book of Martyrs_ being what it is, a mass of unsorted fact and fiction, carelessly thrown together, often proved untrustworthy, rarely corrected, and at the best uncritical, one-sided and violent, should not merely have leapt into the foremost rank of contemporary literature, but should have attained in the popular estimation the level of the Bible itself. Foxe had been penniless when he returned to England in 1559, but the success of his book, first published in 1563, made his fortune. The Catholics called it derisively _Foxe’s Golden Legend_. In 1570, a second edition was printed, in two volumes folio, and Convocation decreed that the book designated by the canon as _Monumenta Martyrum_, should be placed in cathedral churches, and in the houses of the great ecclesiastical dignitaries. This decree, although never confirmed by Parliament, was so much in accordance with the Puritan tone of the whole Church of England at that time, that even parish churches, far and wide were furnished with copies of the work, chained side by side with the Bible. The vestry minutes of St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, of the 11th January, 1571-72, ordered “that the booke of Martyrs of Mr. Foxe, and the paraphrases (of the Gospel) of Erasmus shalbe bowght for the church, and tyed with a chain to the Egle bras”. A few years ago, mutilated copies of the _Acts and Monuments_ might still be seen chained, in the parish churches of Apethorpe (Northamptonshire), of Arreton (Isle of Wight), of Chelsea, of Eustone (Oxfordshire), Kinver (Staffordshire), Lessingham (Norfolk), St. Nicholas (Newcastle-on-Tyne), Northwold (Norfolk), Stratford-on-Avon, Waltham, St. Cuthbert (Wells).[538]

No more potent means could have been devised for saturating the national mind with a hatred of Queen Mary, and of her religion, than the diffusion of the _Book of Martyrs_ on this gigantic scale. In a short time, there was scarcely a parish church in England, that did not possess a copy of the work, which was at the disposal of all who could read. Those who were illiterate might frequently be seen standing in a group round the lectern, while one among them read aloud from the graphic pages. In many churches, a chapter was read to the assembled congregations every Sunday evening along with the Bible, and the clergy constantly made its stories of martyrdom the subject of their sermons. One of the indictments against Archbishop Laud, at his trial, was the fact of his having ordered the book to be withdrawn from some churches.[539] But the secret of its charm for Puritan England did not altogether lie in its anti-Marian character, or in the partisanship of its garbled facts, and fictitious heroisms. The simplicity of its vigorous English, the picturesque, though minute circumstances which it detailed, the very boldness with which it lied, and above all, its appeal to the newly awakened passion for the private interpretation of Scripture, endeared it to the children of the new era. Nevertheless, it was undeniably one of the most powerful engines in the conspiracy to blacken Mary’s fame, and cast a lurid light on the few years of her troubled reign. It was not so much an epoch-making book as the embodiment of a movement, the effects of which have not yet passed away, and even the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, a far more imaginative and strictly religious work than Foxe’s, did not displace the _Acts and Monuments_ in the religious life of the nation. The two together did perhaps more than anything else to wean the people from the old faith.

But, apart from all misrepresentation, exaggeration, distorted evidence and positive fiction, there remains the fact that a considerable number of persons did perish at the stake in Mary’s reign, although it is as great an historical absurdity to apply to Mary the epithet “bloody,” as it is to attach that of “good” to Queen Elizabeth. Mary did but sanction that which was not only the common practice throughout Christendom, but which had been the law of England for more than 150 years, and which continued in force for upwards of a century after her. Utterly repugnant to modern ideas as is the thought which made it possible to punish any religious propaganda with the death of the propagandist, we must admit that Mary, and those whose business it was to carry out the law, far from entertaining feelings of vengeance, provided every possible loophole of escape for those under examination. Moreover, the accused, even on the showing of Foxe, instead of being the meek and lamb-like martyrs we have been led to consider them, persistently flouted their judges, and treated them with flippant insolence and contempt.

Immediately after the revival of the statute, it was Gardiner’s unwelcome duty, with thirteen other bishops and a number of laymen, to sit in a commission of inquiry into the teaching of four Churchmen, Hooper, the deprived Bishop of Gloucester; Rogers, Prebendary of St. Paul’s; Saunders, Rector of Allhallows, and Taylor, Rector of Hadley in Sussex. This was the only occasion on which Gardiner presided over a trial for heresy.

Hooper, by far the most distinguished of the four, had had a singularly chequered career, even for those stirring times. Perhaps even more than Cranmer, he had come under the influence of the German reformers. He had entered the cloister at an early age, and had graduated as a religious at Oxford, but had returned to secular life, after some fray in which he was concerned. He fed his mind on the writings of Zwingli and Bullinger, and identified himself so closely with their opinions, that on the promulgation of the _Six Articles_ he was obliged to fly the country. He went to Zürich, the hot-bed of Calvinism, and there attacked Gardiner’s book on the Holy Eucharist. On Edward’s accession, he returned to England, and continued the controversy in a lecture which he delivered on the 1st September 1549. This lecture brought him into notice and favour with the Council, and when Bonner attacked his doctrine in a powerful sermon preached to a large congregation at St. Paul’s, Hooper retaliated by denouncing the Bishop of London.[540] Bonner was therefore examined as to his belief in the dogma in question, deprived, and sent to the Tower. But although Hooper was now made King’s Preacher, he did not allow himself to exult greatly over his good fortune. “Sharp and dangerous,” said he, “has been my contest with that bishop; if he be restored again to his office, I shall be restored to my Father which is in heaven.”[541] He threw himself with ardour into the war then raging against altars, vestments, priests and bishops, putting himself at the head of the Gospellers. None of his contemporaries surpassed him in forcible language. In 1551 some altars were still standing in the diocese of Chichester, in spite of the decree of the Council, that they should be destroyed, and Masses were still surreptitiously offered at some of them.[542] “The bishops and priests do damnable and devilish superstition,” he exclaimed in one of his sermons,[543] “saying Mass, conjuring the holy water bucket and the like, in the congregation of God.... Into the sea with all clerks who will not preach the true doctrine and teach the catechism.” The Council owed it mainly to Hooper, if their behests were at last obeyed. “So long as the altars remain, the ignorant people and evil-persuaded priests will dream of sacrifice,” he persisted, until even the places where the altars had stood were whitewashed, so that no vestige of them might remain. In one of his pungent sermons, he went so far as to condemn Cranmer’s new Prayer Book, as savouring too much of Popery. For this he was brought before the Council, but came out of the debate victorious, and was offered a bishopric which he refused, saying, “I cannot put on me a surplice and a cope. I cannot swear by created beings.” Even Edward’s Government found his eloquence inconvenient, and he was sent to the Fleet for his intemperate preaching.[544] He was at length consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, with the usual ceremonies, but was afterwards allowed to discard the hated vestments of Episcopacy, “the rags of the harlot of Babylon,” as he described them. He does not seem to have had any scruple in holding the bishopric of Worcester _in commendam_; but he consistently maintained the greatest simplicity, forbade the people under his jurisdiction, to stand at the reading of the Gospel, or to kneel when they received Communion.[545]

He was indefatigable in striving to enlighten the gross ignorance of his clergy. “Out of 300, 168 were unable to repeat the Ten Commandments, 31 knew not where to find them in the Bible, 40 could not find the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible, and 31 did not know who framed it.”[546]

On the 1st September 1553, Hooper was again committed to the Fleet, not apparently on a charge of religion, but for debts due to the Crown.[547] While he was in prison, the statute against Lollardy was again enforced, and he and his three companions were examined as to their doctrine. They pleaded conscientious objections to the religion restored by the Queen. Gardiner allowed them twenty-four hours for reflection, but on their second refusal to retract, they were excommunicated, degraded, and handed over to the civil power. Hooper was sent back to Gloucester, where he suffered at the stake. Rogers was burned at Smithfield, Saunders at Coventry, and Taylor at Hadley.

Nevertheless, Gardiner was by no means the savage tyrant Foxe represents him to be. His personal kindness to the proscribed brethren was amply acknowledged by them. He furnished Peter Martyr with funds to escape out of England, shielded Thomas Smith, formerly Secretary to Edward VI., from persecution, and generously allowed him a yearly pension of £100 for his support. Of his behaviour to Roger Ascham, the reformer himself said, “Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, High Chancellor of England, treated me with the utmost humanity and favour, so that I cannot easily decide whether Paget was more ready to commend me, or Winchester to protect and benefit me; there were not wanting some, who on the ground of religion, attempted to stop the flow of his benevolence towards me, but to no purpose. I owe very much to the humanity of Winchester, and not only I, but many others who have experienced his kindness.”[548] One of the “many others” was John Frith, whom Gardiner did his best to save.[549] It was said, that even the Duke of Northumberland would not have perished, had the Chancellor’s counsels prevailed.

Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley had remained in the Tower, where at first they had enjoyed considerable freedom, till March 1554. Ridley dined frequently at the Lieutenant’s table, and he and Cranmer were allowed the liberty of the Queen’s garden, Latimer being kept more straitly. But after Wyatt’s rebellion, the Tower being crowded with prisoners, the three bishops were put together in one room, and to them was added Ridley’s chaplain, John Bradford. In the spring of 1554, they were sent to Oxford, to take part in a theological discussion on the Mass.

Ridley, the most learned of the three, was born in 1500 and was consequently fifty-four years old at the time of the disputation. He had adopted the principles of the German reformers in 1536, and renounced his belief in transubstantiation in the year of Henry’s death, after which he laboured strenuously to defend and spread the new doctrines. Cranmer acknowledged him his superior in controversy, and during the disputation it was said of the three bishops: “Latimer leaneth to Cranmer, Cranmer leaneth to Ridley and Ridley to the singularity of his own wit”. Nevertheless in arguing, he always referred to Cranmer’s book.

Latimer joined to the Puritan sympathies of Hooper the weakness of character which signalised Cranmer. He had been so deeply imbued with the spirit of the German divines as to lose Henry’s favour, but as he ardently advocated the King’s first divorce, Anne Boleyn procured him a bishopric. He was however regarded with some suspicion, and was twice convented before Convocation, and required to subscribe to certain articles presented to him for his acceptance. He refused, was pronounced contumacious and excommunicated, until he retracted, and sued for forgiveness. He was ultimately pardoned, but relapsed into Protestantism, and was only saved from prosecution by a timely utterance in favour of the divorce, when he was made Bishop of Worcester. In 1536 he was called on to examine some Anabaptists for heresy, and saw no reason why they should not suffer the rigour of the law for their opinions. Later, he thus defended their execution: “This is a deceivable argument,” said Latimer “he went to his death boldly: ergo he standeth in a just quarrel. The Anabaptists that were burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of credible men, I saw them not myself) went to their death even intrepid, as ye will say, without any fear in the world, cheerfully. Well, let them go. There was in the old doctor’s time another kind of poisoned heretics that were called Donatists, and these heretics went to their execution as though they should have gone to some jolly recreation or banquet, to some belly-cheer or to a play.”[550]

But in spite of these words, Latimer was soon afterwards as busy as any Anabaptist in destroying images, and during the reaction of Henry’s orthodoxy, in the matter of the _Six Articles_, was in some danger. Cromwell forced him to resign his see,[551] and he was kept in a sort of honourable confinement by the Bishop of Chichester. On his release, he was forbidden to preach, to go to either university or to return to his diocese. He found himself in the Tower, in 1546, for his openly professed disbelief in Purgatory, but was liberated on Edward’s accession, and licensed as a preacher. Latimer threw in his lot boldly with Somerset’s Protectorate, and when Admiral Seymour was executed, and the people murmured, he justified his death from the pulpit, and told them that the Admiral had gone to everlasting damnation. The passages in his sermon in which this sentiment was expressed were afterwards eliminated as too scandalous for Latimer’s credit as a divine. His eloquence was so overwhelming, that its effect was generally to excite the people on whatever subject he preached, and an entry in the churchwardens’ accounts of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, records the fact that the sum of one shilling and sixpence was paid some time in 1549, “for mending of divers pews that were broken when Dr. Latimer did preach”.[552] When in 1550, a fresh commission was appointed to eradicate heresy, and to enforce the new _Book of Common Prayer_, Latimer was one of the thirty-two commissioners. On Mary’s accession, the Council, for some reason unknown, declared his behaviour seditious, and sent him a close prisoner to the Tower, denying him the liberty accorded to Cranmer and Ridley. The latter, however, contrived to communicate with him, and the two together wrote a defence of their opinions, through the intermediary of Latimer’s servant, who was allowed to attend him. After the Oxford disputation in October 1555, Cardinal Pole wrote to Philip, telling him that he had received letters from the King’s confessor, Friar Soto, who had been sent to persuade the prisoners to recant, and that Soto had given him an account of what he had done “with those two heretics, Ridley and Latimer after their condemnation”. One of them would not even speak to him, and although the other spoke, “it profited nothing, it being easily intelligible than no one can save those whom God has rejected, and thus according to report, the sentence was executed, the people looking on not unwillingly, as it was known that nothing had been neglected with regard to their salvation”.[553]