What motive could Bonner and his chaplains have for spreading such a report? Fortunately, Fox has also given Hooper's own account of the matter, and it is not only written in a tone which shows that he took their proceedings civilly, but that he expected his popish adversaries to make a candid report of himself.

"Such is the report abroad (as I am credibly informed,) that I, John Hooper, a condemned man for the cause of Christ, should now, after sentence of death (being in Newgate prisoner, and looking daily for execution) recant and abjure that which heretofore I have preached. And this talk ariseth of this, that the bishop of London and his chaplains resort unto me. Doubtless, if our brethren were as godly as I could wish them, they would think, that in case I did refuse to talk with them, they might have just occasion to say that I were unlearned, and durst not speak with learned men ; or else proud, and disdained to speak with them. Therefore, to avoid just suspicion of both, I have and do daily speak with them when they come; not doubting but that they report that I am neither proud nor unlearned."—Ibid. p. 651.

On Monday the Bishop came to Newgate to degrade him and Rogers. Fox gives a particular account of the form, and the persons present, but does not intimate that there was anything done, or a word spoken, except the ceremonial proceeding. Some pages afterwards, in a rhetorical "Comparison between Hooper and Polycarp," he mentions as a point of difference that Hooper was not only martyred but "degraded by Bonner with such contumelies and reproaches, as I think in Polycarp's time was not used to any," p. 661. This, however, I presume, only refers to the common order of the ceremonial; for if Bonner had done any thing personally uncivil or extra-official we should have been pretty sure to hear of it. Burnet begins a paragraph by saying, "It was resolved to begin with Hooper; against whom both Gardiner and Bonner had so peculiar 'an ill-will, that he was singled out of all the bishops to be 'the first sacrifice 3.' This, however, like a good deal more which such writers have said respecting Gardiner and Bonner, is, I apprehend, nothing but ornamental suggestion, unsupported, if not clearly contradicted by facts."

6

6

2 So Fox, vi. 651. But on the next page he says on the 4th of February, which was a Tuesday. Yet he says "Monday" was the 4th of February. 3 Vol. iii. P: 240.

4 I have really looked in vain for actions which might seem to indicate vindictive feeling in Bonner towards any of those to whom he might be

(4.) ROWLAND TAYLOR.-I do not find that Bonner had anything to do with him until he had been condemned by the Council. Then the Bishop went to the Compter to degrade him. The scene is thus described by Fox ;"Being come, he called for the said Dr. Taylor to be brought unto him; the bishop being then in the chamber where the keeper of the Compter and his wife lay. So Dr. Taylor was brought down from the chamber above that, to the said Bonner. And at his coming, the bishop said, 'Master doctor, I would you would remember supposed to feel a grudge. I know the language of party declamation; but when one examines the facts it shows its true nature, and recoils on the writers. Who, for instance, can read, without feelings more unpleasant than those of mere pity, the following Heads of Chapters, as they stand in the Table of Contents prefixed to Strype's life of Sir Thomas Smith?

"CHAP. V.

"Sir Thomas Smith in Commission. Words between Bishop Bonner and him. His fidelity to the Duke of Somerset

. p. 37

"Smith in a Commission against the anabaptists. One of the visitors of Cambridge. In Commission npon Bishop Bonner who would have declined him. Smith deals roundly with him. His words to Bonner's servants. Bonner enters a recusation against Smith. Who charges him with disobedience. Smith in trouble with the Protector. Deposed against Bishop Gardiner. Makes a purchase. Goes in embassy to France."

"CHAP. VI.

"The condition of Sir Thomas Smith under Queen Mary. His wise advertisements

p. 46

He loses all his places. He hath an indulgence from the Pope. Bishop Gardiner his friend. Gains Gardiner's favour upon his first address to him from Cambridge. Ascham favoured by Gardiner. Even Bishop Bonner pretends to be Smith's friend."

I suppose that if Mr. Strype had been asked what he meant by "pretends," he would have been as much puzzled as Goldsmith was when asked the meaning of "slow" in the first line of his Traveller. How, or what, did Bonner "pretend"? Strype's own account of the matter in the place referred to by that very table of contents is simply "Nay, bloody Bonner who had a personal pique against him since the last reign, as was shown before, let him alone, though he were in his diocese, admiring the man, and dissembling his anger."-p. 50. But poor Mr. Strype cannot make this admission without the marginal caution "Bonner pretends to be Smith's friend."

If Bonner really did let Smith alone, I see nothing of pretence in it; and as to his admiring him, I think nobody but Strype would have suggested anything so very simple. If, however, I were writing to eulogize Bonner, in the servile spirit of hero-worship which sometimes renders Strype so absurd, I should claim high credit for the restored Bishop's acknowledged forbearance towards a man who had treated him with most

yourself, and turn to your mother, holy church; so may you do well enough, and I will sue for your pardon.' Whereunto master Taylor answered, 'I would you and your fellows would turn to Christ. As for me, I will not turn to Antichrist.'

"Well,' quoth the bishop, 'I am come to degrade you: wherefore put on these vestures.' 'No,' quoth Dr. Taylor, 'I will not.' 'Wilt thou not?' said the bishop. 'I shall make thee ere I go.' Quoth Dr. Taylor, 'You shall not, by the grace of God.' Then he charged him upon his obedience to do it: but he would not do it for him; so he willed another to put them upon his back. And when he was offensive insolence; and I should rather ascribe Smith's safety to the generosity of his enemies, than represent it as "owing to that deference that that stern and cruel Bishop Gardiner had to his exemplary virtue and learning he was struck with a kind of admiration of the man pretending a great love to him;" though, of course, I should be glad to represent two such bloody wolves as guarding a forward and sturdy reformer through times of trouble, out of mere deference to virtue, and admiration of the man. And, perhaps I should ask, "What did Smith do to repay his deep obligation to the deprived and imprisoned Bonner, when he had himself become a great man at the Court of Elizabeth? Did the spared and screened protestant shew himself grateful for the forbearance which had connived at his bold, uncompromising, zeal, and stood between him and the stake during all the bloody reign of bloody Mary? or did he let his admiring benefactor live and die in a gaol?'

I might, I say, if I wrote as the eulogist of Gardiner and Bonner very plausibly claim for them credit to which I really believe they are in no wise entitled. I do not imagine that Smith had much to thank them for. I suppose that no reflecting reader of Strype can doubt that Secretary Smith, like his equally religious, and protestant, colleague, Secretary Cecil, turned papist on the accession of Mary. He was not indeed (any more than Cecil) continued as Secretary; but "he fell easy," says Mr. Strype, "for his life was saved, though he were a Protestant, and had 100%. per annum allowed him for his subsistence, but was charged not to depart out of the realm." Very droll it is to find this good historian, who has talked of Smith's being a "constant embracer of the reformed religion," and of his having "had a great hand in the reformation of the Church of England, in which he so steadfastly persevered," admitting that from the circumstances of the time this sturdy protestant "could hardly keep himself always upon his legs" (though that, I presume, must mean his official, rather than his religious legs), and afterwards telling us with a confiding simplicity, what really surprised himself,"But that which is strange, he acted his part so dexterously in these difficult times, that even his enemy the Pope sheltered him under his bull for many transgressions of his own laws."—p. 47. When such an example had been set them, can we honestly make much of Gardiner's courtesy, and Bonner's connivance? Surely they could afford to be civil if the Pope was. I do not believe they were possessed by a spirit of retaliation and revenge; but, if they were, it must have been sufficiently gratified by seeing the late insolent Jack-in-office, sunk into "a silent stander-by" with his 100l. per annum, the Pope's indulgence, and their patronage.

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thoroughly furnished therewith, he set his hands to his side, walking up and down, and said, 'How say you, my lord? am not I a goodly fool? How say you my masters? If I were in Cheap, should I not have boys enough to laugh at these apish toys, and toying trumpery?' So the bishop scraped his fingers, thumbs, and the crown of his head, and did the rest of such like devilish observances.

"At the last, when he should have given Dr. Taylor a stroke on the breast with his crosier-staff, the bishop's chaplain said: 'My lord! strike him not, for he will sure strike again.' 'Yea, by St. Peter will I,' quoth Dr. Taylor. The cause is Christ's, and I were no good Christian, if I would not fight in my Master's quarrel.' So the bishop laid his curse upon him, but struck him not. Then Dr. Taylor said, "Though you do curse me, yet God doth bless me. I have the witness of my conscience, that ye have done me wrong and violence: and yet I pray God, if it be his will, to forgive you. But from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and his detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us!' And in going up to his chamber, he still said, 'God deliver me from you! God deliver me from you!' And when he came up, he told master Bradford (for they both lay in one chamber), that he had made the bishop of London afraid: 'for,' saith he laughingly, 'his chaplain gave him counsel not to strike me with his crosier-staff, for that I would strike again; and, by my troth,' said he, rubbing his hands, 'I made him believe I would do so indeed.'"-Fox, vol. vi. p. 691.

The only other mention that I find of Bonner's name in connexion with Taylor's, is that Fox says that when the martyr arrived at the place where he was to suffer, he "with both his hands rent his hood from his head, and so 'it appeared that his head was notted evil favouredly, and 'clipped much like as a man would clip a fool's head; which cost the good bishop Bonner had bestowed upon him when 'he degraded him.' I do not see that Bonner had anything else to do with him.

JOHN BRADFORD, as we have seen had been imprisoned from August 16, 1553, till he was brought before the Council of the 22nd January, 1555, and I do not find

5 "NOTT, for notted, shorn, cut close, or smooth; from to nott, to 'shear or poll; 'he caused his own head tc bee polled, and from 'thenceforth, his beard to be notted and no more shaven.'-Stowe's 'Annals. NOTT-PATED or NOTT-HEADED, a. from the above. 'Having the hair close cut."-See Nares's Glossary. The comic edition reads "knotted." What could the editor suppose it to mean? It is hardly necessary to say that the allusion is to that cutting of the priest's hair which constituted a part of the ceremonial of degradation.

6 I place him here because he was one of those condemned by the Commissioners; but without a number, because, owing to the delay in his execution, his name will occur again hereafter.

that Bonner had anything to do with him during that interval.

At his coming before the Council on the 22nd January', he began his address to it by stating that in the matter of Bourn at Paul's Cross, for which he had been imprisoned, he had done nothing seditiously, but had acted as a faithful and obedient subject. The Chancellor interrupted him by saying "There was a loud lie; for, quoth he, the fact was seditious, as you my Lord of London can bear witness." Bonner, thus appealed to, replied, "You say true my Lord, I saw him with mine own eyes, when he took upon 'him to rule and lead the people malapertly; thereby declaring that he was the author of the sedition." Bradford protested that, "notwithstanding my lord bishop's saying and seeing," he had told the truth; and after a few intermediate words between him and the Lord Chancellor, he repeated this assertion; adding, "Yea, my lord, I dare say 'that my lord of Bath, master Bourn will witness with me 'that I sought his safety with the peril of mine own life; I thank God therefore." If Bishop Bourn made any reply it is not reported; but Bishop Bonner is stated to have said "That is not true; for I myself did see thee take upon thee too much." To this Bradford returned a contradiction; until the Chancellor proposed that they should "leave this matter" (which, though Bradford had thought fit to introduce it, really was not the matter in hand) and asked him point blank, "How sayest thou now? Wilt thou return again," &c.

Bradford was again before the Council at the sitting of the 29th of January, and the only way in which Bonner's presence is noticed is this-that Gardiner said in reply to some observations of Bradford, that he had himself "been 'challenged for being too gentle oftentimes. Which thing the bishop of London confirmed and so did almost all the audience, that he had been even too mild and gentle." He was again before the Council on the next day; but I do not see that Bonner took any part in the proceedings, nor do I find that he had anything more to do with Bradford except at an accidental interview which is thus described by Fox:

7 Fox, vol. vii. 150.

8 Fox, vol. vi. 757.