needless to repeat the conversation which ended by the bishop's again asking him "whether he would turn from his 'error, and come to the unity of their church? To whom ' he said, 'No; I would ye should recant: for I am in the 'truth, and you in error.' 'Well,' quoth the bishop, if ye will return, I will gladly receive you.' 'No,' said Higbed, 'I will not return as you will have me, to believe ' in the sacrament of the altar, your God.' Whereupon the 'bishop proceeded, and gave judgment upon him."

They were then delivered to the sheriffs of London by whom they were kept in Newgate a fortnight; after which (on the 23rd of March) they were delivered to the sheriff of Essex, and they were burned on the 26th of the same month.

(9.) WILLIAM PYGOT. (10.) STEPHEN KNIGHT. (11.) JOHN LAURENCE. After what has been just said (p. 359) of these three martyrs, it may be sufficient to add, that as it appeared that no quick dispatch had been made in bringing them to trial, so also, no indecent haste was made in executing the sentence pronounced against them. On the 9th of February Pygot and Knight were brought before the bishop "into his great chamber in his palace, where he persuaded with them to recant, and deny their former profession."-"The Bishop also used certain talk unto John Laurence only "—that is, I presume, he conversed with the priest apart from the butcher and the barber-after which they joined the other prisoners, Tomkins and Hunter, in the Consistory whence after talk and "other fair words and threatenings," they were remanded until the afternoon. "At that hour they came thither again, and there, after the accustomed manner, were exhorted to recant and revoke their doctrine, and receive the faith." But, "when the bishop saw that neither his fair flatterings, nor yet his cruel threatenings, would prevail, he gave them severally their judgments."

They were immediately delivered to the Sheriffs of London, and Pygot and Knight were burned on the 28th, and Laurence on the 29th of March.

(15.) WILLIAM FLOWER, alias BRANCH. Of this "rash indiscreet man," who rushed on the officiating priest at St.

Burnet, Hist. of Reform. ii. 290.

Margaret's, Westminster, and shed his blood upon the consecrated hosts, I have had occasion to speak already (p. 192). Immediately on the commission of his offence, which was on Easter Sunday, the 14th of April, 1555, he was committed to the Gatehouse at Westminster. On the following Friday he was as Fox states, "convented before Bonner his Ordinary;" and "the bishop, after he had sworn him upon a book (according to his ordinary manner) ministered Articles and interrogatories to him." The Articles and the answers having been given, Fox proceeds;-"After this examina'tion done, the bishop began after the best sort of his fine divinity to instruct him, and exhort him to return again to 'the unity of his mother the catholic church, with such reasons as he is commonly wont to use to others, promising many fair things if he would so do, besides the remitting of what was past.' Flower thanked him, but told him that though he might kill his body he had no power over his soul, and that he would never go from what he had spoken concerning the sacrament whatever might be done to him. The bishop remanded him till the afternoon, willing him "in the meantime, to advise himself of his former answers, whether he would stand to the same his opinions or no:" and when in the afternoon he was again brought up, "the bishop sitting in his Consistory, spake these words: Branch, ye were this forenoon here before me, and made answer to certain articles; and thereupon I respited you 'till now, to the intent you should consider and weigh with yourself your state; and to remember while you have time, both your abominable act, and also that evil opinion which ye have conceived, touching the verity of Christ's 'true natural body in the sacrament of the altar:' to whom 'the said Branch answered again, and said as followeth : "That which I have said, I will stand to; and therefore I require that the law may proceed against me.'" notary having thereupon again read over the articles, and he having asked, and obtained, leave to make one or two alterations in his answers, not affecting the principal questions, "the bishop turning again to his old manner of exhorting, went about with words (and words only) to 'persuade him to submit himself to the catholic church, ' and to the faith therof;" and remanded him till the next day.

The

Then, as Fox proceeds to state, he "was brought by his 'keeper belonging to the Warden of the Fleet, before Bonner, 'who, after his wonted manner of persuasion going about to 'reduce him to his catholic church and the unity thereof; 'that is, from Christ to Antichrist; sometimes with fair 'promises alluring, sometimes with menaces and terrors, fearing him, etc.; to this William answering, said on this wise: "Do what ye will, I am at a point; for the heavens shall as 'soon fall, as I will forsake mine opinion, etc.' Whereupon 'the bishop, after he had commanded these words to be ' registered, called for the depositions of certain witnesses;" and after they had been read, and the prisoner had been asked what he had to say against sentence being passed, and he had replied that he had nothing to say but what he had said, the sentence was passed, and it was carried into execution on the Wednesday after.

(16.) JOHN CARDMAKER. His history is somewhat obscure. It appears that he and Barlow had been brought before the Council in the Star Chamber, on the 9th of November; on which occasion he was committed to the Fleet. That he was amongst those brought before the Commission on the 28th of January is clear; for Fox says "Cardmaker this day submitted himself unto them";" and he also says, referring to the same occasion, and respecting him and Barlow" they both made such an answer, as the Chancellor with his fellow commissioners allowed them for catholic"." That they really did so, seems sufficiently proved by their getting away without condemnation; but Fox, who seems to think that anything is better than the admission that any of the reformers recanted, or quailed, absurdly suggests "Whether they of 'weakness so answered, or he of subtlety would so under'stand their answer, that he might have some forged example ' of a shrinking brother to lay in the dish of the rest, which 'were to be examined, it may easily be perceived by this, 'that to all of them which followed in examination, he objected 'the example of Barlow and Cardmaker, commending their 'soberness, discretion, and learning." So then after all that we have heard of the bloodthirsty Chancellor's rabid zeal to destroy his victims, especially by striking (fairly or not) at

Fox, vi. 562.
7 Ibid. vol. vii. p. 78.

6 Ibid. 588.
8 Fox, vii. 78.

the higher sort, when a Bishop and a Prebendary made a bold, plain, and (on that day particularly) public, profession of the reformed faith, the crafty papist pretended to believe that they fully consented to rank popery, and would not understand anything else-and pretended that they had recanted, when they had done no such thing; and not only pretended this to the crowded audience before whom the examination had taken place, but stated it over and over again as a known fact to "all them which followed in examination "-that is to the friends of Barlow and Cardmaker, not one of whom, as far as I see, denied or even questioned it. There are few things liable to become so absurd and inconsistent, as party malice.

But though there can be no doubt that Cardmaker did submit, in such a way that his life was spared at that time, yet it seems as if it was either by some conditional arrange ment, or else that he immediately got into fresh trouble; for when Laurence Saunders was excommunicated and sent to the Compter on the 30th of January, he found Cardmaker in confinement there". He was probably kept as a prisoner either because he did not fulfil some promise of submission, or on account of some fresh matter; but, at all events, as Fox expresses it, he "remained there prisoner, to be baited 'of the papists, who would needs seem to have a certain hope 'that Cardmaker was become theirs. Continual and great 'conference divers of them had with him, with reasonings, 'persuadings, threatenings, and all to none effect.' Dr. Martin, of whom we have heard before in the case of John Careless, was the "chief doer;" but it seems to have been all in vain, for the "papistical trash" which he had to offer, "Cardmaker answered largely, learnedly, and substantially." So the next things that we find in his history (though not before the 24th of May) are Articles ministered to him by Bonner; the first of which is, "that thou wast and art of the city and diocese of London, and so of the jurisdiction of me, Edmund, Bishop of London ;" to which the sometime Prebendary of Wells "answereth and confesseth the same to be true in every part thereof."

I do not find anything else which shows that Bonner had to do with him. He suffered in Smithfield on the 30th of

? Fox, vii. 78.

May; and the only other fact which I observe respecting him is that "two or three days" before that time, one Beard" called on him, professing that he came to him from the Council, to know whether he would recant.

(17.) JOHN WARNE, an upholsterer in Walbrook, appears to have been examined at the same time, and to have suffered on the same day, as Cardmaker; but to have had no other connection with him. According to the Articles ministered against him, which are given by Fox (he "con'fessing and granting the articles and contents thereof to be 'true, according as they were objected in every part; sub'scribing also the same with his hand ") he was not only what the popish party would consider an old offender, but one of that class of mockers which have been already described. The fourth article was, "that thou hast said, that "whereas about a twelvemonth ago, and more, a great rough water spaniel of thine was shorn in the head, and had a 6 crown like a priest's made in the same, thou didst laugh at 'it and like it, though thou didst it not thyself, nor knewest 'who did it." Nobody will suppose this to have been the only thing of the sort in which John Warne was engaged; and if it was not very bad in itself, still there was something in it which was indicative of the animus of the man, and of the company which he kept. But another article shows us that he must have begun a course which brought him into notice, and trouble, at a very early age. He was, we are told, on this 23rd of May, 1555, only twenty-nine years of age; and it appears from one of the articles confessed by him, that he had been convented to the Guildhall for heresy under the Act of Six Articles, on the Thursday after the burning of Anne Askew, which must have been about nine years before the time of this present trouble, and when he could not have been more than twenty years of age. He seems to have married the widow of one Robert Lashford, a cutler10, 10 who must have been a good deal older than he was; as she had, at this time, a daughter by her former marriage, who was twenty years of age. The wife was one of the congregation of Thomas Rose, which was taken in Bow Church-yard on New Year's night, as has been already mentioned. Both she and her daughter suffered at a subsequent period; but

10 Fox, vii. 749,