tion that should fall upon her. And I, foreseeing then the destruction which you, through violence and unrighteousness which you then declared, would work against the true Church of Christ and her faithful members, (as this day beareth witness,) was compelled to weep in remembrance of that which I, with infinitely more, have felt, and shall feel." It was in vain for him to protest that he thought most reverently of the Sacrament, and believed it to be one of the greatest treasures and comforts that Christ had left us on earth. The point of transubstantiation was insisted on; and Bonner, after a train of reasoning too gross and despicable to be repeated, broke up the sitting, saying he would trouble their Lordships no longer with this obstinate man, with whom they could do no good.

After this, Bonner displayed himself in his natural character. When he summoned him again, he addressed him with," Sirrah, come hither!" called him a fool, and a very ignorant fool, and said, "By my faith, thou art too well handled; thou shalt be worse handled hereafter, I warrant thee!" "If to be in a blind coal-house, both without fire and candle, may be counted good handling," replied Philpot, "then may it be said I am well handled. Your Lordship hath power to entreat my body as you list." "You think," quoth Bonner, "because my Lord Chancellor is gone, that we will burn no more; yet, I warrant thee, I will despatch you shortly, unless you do recant." Philpot coolly replied," My Lord, I had not thought that I should have been alive now, neither so raw as I am, but well roasted to ashes!" Bonner then read the libel against him, to which Philpot, in the first instance, objected upon legal grounds, as stating falsely that he was of Bonner's diocese. "What," said Bonner, " art thou not of my diocese? Where are ye now, I pray you?" Philpot answered, "I cannot deny but I am in your coal-house; yet I am not of your diocese. I was brought hither by violence; and therefore my being here is not sufficient to abridge me of mine own ordinary's jurisdiction." But in these iniquitous proceedings it availed the martyr as little to plead Law as Gospel.

The libel charged him with denying baptism to be necessary; denying fasting, prayer, and all good works; teaching that faith was sufficient, whatever a man's actions might be; and that God was the author of all sin and wickedness. "Is not your Lord

ship ashamed," said Philpot, "to say that I maintain these abominable blasphemies? which, if I did maintain, I were well worthy to be counted an heretic, and to be burnt an hundred times, if it were possible!" He was now frequently set in the stocks at night, and being more narrowly watched and searched, was prevented at length from recording the proceedings. They ended as usual, in delivering him over to the secular arm; and he' suffered in Smithfield, manifesting to the last the same brave heart, collected mind, and firm faith, which he had shown in all his trials.

It is probable that Philpot, and some of his fellow-martyrs, were detained so long in prison before any farther steps were taken against them, in a hope that the continual apprehension of the dreadful fate, which nothing but their recantation could avert, might exhaust their spirits, and fear, acting upon a debilitated frame, produce what never could have been effected by reasoning. But this motive could not have operated in Cranmer's case; the determination had been taken that no mercy, under any circumstances, should be extended to him; and it seems, therefore, he had been kept alive thus long, that he might taste the bitterness of death in every separate martyrdom of his friends, before he himself was called for. The Romanists hated him as the person by whom, more than by any other single hand, the Reformation in this country had been conducted. In what manner the Protestants regarded him, was strikingly expressed by Ridley; "the integrity and uprightness of that man," said he," his gravity and innocency, all England, I think, hath known long ago. Blessed be God, therefore, which, in such abundance of iniquity, and decay of all godliness, hath given unto us, in this reverend old age, such a witness for the truth of his Gospel. Miserable and hard-hearted is he, whom the godliness and constant confession of so worthy, so grave and innocent a man, will not move to acknowledge, and confess, the truth of God!"

As soon as Cranmer perceived what course events were likely

"Of all the Marian martyrs," says Fuller," Mr. Philpot was the best born gentleman; Bishop Ridley the profoundest scholar; Mr. Bradford the holiest and devoutest man; Archbishop Cranmer of the mildest and meekest temper; Bishop Hooper of the sternest and austerest nature; Dr. Taylor had the merriest and pleasantest wit; Mr. Latimer had the plainest and simplest heart. Oh the variety of these several instruments! Oh their joint harmony in a concert to God's glory! B. viii. p. 21.

to take after King Edward's death, he gave orders that all his debts should be paid, to the uttermost farthing, and cancelled the bills which were due to him from persons who were not in a condition to discharge them. This being done, he said he was his own man, and with God's help, able to answer all the world, and all worldly adversities. Those adversities soon came upon him he was attainted of treason, and adjudged guilty of it. Upon this point, he knew that he had offended, and solicited pardon; protesting, that he had opposed the late King's intention of altering the succession, and had only been induced to sign the will, by the King's earnest request, and the opinion of the judges. The pardon was granted; not as an act of mercy, for Mary and her counsellors never acted under that impulse; but that he might be proceeded against as a heretic, and condemned to a more cruel and ignominious death. He attempted to obtain a hearing from the Queen, that he might explain to her, upon what grounds her father and her brother had altered the religion of the country. It lay not in him, he said, nor in any private subject, to reform things; but quietly to suffer what they could not amend. Yet he thought it his duty, considering what place he once bore, and knowing what he did, and having borne a great part in all the alterations, to show the Queen his mind; and when he had done this, he should think himself discharged. If this request had been granted, it would have produced no effect. But, after his removal to Oxford, he, with Ridley and Latimer, was brought forward in St. Mary's, to hold a disputation with the Romanists, . . . that the latter might adjudge the victory to themselves. When this was over, they were condemned as heretics; from which sentence Cranmer appealed to the just judgement of the Almighty.

But because the kingdom had not, at that time, been reconciled to the Pope, he was to be tried and sentenced upon a new Commission. Accordingly, he was arraigned for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy, before the same Commissioners who condemned his fellow-prisoners: upon which occasion, vailing his cap, like them, to the Queen's representatives, he covered himself when he looked at the Pope's delegate. Brooks opened the proceedings with a speech, in which he reminded the Archbishop of the low origin from which he had risen, and the high degree

whence he had fallen, lower and lower, and now to the lowest degree of all, . . . to the end of honour and life. "If the light of your candle," said he, "be dusky, your candlestick is like to be removed, and have a great fall; so low, that it be quite out of God's favour, and past all hope of recovery: for in hell is no redemption. The danger whereof being so great, very pity causeth me to say, remember from whence thou hast fallen!... I add also, and whither you fall!" He then exhorted him to renounce his errors, assuring him, that he had been spared for his treason, in hope of his amendment; and that, if he were converted, it was ten to one that though he had been Metropolitan of England, he should be as well still, and rather better.

Cranmer maintained his cause with his wonted learning and gentleness, and with that superiority which the cause itself gave him. When he acknowledged his marriage, one of the Commissioners observed, that his children then were bondmen to the See of Canterbury. He smiled at this, and asked whether, if a Priest kept a concubine, their issue were bondmen? adding, "I trust you will make my children's case no worse.' Depositions concerning the doctrines he had preached were taken against him, and he was then cited to appear at Rome in person within eighty days, there to make his answer. This, he said, he would be content to do, if the Queen would send him : but this was a mere form and mockery, for he was detained in strait prison; and, at the end of the term, declared contumacious for not appearing, and as such condemned. They did not even wait till the term was expired before they degraded him. Thirlby and Bonner were commissioned to perform this ceremony. The former had been his old and familiar friend, and had received many and great kindnesses from his hands: his tears and his emotions showed that he remembered this. But Bonner officiated with characteristic insolence. That the mockery might be more insulting, the vestments were made of rags and canvass. In this plight, with a mock mitre and pall, and a crosier in his hand, he was exhibited in St. Mary's, while the brutal Bonner exclaimed, "This is the man that hath despised the Pope, and now is to be judged by him! This is the man that hath pulled down so many churches, and now is come to be judged in a church! This is the man that contemned the blessed

Sacrament, and now is come to be condemned before that Sacrament!" And in this strain he went on, though Thirlby repeatedly pulled him by the sleeve, to make him desist, and had obtained promise from him to use Cranmer with reverence. The Archbishop submitted calmly to all, saying, he had done with this gear long ago; but he held the crosier fast; and instead of yielding it, delivered a paper, containing his appeal to a General Council. He was then dressed in a yeoman's threadbare gown and a townsman's cap, and sent back to prison.

He was now dealt with very differently from any of the former sufferers; for he was removed to the house of the Dean of Christ Church, and treated there, rather as a guest than a prisoner, with every possible indulgence, and with every mark of real, or pretended, regard; some, perhaps, acting from sincere attachment to him, others in the hope of prevailing upon a mind which was naturally timid. That they succeeded, is certain; but it is doubtful to what extent. The probability is, that he signed an equivocal recantation; and that the other papers, five in number, wherein he was made to acknowledge, in the most explicit terms, the doctrines which he had repeatedly confuted, and to vilify himself as a mischief-maker and blasphemer, were fabricated by Bonner's directions. The circumstances are altogether suspicious, as well as perplexed; and nothing appears certain, but that he submitted, under a promise that his life should be spared, and that he should pass it, if he did not wish for wealth or dignity, in a private station, and wherever he listed. That, after this, it should have been determined, not only to put him to death, but to make him suffer the extreme rigour of their accursed laws, and burn him alive, was a cruelty beyond that of the Inquisition itself; the victims of that tribunal, who suffered as confessing and repenting of their opinions, being always strangled before they were burnt. This cruelty is imputed to the Queen's implacable resentment against him, for the part which he had taken in her mother's divorce: but in this, as in all the cruelties of this inhuman reign, Cardinal Pole is implicated; his principle was, that no thieves, no murderers, were so pernicious to the commonwealth, as the heretics; that no treason was to be compared to theirs, and that they were to be rooted up, like brambles and briers, and cast into the fire. No perse