pardon upon it, in case he should recant; but he ordered it to be removed, and prepared cheerfully to suffer his sentence, which was executed in its full severity. The fire, either from malice or neglect, had not been sufficiently kindled; so that his legs and thighs were first burned, and one of his hands. dropped off, while with the other he continued to beat his breast. He was three quarters of an hour in torture, which he bore with inflexible constancy.

Sanders and Taylor, two other clergymen, whose zeal had been distinguished in carrying on the Reformation, were the next that suffered. Taylor was put into a pitch-barrel; and, before the fire was kindled, a fagot from an unknown hand was thrown at his head, which made it stream with blood. Still, however, he continued undaunted, singing the thirty-first Psalm in English; which one of the spectators observing, struck him a blow on the side of the head, and commanded him to pray in Latin. Taylor continued a few minutes silent, and with his eyes steadfastly fixed upward; when one of the guards, either through impatience or compassion, struck him down with his halberd, and thus happily put an end to his

torments.

The death of these only served to increase the savage appetite of the popish bishops and monks for fresh slaughter. Bonner, bloated at once with rage and luxury, let loose his vengeance without restraint, and seemed to take a pleasure in the pains of the unhappy sufferers: while the queen, by her letters, exhorted him to pursue the pious work without pity or interruption. Soon after, in obedience to her commands, Ridley, bishop of London, and the venerable Latimer, bishop of Worcester, were condemned together. Ridley had been one of the ablest champions for the Reformation; his piety, learning, and solidity of judgment, were admired by his friends, and dreaded by his enemies. The night before his execution, he invited the mayor of Oxford and his wife to see him; and when he beheld them melted into tears, he himself appeared quite unmoved, inwardly supported and comforted in that hour of agony, When he was brought to the stake to be burnt, he found his old friend Latimer there before him. Of all the prelates of that age, Latimer was the most remarkable for his unaffected piety, and the simplicity of his manners.

He had never learned to flatter in courts; and his open rebuke was dreaded by all the great, who at that time too much deserved it. His sermons, which remain to this day, show that he had some learning and much wit; and there is an air of sincerity running through them not to be found elsewhere. When Ridley began to comfort his ancient friend, Latimer, on his part, was as ready to return the kind office. "Be of good cheer, brother," cried he, "we shall this day kindle such a torch in England, as, I trust in God, shall never be extinguished." A furious bigot ascended to preach to them and the people while the fire was preparing; and Ridley gave a most serious attention to his discourse. No way distracted by the preparations about him, he heard him to the last, and then told him that he was ready to answer all that he had preached upon, if a short indulgence should be permitted but this was refused him. At length fire was set to the pile: Latimer was soon out of pain; but Ridley continued to suffer much longer, his legs being consumed before the fire reached his vitals.

One Thomas Haukes, when conducted to the stake, had agreed with his friends, that if he found the torture supportable, he would make them a signal for that purpose in the midst of the flames. His zeal for the cause in which he suffered was so strong, that when the spectators thought him near expiring, by stretching out his arms he gave his friends the signal that the pain was not too great to be borne. This example, with many others of the like constancy, encouraged multitudes not only to suffer, but even to aspire after martyrdom.

But women seemed persecuted with as much severity even as men. A woman in Guernsey, condemned for heresy, was delivered of a child in the midst of the flames. Some of the spectators humanely ran to snatch the infant from danger; but the magistrate, who was a papist, ordered it to be flung in again and there it was consumed with the mother.

Cranmer's death followed soon after, and struck the whole nation with horror. This prelate, whom we have seen acting so very conspicuous a part in the Reformation during the two preceding reigns, had been long detained a prisoner, in consequence of his imputed guilt in obstructing the queen's suc

cession to the crown. But it was now resolved to bring him to punishment: and, to give it all its malignity, the queen ordered that he should be punished for heresy rather than for treason. He was accordingly cited by the pope to stand his trial at Rome; and though he was kept a prisoner at Oxford, yet upon his not appearing, he was condemned as contumacious. But his enemies were not satisfied with his tortures, without adding to them the poignancy of self-accusation. Persons were, therefore, employed to tempt him by flattery and insinuation, by giving him hopes of once more being received into favour, to sign his recantation, by which he acknowledged the doctrines of the papal supremacy and the real presence. His love of life prevailed. In an unguarded moment he was induced to sign this paper; and now his enemies, as we are told of the devil, after having rendered him completely wretched, resolved to destroy him. But it was determined, before they led him out to execution, that they should try to induce him to make a recantation in the church before the people. The unfortunate prelate, either having a secret intimation of their design, or having recovered the native vigour of his mind, entered the church prepared to surprise the whole audience by a contrary declaration. When he had been placed in a conspicuous part of the church, a sermon was preached by Cole, provost of Eton, in which he magnified Cranmer's conversion as the immediate work of heaven itself. He assured the archbishop, that nothing could have been so pleasing to God, the queen, or the people; he comforted him, by intimating, that, if he should suffer, numberless dirges and masses should be said for his soul; and that his own confession of his faith would still more secure his soul from the pains of purgatory. During the whole rhapsody Cranmer expressed the utmost agony, anxiety, and internal agitation; he lifted up his eyes to heaven, he shed a torrent of tears, and groaned with unutterable anguish. He uttered a prayer; filled with the most pathetic expressions of horror and remorse. He then said he was well apprized of his duty to his sovereign; but that a superior duty, the duty which he owed his Maker, obliged him to declare that he had signed a paper contrary to his conscience; that he took this opportunity of atoning for his error by a sincere and open recantation; he

was willing, he said, to seal with his blood that doctrine which he firmly believed to be communicated from heaven; and that, as his hand had erred by betraying his heart, it should undergo the first punishment. The assembly, consisting chiefly of papists, who hoped to triumph in the last words of such a convert, were equally confounded and incensed at this declaration. They called aloud to him to leave off dissembling; and led him forward, amidst the insults and reproaches of his audience, to the stake at which Latimer and Ridley had suffered. He resolved to triumph over their insults by his constancy and fortitude; and, the fire beginning to be kindled round him, he stretched forth his right hand, and held it in the flames till it was consumed, while he frequently cried out in the midst of his sufferings, "That unworthy hand!" at the same time exhibiting no appearance of pain or disorder. When the fire attacked his body, he seemed to be quite insensible of his tortures; his mind was occupied wholly upon the hopes of a future reward. After his body was destroyed, his heart was found entire an emblem of the constancy with which he suffered.

These persecutions were now become odious to the whole nation; and, as it as it may be easily supposed, the per- A. D. petrators of them were all willing to throw the odium 1556. from themselves upon others. Philip, sensible of the hatred which he must incur upon this occasion, endeavoured to remove the reproach from himself by a very gross artifice. He ordered his confessor to deliver in his presence a sermon in favour of toleration; but Bonner, in his turn, would not take the whole of the blame, and retorted the severities upon the court. In fact, a bold step was taken to introduce a court similar to that of the Spanish inquisition, that should be empowered to try heretics, and condemn them without any other form of law than its own authority. But even this was thought a method too dilatory in the present exigency of affairs. A proclamation, issued against books of heresy, treason, and sedition, declared, that all persons who had such books in their possession, and did not burn them without reading, should be deemed rebels, and suffer accordingly. This, as might be expected, was attended with bloody effects: whole crowds were executed, till even at last the very magistrates,

who had been instrumental in these cruelties, refused to lend their assistance. It was computed that during this persecution, two hundred and seventy-seven persons suffered by fire, besides those punished by imprisonment, fines, and confiscations. Those who suffered by fire were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay-gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, fifty-five women, and four children.

All this was terrible; and yet the temporal affairs of the kingdom did not seem to be more successful. From Philip's first arrival in England, the queen's pregnancy was talked of; and her own extreme desire that it should be true, induced her to favour the report. When Pole, the pope's legate, was first introduced to her, she fancied the child stirred in her womb; and this her flatterers compared to the leaping of John the Baptist in his mother's belly, at the salutation of the Virgin. The catholics were confident that she was pregnant; they assured themselves that this child would be a son; they were even confident that heaven would render him beautiful, vigorous, and witty. But it soon turned out that all their confidence was ill-founded; for the queen's supposed pregnancy was only the beginning of a dropsy, which the disordered state of her health had brought upon her.

This opinion of the queen's pregnancy was carefully kept up by Philip, as it was an artifice by which he hoped to extend his authority in the kingdom. But he was mistaken: the English parliament, however lax in their principles at that time, harboured a continued jealousy against him, and passed repeated acts by which they ascertained the limits of his power, and confirmed the authority of the queen. Ambition was his only ruling passion; and the extreme fondness of the queen for his person was rather permitted by him than desired. He only purposes of

wanted to make her inclination subservient to the his power; but finding her unable to satisfy him in that hope, he no longer treated her with any return of affection, but behaved to her with apparent indifference and neglect at length, tired with her importunities and jealousies, and finding his authority extremely limited in England, he took the first opportunity of leaving her, and went over to the emperor his father in Flanders. In the mean time the queen's passion increased in proportion to the coolness with which it was re