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Ridley, cheering one another in that final hour, played the man, and lighted such a candle in England, as by the grace of God has not yet been extinguished. We know the story of Cranmer's recantation, (told at full length by Mr. Froude, who indorses some rather questionable statements,) of his subsequent repentance-his own stern punishment inflicted on the hand which signed the falsehood, and his soul wafted to heaven in the flames. All these are narrated with much force by Mr. Froude, and will be read again with an undying interest.

man said. "God be with thee, good father, and be of good comfort," was the reply. We are told, that when he begged those present to pray for him, the magis trate who had committed him replied, "Pray for thee! I will no more pray for thee than I will for a dog!" "Son of God, then shine on me," Hunter exclaimed; and as he spoke, the sun burst through the clouds, and shone in glory on his face.

constant death was a defeat of the common en"Every martyr's trial was a battle; every emy; and the instinctive consciousness that truth was assisting itself in suffering, converted the natural emotion of horror into admiring pride."-Page 354.

These examples entirely failed to effect their object, if it were hoped that they would serve to intimidate the Protestants. The whole spirit of the nation was arousThe story of William Hunter presents ed against such cruelty, and testified its a striking illustration of the manner in sympathy with those who suffered. One which the persecution affected the middle lad, whom Bonner threatened, walked up class of the people. Hunter, a young to a burning candle, and held his hand, apprentice, refused to attend mass when it without flinching, in the flame. As Lawwas reestablished, and was then sent by rence sat in the midst of the fagots at his master to Brentwood, in Essex, to Colchester, the little children came about keep him out of trouble. One day a him, and cried, "Lord, strengthen thy priest entered Brentwood church, and servant, and keep thy promise!" Hunfound Hunter reading the Bible there. ter's last words were, "I am not afraid. "Could be explain the Scriptures?" asked Lord, receive my spirit." Cardmaker, the priest. Hunter answered, "that he who had retracted, stung to the quick by read it for his comfort; he did not take on his own shame, recovered his courage, himself to expound. The Bible taught and marched firmly to the stake, amidst him how to live, and how to distinguish the triumphant shouts of, "God be praisright from wrong." The priest replied ed. The Lord strengthen thee, Cardmakthat the boy was a heretic, and should er!" broil for it. Hunter's friends urged him. to fly; but a Catholic magistrate required his father to produce him, on peril of being arrested in his stead. The lad returned and surrendered, although his father offered to suffer in his room. He was cast into prison, and, after every effort had been made to induce him to recant, he was condemned to suffer at his native village. In this case Bonner seems to have been really anxious to save his prisoner. "If thou wilt recant," he said to him, "I will make thee a freeman in the city, and give thee forty pounds in money to set up thy occupation withal; or I will make thee steward of mine house, and set thee in office, for I like thee well." Hunter thanked him for his kindness; but it could not be ; he must stand to the truth. The interval before his death was spent with his friends in the parlor of the Swan Inn. Father and mother encouraged him in his resolution. "Mother," said the boy, "for my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a crown of joy." As he marched to the stake, his father was at the roadside. "God be with thee, son William," the old

"But martyrdom was often but a relief from more barbarous atrocities. In the sad winter

months, the poor men and women, who, untried and uncondemned, were crowded into the bishops' prisons, experienced such miseries as the very dogs could hardly suffer and survive. They were beaten, they were starved, they were flung into dark, fetid dens, where rotting straw was their bed, their feet were fettered in the stocks, and their clothes were their only covering; while the wretches who died in their misery were flung out into the fields where none might bury them.

"Lollards' Tower and Bonner's coal-house were the chief scenes of barbarity; yet there were times when even Bonner loathed his work. He complained that he was troubled with matters that were none of his; the bishops in other parts of England thrust upon his hands would not themselves put to death; and being in offenders whom they durst not pardon, and London, he was under the eyes of the court, and could not himself evade the work. Against Bonner, however, the world's voice rose the loudest. His brutality was notorious and un

questionable, and a published letter was address- | and a blind man were burnt at Stratford-le Bow. ed to him by a lady, in which he was called 'the common cut-throat and general slaughter-slave to all the bishops in England.' 'I am credi bly informed,' said this person to him, 'that your lordship doth believe, and hath in secret said, that there is no hell. The very Papists themselves begin now to abhor your bloodthirstiness, and speak shame of your tyranny. Every child can call you by name, and say, Bloody Bonner is Bishop of London! and every man hath it as perfect upon his fingers' ends as his paternoster, how many you for your part have burned with fire and famished in prison these three quarters of a year. Though your Lordship believe neither heaven nor hell, neither God nor devil, you were best to surcease from this cruel burning and murdering. Say not but a woman gave you warning. As for the obtaining your Popish purpose in suppressing of the truth, I put you out of doubt, you shall not obtain it so long as you go this way to work as you do. You have lost the hearts of twenty thousand that were rank Papists within this twelve months.'"-Vol. vi. pp. 389-91.

In the same month three women suffered at Smithfield, and a blind boy was burnt at Gloucester. In Guernsey, a mother and her two daughters were brought to the stake. One of the latter, a married woman with child, was delivered in the midst of her torments, and toe infant just rescued was tossed back into the flames. Reason, humanity, even common prudence, were cast to the winds. On the twenty-seventh of June, thirteen unfortunates, eleven men and two women, were destroyed together at Stratford-le-Bow, in the presence of twenty thousand people. A schoolmaster in Norfolk read in full an inflammatory proclamation in a church. He and three others were instantly hanged. Ferocity in the government and lawlessness in the people went hand in hand. Along the river stood rows of gibbets with bodies of pirates swinging from them in the wind. In the autumn, sixty men were sentenced to be hanged together, for what crime is unknown, at Oxford; and, as a symbol at head-quarters of the system of administration, four corpses of thieves hung as a spectacle of terror before the very gates of St. James's palace.

But as the months rolled by, the perse- men and women were brought to London from "On the twentieth of August, twenty-three cution only increased in its severity. Clchester, tied in a string with ropes, to furEvery fresh cause of alarm to the court, nish another holocaust. A thousand people or of disappointment to the government, cheered them through the streets as they enwas held to be a reason for renewed cruel- tered the city; and the symptoms of disorder ties. The continued failure of an heir, the were so significant and threatening, that Bondisaffection of the Papal court to the roy-ner wrote to Pole for instructions how he should al houses of Austria and England, the hostilities of France, which resulted in the loss of the last of our possessions on the European continent, the various conspiracies which were contrived in England against a rule which was becoming daily more intolerable—each and all of these did but furnish an occasion for fresh holocausts, by which the wrath of God and man might be appeased. The early apologists inform us that under the heathen emperors the universal cry in every evil hour was, "Persecute the Christians." The counselors of Mary, and the Queen herself, had but one remedy for all misfortunes-the burning of the heretics.

proceed. The Government was alarmed; the cided that it would be dangerous to go on with council, not without good consideration,' dethe executions; and Pole, checking Bonner's zeal, allowed the prisoners to escape for a time, under an easy form of submission which they could conscientiously take. They were dismissed to their homes, only, however, for several of them to be slaughtered afterward under sion of reprimanding the citizens of London for fresh pretexts in detail; and Pole took an occatheir unnatural sympathy with God's enemies. That he had no objection to these large massacres, when they could be matured safely, he showed himself in the following year, when fourteen heretics of both sexes were burnt in two days at Canterbury and Maidstone."-Page

447.

In 1556, the general suffering seemed likely to be aggravated by famine. The of the noble band of martyrs who gave A peculiar interest attaches to the last harvest of the preceding year had failed, their solemn and unflinching testimony and prices were daily rising. The anxieties thus occasioned were enhanced by the during the reign of Mary. "Early in the Dudley conspiracy, and the persecutions morning of May-day, in 1558, a company "degenerated," to use Mr. Froude's ex-ber, assembled secretly in a back close in of men and women, about forty in num

pression,

"into wholesale atrocity. On the twenty-third of April, six men were burnt at Smithfield; on the twenty-eighth, six more were burnt at Colchester; on the fifteenth of May, an old lame man

a field by the town of Islington," then far away from London. They were engaged in reading the Scriptures and in prayer, when the constable of Islington came upon the little flock of worshipers, and some

The letter reflects light, also, on the characters of Gardiner and Pole. Bonner would not have if he had not known that the tone was familiar dared to write to them in a style so nonchalant to them, and not disagreeable. It shows, also, the justice of the popular judgment of Bonner's character, expressed in a line to be remembered for its truth, if it can not be admired for its elegance :

twenty-seven were arrested. Twenty- to bring it as near as possible to his own home. two of them were forthwith committed to Newgate, and as they lay there for some weeks unnoticed, two of their number died in prison on the fourteenth of June; seven of them were brought before Bonner, were condemned to the flames, and were all burnt in Smithfield on the twenty-seventh of June; six more were then selected for prosecution, and, pending the pronunciation of their sentence on the eleventh of July, were confined in Bonner's coal-house, and subsequently at his palace at Fulham. Whilst they were there, Bonner had occasion to write to Cardinal Pole upon some other business, and in his letter he thus makes allusion to his prisoners:

'Carnificis nomen debetur jure Bonero.""

This letter of Bonner's suggests the most painful thoughts as to the fate of other victims in this frightful tragedy. The capture of so large a band as that which was assembled at Islington would not fail to be a matter of notoriety; yet even in their case the Bishop of London "Further, may it please your Grace, conwould venture to propose a hurried and cerning these obstinate heretics that do remain almost secret trial. In how many inin my house, pestering the same and doing stances, then, may we not believe that much hurt many ways, some order may be obscure prisoners were allowed to rot in taken with them, and in mine opinion, as I their dungeons, in order that their perseshowed your Grace and my Lord Chancelor, it cutors might escape the odium of a pubshould do well to have them burnt in Hammerlic prosecution? This would be more smith, a mile from my house hence. For then can I give sentence against them here in the probable as the popular disgust was more parish church, very quietly and without tumult, plainly expressed, and the irritation of and having the sheriff present, as I can have the Romish party at their own manifest him, he, without business or stir, can put them failure became aggravated. Not until the to execution in the said place, where otherwise last great day, when the hidden misdeeds the thing will need a day in St. Paul's, with of mankind shall be revealed, will the full more cumbrance than now it needeth. And so most humbly I take my leave of your Grace, extent of the iniquity of these proceedbeseeching the same that I may be advertised ings be exposed, and a terrible flood of with speed of your pleasure. Scribbled in haste, light poured into the dark places full of cruelty, which were even then, however, illumined by the grace that never fails those who rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for the truth.

etc."

This letter, which is not alluded to by Mr. Froude, was first published by Mr. Bruce in the Athenæum, about six years ago; and we can not refrain from adding some of the admirable comments from Mr. Bruce's pen upon so monstrous a pro

duction :

"We have here," he writes, "an apt illustration of the dyer's hand taking the very color in which it works. The long course of the hideous persecution, which had now lasted for three years, had brought the actors in that terrible iniquity to think lightly of the lives which they sacrificed. Bonner writes, 'scribbles in haste,' upon the subject with a listless carelessness which indicates the most supreme indifference. The consignment of half a dozen human beings to the most frightful torture, was a 'thing' merely to be got over with as little fuss as possible. It was not worth the trouble of a day in St. Paul's.' A man of really kindly feeling would have avoided the neighborhood of such a scene horror-struck; Bonner endeavors

We have preferred to let Mr. Froude, as a witness whose testimony is above all suspicion of religious prejudice, tell in his own language the sickening details of the Reformers' sufferings. There is but one more feature to be noticed in the martyrdoms, and this is their cowardice. There were in England many noblemen whose heretical opinions were notorious; earl and baron, knight and gentleman, were known to avoid attendance at mass, and to be favorers of the same dogmas as those who died. But the Council never struck at those who would dare to strike again.'

"They went into the highways and hedges; they gathered up the lame, the halt, and the blind; they took the weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the husbandman from his plow; they laid hands on maidens

and boys who had never heard of any other re-work of condemning testimony. No fuligion than that which they were called on to ture time will greatly soften the disgust abjure; old men tottering into the grave, and in which their memories will be held. children whose lips could but just lisp the articles of their creed; and of these they made their burnt offerings; with these they crowded their prisons; and when famine and filth killed them, they flung them out to rot."-Vol. vi. pp. 532, 533.

Such a choice of victims only serves to augment the infamy of the persecutors; but for the sake of the truth it was better that it should be so. The sympathy of the masses of the people was more readily awakened, their attention was more eagerly directed to those sufferers who belonged to the same class with themselves. The reality of the divine power of the Gospel was more fully tested when it was seen that it could enable, not men of knightly lineage and hereditary pride, to maintain an undaunted bearing, but those to whom all the worldly stimulants were lacking which support men in the hour of adversity. No more unequal contest ever was waged in any period than that of Popery, with royal and material power, against the Protestantism of the merchants, the yeomen, and the poor. Their truth had been tried, and not found wanting; their creed, bathed in its baptism of blood, had been washed from the foul blots with which self-interest and policy had grievously marred it; their doctrines had been proved to be fruitful of the best results, such as would fit men to live in honor, and to die in peace. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church, and Protestantism sprang up like the phenix from their ashes.

In the letter from which we have already extracted a quotation, Mr. Bruce makes the following powerful remarks upon the endeavors to gloss over the atrocious behavior of the actors in this tragedy: "In the whole range of English historical characters, no one stands out more distinctly than Bishop Bonner. Every body who knows any thing of the period of our Reformation, and many who do not, are as intimately acquainted with his person as with his deeds. His rubicund, fat, comely, jolly-looking presence, which was the occasion of so many jokes among his cotemporaries - his smooth, round, florid, pleasant-looking countenance, his courtly manners, his speech, ordinarily mild and placid, but conjoined to a temper which was easily ruffled, and, when that chanced to be the case, bursting forth in words not seemly in any man, and extremely the reverse in a bishop-these are peculiarities with which we are all familiar from infancy. To his friends, he probably seemed very much of a gentleman-courteous, gentle, and pleasantspeaking in the highest degree-probably a little over-polite; but an extremely complaisant and agreeable person. To those who judged him merely by his look and personal appearance, it must have been a mystery how it came to pass that the common people held him in such utter abhorrence, and applied to him a repulsive epithet, which to this day he continues to share with his mistress, Queen Mary. It is obvious, even in the most partial accounts Yet, although we acknowledge thank- of the people who were brought before fully that such has been the issue, we find him on the grounds of religion, that he in it no exculpation for the authors of behaved to most of them, at first, not such a tragedy. On Mary, Pole, Gardi- merely with good temper, but with a great ner, and Bonner, must forever rest the deal of seeming kindness. He tried to frightful responsibility of all this blood- smooth down their ruffled feelings, to shed. In whatever proportions the guilt win upon their regard, to coax them into may be distributed, despite any exten- relinquishing their peculiar opinions. Over uating circumstances that may be alleged and over again we find him appealing to in favor of any one of them, the fact re- them so forcibly and kindly as to draw mains in evidence which defies all contra- thanks and tears from bystanders interdiction, that the burden must be borne ested in their fate. Yet this same man, between them. Attempts have frequent- with all his external kindliness and pity, ly been made in recent years to vindicate was capable of perpetrating the most the Cardinal and the Queen from their monstrous cruelties with absolute heedshare in the business; but all such at-lessness and sang froid. An attempt tempts have turned out failures. No was made a few years ago to show that amount of special pleading has availed to the popular judgment respecting him was disentangle their names from the net- in part erroneous. The writer was a gen

tleman who loves truth above every thing, and has done a great deal to promote the cause of historical accuracy. He proved indisputably that many things alleged in books against Bonner were exaggerated; he dwelt at length upon the pleasant features of his character; but he was unable to remove one atom of the weight of that traditional odium which justly rests upon him as a willing minister in the perpetration of the most atrocious barbarities."

It were hard to conceive a more painful scene than that presented by the close of Mary's life and reign. As the last days of her earthly career drew on, the shadows gathered more darkly over her spirit, and a terrible and impenetrable gloom at length lowered upon and enveloped her mind. No sovereign, perhaps, had ever assumed the reins of government under more favorable auspices. The evils which had raged under Northumberland's misrule had disposed the English people gladly to welcome a change in the administration. The abortive attempt to deprive Mary of the succession had awakened the affectionate loyalty of the people, and had stifled the misgivings of those who feared her bigotry, but would not oppose her lawful claim. The fondest aspirations of her own heart had been gratified by her marriage with a young and royal bridegroom; whilst the power of more than half of Europe was wielded by the hand of him whom she espoused. Her own personal character had so far been unsullied, her sorrows had been deep, and in the stern school of adversity it might be hoped she would have learned to tolerate the convictions and to feel for the sufferings of others. Yet all these hopes were blasted in their blossom. She acquired the affection of her subjects only to exchange it for their bitter detestation. She obtained the husband of her choice only to suffer at his hands the last indignity that a wife can undergo. From a few months after her marriage not a victim in Bonner's coalhouse whose lot was not more enviable than that of the Queen of England.

Even before her marriage she was a prey to the most miserable mental dejection.

"In vain she attempted to cheer her spirits with the revived ceremonial of Whitsuntide. She could not cast off her anxieties, or escape from the shadow of her subjects' hatred, which clung to her steps. Insolent pamphlets were dropped in her path, and in the offices of Whitehall; she trod upon them in the passages of the

palace; they were placed by mysterious hands in the sanctuary of her bed-room. She would start out of her sleep at night, picturing a thousand terrors, and among them one to which Philip, who had taken such possession of her all else were insignificant, that her Prince, her imagination, had no answering feeling for herself; that with her growing years and wasted figure, she would never win him to love her."

This wretchedness was augmented when she failed to have a son. No wonder if, with her blind adhesion to the Romish creed, she had believed the inflated language of its prelates to be really applicable to her accession to power. No wonder if the almost blasphemous adulations of the ambassador from Christ's vicar upon earth had sounded as prophetic of blessing to the most dutiful of his children. No wonder, too, that as the legate had told her that her career was supernatural, she looked for supernatural explanations of her disappointment. And her dejection was proportionate to her exalted expectations. Passionate and restless she lingered on. With swollen body, and haggard and shrunk features, she would sit upon the floor for hours, her face hidden in her hands, and her soul clouded in an agony of doubt.

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This strange apathy, broken by furious. outbursts of dark passion, only gathered strength with time. We are half-disposed to adopt Mr. Froude's suggestion that her mind became affected: Those forlorn hours when she would sit with her knees drawn to her face; those restless days and nights, when, like a ghost, she would wander about the palace galleries, rousing herself only to write tear-blotted letters to her husband; those bursts of fury over the libels dropped in her way; or the marchings in procession behind the host in the London streets- these are all symptoms of hysterical derangement, and leave little room, as we think, for other feelings than those of pity." So far Mr. Froude. Yet may not her example stand out as a warning against attempting to compass an end we believe to be right by means which the simplest thought might convince us must be wrong? She, herself, believed that God was against her. Was she mistaken? Let us drop the curtain over the scene.

of our remarks to advert to a few of the We have only been able in the course many lines along which Mr. Froude's nar rative is directed. It is inevitable that in

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