hoping that under this phrase a satisfactory admission might be had, after the success of Lord Howard in a former case. "We ought to prefer God's word before all men," was the reply of Taylor, and he went back to prison.*

The proceedings were renewed more solemnly and publicly a week after with the same persons on three successive days: † and in the church of St. Mary Overy, under a commission from the Legate, a vastly augmented tribunal of thirteen bishops and fourteen laymen, with

* Fox, iii. 140. Taylor had been in prison nearly two years. He had been before Winchester before, and a stormy scene had passed between them. Of that former interview, given by Fox, Parsons the Jesuit remarks that it showed Taylor to be less of a Zwinglian than Fox desired and that to one of his answers about the Presence in the Sacrament Fox has added the parenthesis "(by faith)." Fox, iii. 139. Parsons' Three Conversions, Pt. iii. 333.

+ The question has been raised whether these proceedings were taken under a commission, or were by the Council in its usual meetings, or by Gardiner in his capacity as ordinary, or as chancellor. See Maitland, Essays, p. 440. It seems pretty certain that the first meeting, in Gardiner's house, was a meeting of the Council: so Southwell described it in Bradford's examination (above p. 312). But on the next occasion, January 28, Pole granted a commission. "He granted a commission to the Bishop of Winchester and divers other bishops to sit upon and judge according to the laws lately revived against heretics all such ministers and others that were in prison for heresy: which was done undoubtedly to take off all the eminentist of the Protestant clergy then in hold. And the very same day (such haste they made) they sat in commission in St. Mary Overy's upon Rogers, Hooper, and Cardmaker. And the next to that upon Hooper and Rogers again, upon Taylor also and Bradford, when the two former were formally excommunicated. The day following they sat upon Taylor and Bradford again, to whom were added Ferrar, Crome, and Saunders. Then they excommunicated Bradford and Saunders." Strype's Cranmer, Bk. III. ch. xii. The difference has been obscured in a twofold manner by Strype saying that on the first occasion Gardiner and the rest of the Council who were present sat "as Queen's commissioners," Eccl. Mem. v. 330: and that on the subsequent occasion "the Bishop of Winton sat judicially by his ordinary authority." p. 286. The reverse would have been nearer the truth. On the first occasion Gardiner sat in his own house as president of the Council on the last he sat in the church by commission of the Legate. But on neither occasions did he sit as ordinary: though certainly the place where was in his diocese.

three notaries, summoned before them the prisoners for religion. The president Gardiner sat assisted on his right hand with the Bishops of London, Worcester, Ely, Bath, Gloucester, Bristol: on his left by Durham, Carlisle, Lincoln, St. Davids, Norwich, and Coventry. The Duke of Norfolk, the lords Montague and Wharton; Sir Richard Southwell, Francis Englefield, Robert Rochester, Thomas Wharton, John Hurleston, John Tregonwell, Phillip Draycot, John Germingham, William Coke, Thomas Martyn, Richard Dobbes, knights, represented the temporalty: the notaries were Husey, Johnson and Sey.* A multitude filled the church; an enormous concourse flocked the streets, through which were led into the presence of their judges, on January 28, Crome, Cardmaker, Hooper, Rogers, and others: on the twenty-ninth Hooper and Rogers again: Bradford, Taylor, and Saunders on the thirtieth.† Crome, a moderate man, who had once opposed Hooper's opinion on the Sacrament, whose offence was to have preached without a license, had favour shown him. Desiring two months to answer the articles that were objected to him, he was allowed one month; and disappeared into the safety of his prison. Cardmaker, who had been an Observant friar, exhibited a compliant demeanour, but nevertheless was not set free, but returned to the Bread Street Counter until he should have signed some articles to be drawn by his diocesan Bonner: which it was expected that he would do without difficulty. Hooper, who was cited as a priest, not a bishop, came next; and Rogers in the afternoon with both of whom there was much reasoning

* Strype, v. 286.

+ Strype, v. 331. He gives their order differently in the passage cited in the last note but one.

Cooper's Athenæ Cant. i. 215. He was still in prison in May. Whether he regained his liberty in this reign is unknown.

and disputation concerning matrimony and the Eucharist, and Hooper excited surprise by the heat that he showed towards Gardiner.* At the end of the day, as they went out, each under the conduct of one of the sheriffs of London, they contrived to exchange some words of mutual encouragement. At nine o'clock next morning they were brought back from the Southwark Counter to the church, when a long and earnest conversation ensued, with Hooper first: whom the Commissioners finding to be immovable, condemned to be degraded from the priesthood, and read to him his condemnation.† Rogers, who was summoned into Hooper's place, has transmitted (and the same is true of Bradford who followed Rogers) the history of his encounters with the Commissioners, or rather with their great spokesman the Lord Chancellor : and from his faithful narrative, traced during the few remaining days of his life for the perusal of his brethren, it is easy to imagine the agitating struggle of mind and resolution, more terrible to sustain than death itself, through which the prisoners had to pass. Gardiner, in spite of his fierceness, was hard pressed. In the course of the long conference he propounded the astonishing thesis that "When a Parliament hath concluded a thing,

* One of the sheriffs, who took Hooper away, told him that he had been quick and hasty with the Lord Chancellor, and had used little patience.

+ The "Processus Stepheni ep. Winton. contra Joh. Hooperum presbyterum" &c., in Burnet, Collect. Pt. III. Bk. v. No. XXXV. (Pocock, vol. vi. 370) from the Foxii MSS. in the Harleian Library, vol. 421. (Catalogue, vol. i. p. 245.) Strype (vol. v. p. 285) has given from it an account of the proceedings with Hooper. It appears that Gardiner ministered certain articles to him, as to his marriage: as to the divorce and remarriage of adulterers, which Hooper held to be lawful as to the Eucharist on which last matter he said that the Mass was the iniquity of the devil, and an idol. Strype has also printed the Sentence pronounced on Hooper (vi. p. 276, Originals, No. XXVIII.) from the same Harleian volume, 421. In it Hooper is described as "presbyterum, olim monach.um domus sive monasterii de Clive, ordinis Cistercien."

no private person has authority to discuss whether they have done right or wrong." The answer was, "All the laws of men may not neither can rule the Word of God, but that they must be discussed and judged thereby,” and, as the argument went on, Gardiner was actually driven to call Henry the Eighth an usurper!* He diverted the conversation to the Sacrament: on the mention of which all the bishops rose with him, and put off their caps. Rogers said that it was a matter in which he had been no meddler: insomuch that he had been suspected by his own party of holding the contrary opinion: but that, being demanded, he denied the corporal Presence. "You have dealt with me most cruelly," he vehemently exclaimed to Gardiner, "I have been kept to my house. for six months, and a year in Newgate, at great cost, having a wife and ten children, and receiving not a penny of my livings. What am I in prison for?" Gardiner replied, "For preaching against the Queen." Rogers denied this, and required to be tried on the accusation.† "You continued your lectures against the commandment of the Council."-"That did I not: let it be proved," said Rogers and added, as to the present pass to which things were come, that the Queen would have done well enough but for Gardiner's counsel. "I deny that," answered the Chancellor, "the Queen went before me, and it was her own motion." He gave him respite to the next day, saying, "I and the Catholic Church must yet use charity with thee." On the next morning Rogers

* He made a sort of apology for this: but in fact it was the popish theory.

+ Rogers was rector of S. Margaret's, London, Vicar of S. Sepulcre's, and had the prebend of Pancras. He was also appointed by the chapter of S. Paul's to read a divinity lecture in their church. He preached a sermon at Paul's Cross on August 8, 1553, for which he was called before the Council, examined, and dismissed. He had therefore a right, as he s aid now, to suppose that affair was at an end.

exhibited an admirable exposition of the liberty of the Church, so to term it, of the position that he had a right to be heard against a whole Parliament, if he brought the authority of the Word of God and the primitive Church, Gardiner sarcastically interrupted him, bidding him sit instead of standing, as he took on him to instruct instead of receiving instruction. "And with that," says Rogers, "he stood up, and began to face me, after his old arrogant fashion; for he perceived that I was in a way to have touched them somewhat, which he thought to hinder by dashing me out of my tale, and so he did. For I could never be suffered to come to my tale again, though he had much communication with me, as he had the day before, as his manner is, taunt upon taunt, and check upon check."* The people, who had thronged the church on the previous day, were excluded on this, and few were present but the commissioners and their officers. Rogers explained that in calling the Church of Rome antichristian, as he had done the day before, he meant the laws and doctrines, not all the people: and that in what he had said of the Sacrament he meant not to deny the Sacrament. Gardiner insisted that he had simply denied the Sacrament; and proceeded to read the sentence of his condemnation as a heretic who maintained "that the Catholic Church of Rome was the church of Antichrist, and that in the Sacrament of the altar there was not substantially and really the natural Body and Blood of Christ." Rogers made a last request that his wife might be allowed to see him. Gardiner refused: whereupon the martyr remarked in plain terms upon the open immorality which he affirmed to prevail among the

* Rogers gives some things that he would have said to Gardiner, if he could have got them in, and some that he would have said, if they had come into his mind at the time. He was not the first nor the last whose best speeches have been made after the occasion.