amid the crowd to the place. He smiled when he beheld the stake: and knelt down to prayer, beckoning to some of his friends to draw near enough to catch his words. At that moment a box containing his pardon on condition of recanting was placed before him. "If you love my soul, away with it: if you love my soul, away with it,' cried Hooper. His noble prayer was "that in the fire he might not break the rules of patience" and never was such a prayer more sorely needed. To fasten him to the stake three iron hoops had been provided: he refused to be fixed by more than one, and this was allowed. The fire was then applied. But the wood was green, and scandalously deficient in quantity: the wind was violent: the flame played cruelly with the sufferer, and then burnt out, not availing to explode the bladder of gunpowder which had been mercifully attached to his body. Thrice had the fire to be renewed, his nether extremities were reduced to ashes before any vital part was reached: the powder went off without much effect: blood, fat, and water hissed out of his fingers: one arm dropped off while the other continued to beat his breast: and threequarters of an hour elapsed before this dreadful martyrdom was at an end.*

Ten years ago, in 1878, a part of Hooper's stake was found, with a quantity of wood ashes, in excavating a mound known as St. Mary's Knapp, just outside the cathedral precints, where he suffered. This relic is in the museum. Among the town accounts of the city of Gloucester, preserved in the archives there, are some curious entries as to Hooper's burning: which were published by Mr. Bellows in a valuable paper read at the Cottswold Club, 1878. The stewards of Gloucester, three in number, in account with the city, write, "And the same accomptantes also asketh allowance of XI s in money given in reward to the king and queen's servants at the bringing down of Master Hooper to be brent by the commandment of master Maire and his brethren. Also in money by them paid for a dinner made and given to the Lord Chandos and other gentlemen at Mr. Maire's house that day that mast. Hooper was brent, as by a bill of particulars made by the aforesaid master maire, and upon this accompte shewed, proved and examined more at large appeareth Xiiii s

Such was the first circle of martyrs: for of those who had failed to satisfy the examiners in St. Mary's Overy the other two, Ferrar and Bradford, were not put to death as yet. If it was hoped that their condign suffering would diffuse an universal terror, never was expectation worse founded. The abominable spectacles awoke disgust, the constancy of the martyrs veneration: a bishop and three priests had died for the Church of England, for the Reformation. It mattered little then that there were differences among them, which it is now necessary for a moment to distinguish in the blaze of their common glory: that between Hooper, the beginner of the vestiary controversy, and Saunders, whose crime it was to have preached in defence of the English Order of Service as compared with the Latin, it might be possible to draw a distinction: that Rogers, whose boast was that he had never worn a square cap all the days of Edward, and who, like his friend Hooper, had spent much of his life abroad, was a less conformable person viii d. And more in money paid to Agnes Ingram for wine by master Kingston and others expended the same day in the morning by the commandment of master Maire, v s viii. d." In his interesting monogram Mr. Bellows shows that the narrative in Fox contains local peculiarities showing it to have been derived from a Gloucestershire informant. As, that straw is called in it reeds: as it is still thereabouts.

* I suppose that there can be no reasonable doubt that Rogers was the Thomas Matthew of the translation of the Bible. (See Vol. I. 519 of this work.) But oddly enough none of the modern writers on the subject, so far as I know, seem to be aware that it was not Fox but Bale who first asserted this, and that the passage is of great bibliographical importance. "Wittembergam deinde ad aliquot annos moratus, multo esse cœpit eruditior in divinis illis scripturarum mysteriis, contulitque industriam omnem ad ea in nativa regione propaganda. Grande Bibliorum opus a vertice ad calcem, a primo Geneseos ad ultimum Apocalypseos vocabulum, usitatis Hebreorum, Grecorum, Latinorum, Germanorum, atque Anglorum exemplaribus, fidelissime denuo in idioma vulgare transtulit. Quod opus laboriosum, excellens, ac sanctissimum, adjectis ex Martino Luthero præfationibus et annotationibus utilissimis, ad Henricum Anglorum regem sub nomine Thomæ Mathew, epistola prefixa dedicabat." Cent. fol. 242, first edn. 1548.

than the untravelled parson of Hadley, whose last gift to his wife was the English Prayer Book that he had used daily in gaol. They stood together against Rome. They were Anglican martyrs, whether conformists or nonconformists. No other religious body than the Church of England has any right to boast their names, nor the names of those who went after them to death. No sect had, or could have had, any share in the saving by fire of the Church of England from Rome.*

*It is necessary to point out that the battle lay between two sections of the Church of England: the Romanensians, who were for restoring the Roman jurisdiction, and the reformers, who were for maintaining the independence which had been declared by Henry the Eighth. Both were churchmen, the one as much as the other. But from a somewhat ambiguous use of the word Church, the history is often read as if the battle had been between "the Church on the one side and dissenters or

men of all opinions on the other. For instance, Mr. Froude has this fine passage among many other such. "The enemies of the Church were to submit or die. So said Gardiner, in the name of the English priesthood, with the passion of a fierce revenge. So said the legate and the queen, in the delirious belief that they were chosen instruments of Providence. So, however, did not say the English lay statesmen" (vi. 326). The false cross divisions that underlie talk of this kind are: 1. That the churchmen who died for the Church were enemies of the Church: the Church being on one side and the enemies on the other. 2. That the priesthood were on one side and the laity on the other. Now was there nothing that might seem to warrant such puerile notions? Yes, there was the papal conception that the Church was the universal bishopric of Rome, or Holy Apostolic See; and that the Church of England was nothing but a part of that see. That is what the popular historians mean, if anything, when they use the term Church in such a connection. The men who died held that the Church of England was not part of a universal see, but part of the universal Church, and, as the Church of a nation, an independent Church: and that it always had been so, whether admitting the superiority of Rome or not. Organized bodies of dissenters or separatists from the Church of England were not in existence at the time : there were no "enemies of the Church" in the modern sense. There were two sets of churchmen, each of which was an enemy to the other's conception of what the Church was. The modern dissenters have no claim to share the glory of the side that conquered by suffering. But Mr. Froude's way of writing would make modern dissenters, and even men of no particular religion think that the glory belongs to them. He transports the present position of things into the sixteenth century.

The executions instantly made manifest the serious dissensions that existed between the Queen's party and the King's party (if I may so express it): that is, between those who had proceeded to extremity and those who counselled moderation. On February 10, the day after the martyrdom of Taylor and Hooper, a Spanish Franciscan in Philip's confidence, Alphonso a Castro, preached before the Court a sermon in which he emphatically protested against cruelty, inveighing in plain terms against the bishops who had composed the tribunal and shared the responsibility of Gardiner: that bishops were taught in the Scriptures to instruct in the spirit of meekness them that opposed them, and not to burn them for their consciences.* About the same time the Spanish ambassador Renard represented to Philip in a long memorial the danger of violent proceedings in a kingdom only newly recovered and with an uncertain. succession. "The heretics seek all occasions to retrieve themselves and shake our commencement. They will be delighted to be able to say that we seek to reduce them by fire more than by doctrine and example: the more in that the clergy are not reformed, but have among them abuses which give rise to scandal, and are ill in accord with the offices to which they are called. Let the guardian of religion, the legate of the Pope, the relation of the Queen, the friend of the kingdom, let Pole be admitted into the Council; or at least let great affairs be imparted to him for his advice. Let there be no precipitation in using cruel punishments for religion, but the moderation which the Church has always used; win back the people by teaching and preaching: and let there be needful reformation in the clergy."+

* Fox, 149: Burnet, ii. 490 (Pocock): Strype, v. 333: Heylin, ii. 169: Collier, ii. 382.

+ "Convient présupposer que la religion n'est encore assurée: que les

The sermon of Alphonso has been treated by historians as an hypocritical device to avert from Philip and the Spaniards the blame of the executions, which the English might be willing to fling upon them. The question was indeed beginning to be raised, who might be responsible for the persecution, for the terrible spectacles which had, perhaps against expectation, already ensued, and seemed likely to ensue, upon the operation of the new laws. The public disgrace, the defect of the realm to protect the subject, was so grave a matter, that whence came it, who first moved it, might well be asked. The bishops, on whom of course the popular apprehension would first rest, had already disclaimed the imputation by the mouth of their chairman. Gardiner, who in the course of the sessions of the Commission had several times publicly assigned it to the Queen. Alphonso could not charge the Queen: but he flung back the burden on the bishops, of whom he was, as a friar, a natural enemy: and in so doing he indirectly héréticques cherchent toutes les occasions qu'il est possible excogiter pour renouveller l'erreur et mectre en doubte le commencement que jà y a estè donné, et se veullent aider des punitions cruelles, qu'ils dient l'on faict pour par le feug les reduire, plustôt que par doctrine ou exemple: s'aidant que les gens d'eglise ne sont réformées, qu'il y a plusieurs abuz que donnent scandale et maulvaise impression, et qu'ils ne repondent aux offices auxquels ils sont appellez. . . Item, que comme le légat Pole est légate du pape, qu'il est parent de la royne, qu'il a charge des choses de la religion, qu'il est bien voulu au royaulme, a quantesfois il luy plaira entrer au dict conseil il y soit admis, receu, et qui puisse opiner comme les aultres, ou sinon qui l'on luy communicque les affaires importans pour en avoir son advis, luy diférant l'honneur que sa qualité, vertu, et bonne vie mérite. Item, que ès choses de la religion l'on ne use de précipitation par punition cruelle, ains avec la modération et mansuetude requise, et dont l'eglise a tousjours usé, retirant le peuple de l'erreur par doctrine et prédication: et que, si ce n'est un acte scandaleux, l'on ne passe oultre en chastoy que puisse altérer le peuple et le dégouster: que la réformation réquise pour le bon exemple soit introduicte sur les gens de l'église, comme le dict sieur légat advisera pour le mieulx.” Renard to Philip, Feb. Granvelle, Papiers d'Etat, vol. iv. 395, 397.