*

saw Cheke, who was brought from the Tower: and with a mien of gravity advised him to leave the variety of doctors and return to the unity of the Church. Hereupon he drew he drew up in Latin a writing consisting of certain passages of Hilary, Chrysostom, Cyril and Augustine, which seemed to favour the opinion of the Romanensians concerning the Presence in the Sacrament: and sent it to Pole, July 15, in the vain hope that so he might be excused from further question and the pain of a more authentic recantation. On the same day he made the same petition to the Queen, sending his letters by Feckenham, who seems to have stood his friend in that behalf, and to have charged his requests on both the high persons. The reply was that he should do as the Parliament, the clergy, and other apostates had done: make a solemn submission before the Cardinal upon his knees, asking to be absolved and received into the Church. This he did, and was graciously admitted. And yet his prison doors opened not: and after more than two months more he was told to make a cheerful noise: not only to recant, but to protest the joy that he felt in recanting, on pain of burning alive. On the Feast of St. Francis, October 4, the Queen, Pole, and the Council, going to vespers in St. James's, found in the antechapel Feckenham and Cheke, who prostrated themselves, of whom the former presented the latter as a penitent, and, "I put myself in place with this man," said Feckenham, "and open my mouth for him. He has wept with Peter, he has submitted with Paul, and with Thomas he is established in faith and wonder. Gracious lady and mistress, I beseech you, take him into favour; grant him the mercy accustomed to all converts and penitent and to his estates." The same to the same, July 21. Ven. Cal. 536. It was not exactly so.

*This writing and the letters are in Strype, vi. 414 (Originals, No. LIII, LIV, LV).

offenders. For this man shews here openly more sorrow, more repentance, more detestation of his offence, more to the pacifying of God's wrath, more to the satisfying of the world for slander given, than any man heretofore." Hereupon the unfortunate scholar read aloud his recantation that as he had made his humble submission to the lord Cardinal, and had been received by him, so now before her Majesty he confessed that he had been brought back from error by the invincible reasons of Catholic doctors against the Arians, and by the consent of the Catholic Church: that he thanked God for the manner, the clemency thereof: that he had not been moved by policy or worldly consideration, but persuaded by learning and conscience, acknowledging the real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament, no other substance therein remaining, and taking the Pope to be head of the Church: bidding all learn of him to beware of singularity and confidence in private judgment, the more when it was seen in his example that the life and amendment of men was sought, and not their death and shame. The Queen herself answered him, repeating briefly the sum of what he had said, and telling him that if he did all that he had professed heartily, and continued to lead the life that he had promised, beside her grace and the King's grace, he would receive the grace of the Divine Majesty, which mattered more.* * And yet he was sent back to prison. Pole, who had added, as it has been seen likely, to Cranmer's recantation an enormous and most abject supplement, conceived that Cheke's recantation was not enough without another to be read before the Court: and furnished him with the heads, if not the body, of a most abject and enormous supplement. To debellate the subject seemed part of Pole. But in the

* See the interesting account of this scene, which Michiel wrote next day. Ven. Cal. p. 668.

laboured humiliation of the language which he suggested there might be fancied the sound of something ironical. "I am come before this gracious audience," said Cheke to the Court, "both to accuse myself and to give thanks that I have received grace to accuse myself: for without the one I should never have done the other, I was so far

gone in my own conceit. But now, having this grace, I accuse myself willingly and gladly. I follow the order that has been given to me by those whom in this case I am most bound to obey, who are governors in the Church, of whom I desire mercy of that which is past, for grace has brought with it a knowledge and detestation of my most grievous and horrible offence. How good that it has been put into their minds to enjoin me to make confession in the place where I offended, here in the Court, where I had more occasion to do hurt than any other had, being schoolmaster with young King Edward and all the youth of the nobility! It was not my office to teach him religion, but peradventure I confirmed my pestilent error in his mind and of the rest of the youth. What my error was is not unknown to the honourable assembly: but be pleased to understand the quality thereof, which a little time ago I took for no error. It was a blasphemy of the name of the Most High under colour of glorifying it, and a persecution of Christ more grievous than they who crucified Him, more grievous than they who, like Paul, persecuted His disciples. And yet, as my persecution was not so open as was his, so also was my blasphemy more hid: so hid to myself that I thought all who held contrary opinion to be blasphemous. But my ignorance was not such as to excuse me, but rather to aggravate my offence: for, whereas Paul had no knowledge given him by the doctrine of his superiors that whom he persecuted it was Christ, my superiors told me contrary of that I did, if I

would have believed them. They forbad me, and they cursed me if I attempted the same: so that my ignorance can have no colour of excuse. What an arrogant blindness to think I saw more touching the Sacrament of the altar than all the prelates of the Church in this realm since the time the Faith was received! If the Sacrifice of the Mass were idolatry, Mass never ceasing to be said in that manner it is now, and no fault to be found therein, this must either be deep ignorance in them that brought in the Faith, who saw not this, or in me the most execrable that condemned both them and the rest of the world therein. What blasphemy against God's providence and love of His Church, to think that it should have been allowed to live in idolatry so many years without warning: what reproach of our priests and prophets, if when such idolatry crept into the Church, there was not found to reprove men of this idolatry from the primitive ages to Berengarius's time! I marvel at my blindness: but yet I cannot say that I was so blind but I saw somewhat the inconveniency of going against the whole consent of the Church and so to avoid that I fell into another, which was to displace the Church. The Congregation of all Christian men, which is commonly called the Church, I took not for the Church: but sometimes I made the Church a spiritual congregation without a body, invisible as the Spirit is. Then, seeing some inconveniency in that, I began to belie the Church, saying that it was visible and seen on earth, but most seen in the time of the Apostles, which was the Primitive Church. So I went from error to error, increasing in blindness, which I took for light." It will be noted that the untenable Calvinistic distinction between the church composed of all Christians and a supposed interior invisible church, had confused Cheke as it had the rest of the world.

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"There came," proceeded the penitent, " as it were a lamplight, in the midst of the stormy wind, in a maiden's hand, whom no learning, no persuasion, no fear could turn, no power oppress. But I saw not that great miracle, as the rest did: I had not grace to see it, but fled from it, and went thither where I might be confirmed in my corrupt opinion. A whirlwind brought me back and never came I into place where I had more cause to thank God. I found that the cause of my sudden bringing was chiefly for religion. A few days after my first examination in the Tower, came two learned men to confer with me: who moved me nothing: and left me desperate to be reconciled: for there was no death but I had liever have suffered it than change my opinion. Then came, whom the Queen sent, that man who had been in King Edward's time where I was now, in the same prison to whom I had formerly been sent, and had shown him the courtesy that the case could require, but never brought him to my opinion. To his me utterly brought he: and fetched me out of the Tower to those communications with the lord Legate, whence here I am. And having fallen into the error of Berengarius, I now make the same recantation that Berengarius, only changing the names." Here he transcribed the recantation which in the eleventh century Humbert a Cardinal had drawn up for the famous Berengarius with the authority of Pope Nicolas the Second and a Roman Council, to the effect that after consecration there remained not a sacrament, but the very Body and Blood of Christ, which could not be received sacramentally, but only truly and positively neglecting to remember that this recantation had been revoked shortly afterwards by another Pope, Gregory the Seventh himself, who thus implied in a memorable instance that a sovereign pontiff and a Roman Council might err in matters of faith.