fraternity in procession to the grave.

The whole

brotherhood walked at the burial of the Dean of Arches. When Bonner's official was buried in their chapel, all the masters of Jesus stood around, with thirty mourners.* As to the restoration of the monastic life, it seems to have advanced no further than it had attained, though one or two things of the kind were proposed. Upon the promise of Lord Hastings a bill was passed in Parliament to refound a hospital at Stokepogis. † The mayor of Falmouth offered to rebuild a house of religion there that had been put down in King Edward's days. A petition was presented to Cardinal Pole for the restoration of a hospital in Pontefract, in which the destitution and misery of the inhabitants was strongly represented. §

An unpleasant consequence of the Reconciliation began to manifest itself now, which would have grown

66

* Machyn, 166, 172, 179. "This brotherhood of Jesus," says Strype, seems to have been a guild or fraternity newly founded after the old popish customs" (vi. 108). It consisted not of religious persons, it would seem, but of merchants, citizens, and others, who came to an early service, and were perhaps bound to piety in burying the poor, or plaguestricken, on the model of the pious guilds of Italian cities. Bishop Pilkington afterwards, in an imaginative but abusive passage, called their chapel "Judas' chapel" instead of Jesus chapel. "Judas chapel under the ground, with the Apostles' Mass so early in the morning, was counted by report as fit a place to work a feat in as the stews or taverns." Burning of Paul's, Works, Park. Soc. 541.

+ Parliament Journals.

Fresneda to the Queen, Foreign Calend. 390.

§ Petition of Jn. Hamerton for the re-edifying of the college and hospital of St. Trinity, desired by the whole inhabitants and the poor of the hospital. "There were in the town an abbey, two colleges, one house of friar preachers, one anchoress, one hermit, two chantry priests, and one guild priest. Now we have left an unlearned vicar, who hires two priests, for he cannot else discharge his cure, and has under forty marks. The proctors catch at most of the property, and the needy get none at all, so that the town is in great misery, ghostly and bodily, since the sanctuaries of God have been so misused and defiled." Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Addenda, Mary, p. 442.

VOL. IV.

Ꮓ Ꮓ

troublesome if the reign had lasted longer: claims revived by foreigners, of the sort that had sucked the blood of England for ages. A couple of Austin canons came out of Italy on business of the congregation of their Order, recommended to the justice of the Queen by the powerful voices of Cardinal Caraffa and the Duke of Savoy. Their business was to get back a benefice in the diocese of Ely which had been granted two hundred years before to a monastery in the city of Vercelli.*

The persecution slumbered the time that the Parliament and the Convocations sat: it thence burst forth again. Bonner put articles to four prisoners, March 19: the same that he had ministered so often before, Green or Whittle's articles, with a few others added: two days afterwards he had them in Consistory: and, March 28, three of them, Simpson, Hugh Fox, and Devenish, were burned alive in Smithfield. Cuthbert Simpson, the most remarkable of them, was deacon of that secret congregation of which Rough was minister: he was taken with the others in the meeting at Islington, sent by the Council to the Tower, and there examined repeatedly on the rack, and otherwise by torture, to make him divulge the names of the assembly, before he was delivered to Bonner in December.† Bonner put him in the coalhouse and laid him in the stocks without being able to subdue the absolute patience which he maintained through all: and finally dismissed him to the fire with a rough expression of admiration.‡

* Caraffa to the Queen: Savoy to the Queen: March, For. Cal. 363, 367.

† Fox, iii. 727 : Strype, vi. 110: Burnet, ii. 581 (Pocock).

The torture of Simpson, the illegal doing of the lay power, indicates political fear, whether well or ill grounded. Bonner's treatment was mild in comparison. Simpson was able to write a letter to his wife from the coalhouse. His designation "deacon of the Christian congregation"

Of the congregation of Islington no less than twenty-two were caught afterwards, and lodged by Justice Cholmley in Newgate: of whom two died in prison, seven escaped by hearing a Mass or some other submission, seven kindled for the last time the fires. of Smithfield, and six were reduced to ashes in Brentford. Of them that escaped two were assisted to their lives by the vigour of Bonner (to whom the whole batch was sent), who gave them a scandalously expository beating in his orchard at Fulham: whereon one of them fell ill with an illness that lasted to the next reign, the other put his hand to a piece of paper, and found himself free.* Of them that endured the flames the examinations turned upon the usual points, that they disliked the Latin service, went not to church, denied the Corporal Presence, approved the English Service, the Books of Common Prayer, the Communion Books of Edward the Sixth, especially of the later part of his reign. Of one of them, Holland, the particulars are preserved. His observation was acute that papists and anabaptists agreed in one point, not to obey any prince or magistrate who was not sworn beforehand to maintain them and their doings: and when he said that nobody even who understood the Latin language could understand the Latin service, the priests so champed and chewed the words, and posted so fast; and that the people instead of praying with the priests were set meantime to their bedes to pray our Lady's Psalter; and that neither the priests knew what they were saying nor the people what the priests said, he struck deep. Holland received kindness from Bonner, who did his best to get him off, sounds like Frankfort: but he may be claimed as an Anglican martyr, since the congregation met to hear the English Service of King Edward, and to have the English Communion. See his articles in Fox.

* The Scourging of Thomas Hensham and John Willes. Fox, iii. 739.

and offered him money. Bonner laboured with them all for six weeks and reminded them that their imprisonment was none of his work. He was assisted in examining them by Chedsey and the two Harpsfields, by Cole and Darbyshire, his chancellor. In the consistory there were many laymen sitting with him.* with him.* A contemporary relates that, though the royal proclamation against heartening heretics was read, the martyrs were cheered by an enormous multitude at Smithfield: and that at Brentford the execution followed the sentence on the night of the same day, an unusual circumstance which was imputed to craft, to fear, and to Bonner. †

* Fox, 773: Burnet, ii. 582. Burned in Smithfield, 27 June.

+

Hy. Pond

Reinold Eastland

Rt. Southam

Matt. Rickerby

Jn. Floyd

Jn. Holiday

Roger Holland

Burned in Brentford, 14 July.

Robt. Wills

Steph. Cotton

Robt. Dymes

Steph. Wright

Jn. Slade

Wm. Pikes

There were seven men burned in Smithfield, the 28 day of June, altogether a fearful and cruel proclamation being made that under pain of present death no man should either approach nigh unto them, neither speak unto nor comfort them: yet were they so mightily spoken unto, so comfortably taken by the hands, and so godly comforted, notwithstanding this fearful proclamation and the present threatenings of the sheriff and sergeants, that the adversaries themselves were astonied. And since that time, either for fear or craft, the Bishop of London carried seven men, or six at the least, forth of his colehouse to Fulham, the 12 day of this month, and condemning them there the 13 day at one of clock in the afternoon, caused them to be carried the same time to Brentford beside Sion, where they were burned in post haste the same night. This fact purchaseth him more hatred than any that he hath done, of the common multitude." Bentham to Lever, 17 July. Strype, vi. 133. But Bonner would have no control of the time and place of execution, when he had delivered the condemned to the secular arm. This Bentham was then minister of the congregation to which the martyrs belonged, having succeeded to Rough and Bernher. Fox relates that it was he who was foremost in heartening them. "Mr. Bentham, the minister then of the congregation, not sparing for that, but as zeal and Christian charity moved him, seeing the fire set to them, turned his eyes to the people, cried and said, We know that they are the people of God, and therefore

Quickened by another letter from the Council,* the Bishop of London, that we may pursue him to the end of his deeds, turned his eyes once more to the fertile region of Essex: whither in April he sent a commission, consisting of Chedsey and Morton his chaplains, and his secretary, Boswell, for the examination of heresy. They found a large crop of "as obstinate heretics, anabaptists, and other unruly persons as ever was heard of": and speedily brought six to trial. It began to appear however that there was some restraining power in high place, as it regarded them: and "in the midst of their examination and articulation " Chedsey received an order to repair to the Council without delay. He vainly protested that the estimation of the commission would be for ever lost if now they stayed their hands. In his absence the others continued their labours: but the only result of the enterprise was that three, two men and a woman, were burned alive in Colchester, after keeping prison a month.†

The character of Bonner, stained by obloquy, will have been discerned by the reader not to have been the worst that could be. He was a man of resolution, who, having undertaken what he held to be a duty, neither shrunk from executing it, like some, nor feigned to execute it, like others. He avoided no personal inconvenience in discharging it: and, though he would not allow of evasion or subterfuge, yet otherwise he showed

we cannot choose but wish to them and say God strengthen them: and so boldly he said, Almighty God, for Christ's sake strengthen them. With that all the people with a whole consent and one voice followed and said Amen, Amen. The noise whereof was so great, and the cries thereof so many, that the officers could not tell what to say or whom to accuse." Fox, iii. 774.

* Burnet, Fox, iii. 454 (Pocock). + Strype, vi. 125: Fox, iii. 732.

Burned at Colchester, May 26.

Wm. Harris

Rd. Day

Christiana George