himself not only not siderate, and generous. light that was in him: unkind, but long-suffering, con- of seeing to it that his principles of conduct were not contrary to the great maxims of morals and religion: but in a whole realm, a whole generation, it would be absurd to censure one man in especial for not gathering the reflection that liberty of conscience is the inalienable right of the human race. Of the stories of his atrocity some have been seen to rest on weak foundations: but others remain as yet without extenuation. These may be divided into two great branches: and it cannot be denied that he put many of his prisoners in the stocks, or that he gave some of them a beating. As to the former particular, the historian of martyrs inveighs heavily, and his work is illustrated with woodcuts of men in miserable postures, held by foot and hand, or feet with shoulders on the floor: but it is observable that wherever we have a narrative written by any of Bonner's prisoners themselves, there is no complaint found of unusual cruelty used in the application of this punishment.* As to the beatings, which were inflicted in the orchard at Fulham, the historian of martyrs has collected several examples: † * I have noticed one exception. An apprentice named Thomas Green affirmed that he was kept in the stocks in Lollard's Tower day and night for a month. This seems wholly incredible. The same youth says also that a Frenchman, his fellow prisoner, was made to kneel down, and both his hands laid in the stocks, and so remained all night. Fox, iii. 759. In neither case is there any mention of Bonner. In his chapter "concerning such as were scourged and whipped by the Papists for the true cause of Christ's Gospel." iii. 756. In another place he has a most horrible story of one Fetly hanging in the stocks in Lollard's Tower for fifteen days, "sometime by the one leg and the one arm, sometime by the other, and otherwhiles by both": and of his child of eight years being scourged to death by Bonner's chaplains. But he scarcely seems to believe this himself. For a last note on Bonner's prisons, the coalhouse sounds dreadful, but the Council also had a coalhouse, where they put prisoners. Dasent's Acts of the Council. but they were, perhaps without exception, of lads and young apprentices, who were ready enough to have endured the public glories of the stake, and to whom a whipping often proved salutary. But we never read of prisoners dying of starvation in the coalhouse, the salthouse or the tower, as in the gaols of Canterbury and Ipswich. In language and behaviour Bonner seems to have been an oddity. In the diocese of Norwich, under Bishop Hopton and the zeal of Sir John Tyrrel, the persecution was still rigorous. Many were hunted out of the towns where they dwelled, and wandered from place to place: as an old woman named Seaman, and another named Bennet, who fled from Mendlesham rather than go to Mass, slept in the woods, or in such houses as would harbour them, and at last stole home to die. Others were compelled to submission and penance: and the vigorous Berry, vicar of Aylsham, one of the Bishop's commissaries, had two hundred creeping to the Cross in his church on Whitsun Day, to say nothing of other punishments that he assigned. Three men were burned in Norwich in May; in July another, a clergyman, a married man, an old man, named Yeoman, who had been assistant curate of the famous Taylor of Hadley, but dismissed by Taylor's successor: who had endured great poverty, wandering about, hiding himself, put in the stocks by a Kentish justice, caught at last by Taylor's successor, who was a strong Romanensian; and delivered by the reluctant hands of Sir Henry Doyle to the lowest dungeon in the gaol of St. Edmondsbury: to Norwich thence, and there expedited by fire with more than ordinary torment. In the next month four more were burned in St. Edmondsbury, craftsmen and labourers, after examination before the Bishop and Sir Edward Waldegrave. In November three more followed in the same place and in Ipswich two, a young man and woman, who were taken together by Noon, an active justice. The trial of Alice Driver was marked by the exemplary and instant severity of the loss of her ears, ordered by a lay judge, for a verbal comparison between Queen Mary and Queen Jezebel; after that she was remitted to the ecclesiastical authorities, the chancellor and the doctors of Norwich, whom she greatly confounded.* So far as the examinations of all these martyrs have been preserved, they offer little that is valuable. Some of them seem to have had curious opinions. One of them held that "wherever he was, there was the church." In the diocese of Winchester the notable execution of Thomas Bembridge illustrated in a layman the position taken with Archbishop Cranmer that, after some stage of proceeding, recantation should not avail to awaken mercy. This gentleman, a man of fair estate, having obnoxiously withstood the Romanensian worship, was examined in articles by the severe White, the Bishop; condemned, and brought to the fire about the end of July. The scene was remarkable for the hostility mani * Parsons the Jesuit dilates on the case of Alice Driver and her companion Gouch, insinuating against their moral character, that they were caught together in a "haygulf," and so on. As usual, he knows no more than Fox tells him, and puts a bad construction thereon. Three Conversions, Pt. iii. p. 254. fested by the by-standers: one or two of whom abused the martyr virulently. His pardon was offered to him by Doctor Seaton, which he refused: † but when the pile was lighted, as soon as he felt the flame invade the shoes of his feet, he shouted, "I recant." His friends were allowed to rush in and release him: the presiding sheriff stayed the execution; and Bembridge, mounted on a man's back because of his injuries, subscribed to certain articles which were drawn on the spot by Seaton. He was carried back to prison: where he is said to have recanted his recantation. If that were so, it was not the cause of his death: but that he had gone beyond the limit of mercy before he recanted in the fire. The Queen reprimanded Sir Richard Pexall, the merciful sheriff who had stayed the burning, and ordered the execution to proceed out of hand: allowing the condemned to confer with discreet and learned men, to be appointed by the bishop, for the confirmation of his faith, if he were, as he pretended, a Catholic, and in his death to assist him by their comfort to die God's servant. He was burned with horrible cruelty at the * Making use of the horrid expression, "cut out his tongue." We have met with this before and it occurs several times in the martyrdoms of this year and this diocese. + It may perhaps be doubted whether pardon was offered at the stake. At any rate we know that pardon had ceased before then to be so offered. The narrative altogether looks as if Fox were writing what he thought likely more than what he knew. Fox, iii. 742. I venture to think this doubtful. It seems like a natural supposition, to account for the fact that he was executed after all. Or shall we put it after the letter of Council which doomed him, and see in Bembridge a lay Cranmer, who recanted his recantation, finding that it availed not to save him? Fox knows nothing of the letter of Council. See next note. § "At Richmond the first of August 1558. A letter to Sir Rd. Pexall, kt. sheriff of the county of Hampshire, signifying that the Queen's Majesty cannot but think it very strange that he hath stayed one Bembridge from execution, being condemned for heresy: and therefore he is strictly commanded to cause him to be executed out of hand: and if he still continueth beginning of August, a week after his former taste of the fire. In St. David's diocese in Haverford West in April the death of William Nichol a simpleton; the death of a simple woman named Prest in November in the city and diocese of Exeter, manifested the want of intelligence of the persecution. Of Prest many particulars are preserved. She was first brought into trouble by the zeal of laymen, and was long in Launceston gaol, a vile prison, before she came into the hands of Bishop Turberville and his chaplains. Her answers in examination were wonderful in a creature thought to be out of her wits. She was one of the last victims of the reign.† About the same time a poor man named Edward Horne suffered at Nevent in the diocese of Worcester. In the diocese of Canterbury Pole awoke the slumbering fires by a new commission, which he issued in March, to his archdeacon Nicolas Harpsfield, his commissary Collins, and several of the prebendaries of his metropolitical church, to proceed actively against heretics. "With bitterness of heart we understand," said the Archbishop," on credible information, that heretical opinions are propagated in our city and diocese, contrary to the divine law and the determination of the Holy Apostolic Church at this we cannot connive: therefore we appoint in the Catholic faith, as he pretendeth, then to suffer him such discreet and learned men as the Bishop of Winchester shall appoint, who is written unto for this purpose, to have access unto him, and to confer with him for the better confirmation of him in the catholic faith, and to be present with him also at his death, for the better aiding of him to die God's servant. The said sheriff is also commanded to make his undelayed repair hither immediately after the execution, to answer his doings herein." Council Book, ap. Burnet, iii. 454 (Pocock). * Fox, iii. 729. + November 4, Fox, 745 and 855. He says he had her story from “a bill of information." Her long answers to her examiners were composed by the informant plainly enough. Given by Strype, vi. 137. Burned in Winchester diocese, 1558: Thos. Bembridge. In St. David's: Wm. Nicholl. In Exeter: Prest's Wife. In Worcester: Edw. Horne. |