CHAP. univerfal in favour of toleration as by fome it is repreXXXVII. fented. Where fects arife, whofe fundamental principle on all fides, is to execrate, and abhor, and damn, and 1555. extirpate each other; what choice has the magistrate left but to take party, and by rendering one fe&t entirely prevalent, reftore, at least for a time, the public tranquillity? The political body, being here fickly, muft not be treated as if it were in a state of found health; and an affected neutrality in the prince, or even a cool preference, may ferve only to encourage the hopes of all the fects, and keep alive their animofity. The proteftants, far from tolerating the religion of their ancestors, regard it as an imicus and deteftable idolatry; and during the late minority, when they were entirely mafters, they enacted very fevere, though not capital, punishments against all exercife of the catholic worship, and even against fuch as barely abftained from their prophane rites and facraments. Nor are inftances wanting of their endeavours to fecure an imagined orthodoxy by the most rigorous executions: Calvin has burned Servetus at Geneva: Cranmer brought Arians and Anabaptifts to the stake: And if perfecution of any kind is to be admitted, the moft bloody and violent will furely be allowed the moft juftifiable, as the most effectual. Imprisonment, fines, confifcations, whippings, ferve only to irritate the fects, without difabling them from refiftance: But the stake, the wheel, and the gibbet, muft foon terminate in the extirpation or banishment of all the heretics, inclined to give disturbance, and in the entire filence and fubmiffion of the rest. THE arguments of Gardiner, being more agreeable to the cruel bigotry of Mary and Philip, were better received; and though Pole pleaded, as is affirmed ^, the advice of the emperor, who recommended it to his daughter-in-law, not to practise violence against the protestants, and defired her to confider his own example, who, after endeavouring through his whole life, to extirpate herefy, had, in the end, reaped nothing but confusion and disappointment, the scheme of toleration was entirely rejected. A Burnet, vol. ii. Heylin, p. 47. It is not likely, however, that Charles gave any fuch advice: For he himself was at this very time proceeding with great violence in perfecuting the reformed in Flanders. Bentivoglio, part i. lib. 1. 1555. ed. It was determined to let loose the laws in their full CHA P. rigour against the reformed religion; and England was XXXVII. foon filled with fcenes of horror, which have ever since rendered the catholic religion the object of general detestation, and which prove, that no human depravity can equal revenge and cruelty, covered with the mantle of religion. tions in THE perfecutors began with Rogers, prebendary of Violent St. Paul's, a man eminent in his party for virtue as well perfecuas for learning. Gardiner's plan was firft to attack men of that character, whom, he hoped, terror would bend England. to fubmiffion, and whofe example, either of punishment or recantation, would naturally have influence on the multitude: But he found a perfeverance and courage in Rogers, which it may seem strange to find in human nature, and of which all ages, and all feats, do notwithstanding furnish many examples. Rogers, befide the care of his own prefervation, lay under other very powerful temptations to compliance: He had a wife, whom he tenderly loved, and ten children; yet fuch was his ferenity after his condemnation, that the jailors, it is faid, waked him from a found fleep, when the hour of his execution approached. He had defired to see his wife before he died; but Gardiner told him, that he was a prieft; he could not poffibly have a wife; thus joining infult to cruelty. Rogers was burnt in Smithfield B. HOOPER, bishop of Glocefter, had been tried at the fame time with Rogers; but was fent to his own diocese to be executed. This circumftance was contrived to ftrike the greater terror into his flock; but it was a fource. of confolation to Hooper, who rejoiced, in giving teftimony, by his death, to that doctrine, which he had formerly preached among them. When he was tied to the stake, a ftool was fet before him, and the queen's pardon laid upon it, which it was ftill in his power to merit by a recantation: But he ordered it to be removed; and chearfully prepared himself for that dreadful punishment, to which he was fentenced. He fuffered it in its full feverity: The wind, which was vehement, blew the flames of the reeds from his body: The faggots were green, and did not kindle easily: All his lower parts were confumed, before his vitals were attacked: One of his hands Fox, vol. iii. p. 119. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 302. CHA P. hands dropt off: With the other he continued to beat hi XXXVII. breast: He was heard to pray and to exhort the people, till his tongue, fwoln with the virulence of his agony, 1555. could no longer permit him utterance. He was three quarters of an hour in torture, which he bore with inflexible conftancy C. SANDERS was burned at Coventry. A pardon was also offered him; but he rejected it, and embraced the stake, faying, "Welcome the crofs of Chrift; welcome ever"lafting life." Taylor, parfon of Hadley, was consumed by flames in that place, amidst his antient friends and parishioners. When tied to the stake, he repeated a palm in English: One of his guards ftruck him on the mouth, and bid him fpeak Latin: Another, in a rage, gave him a blow on the head with his halbert, which happily put an end to his torments. THERE was one Philpot, archdeacon of Winchester, poffeffed of fuch zeal for orthodoxy, that having been engaged in difpute with an Arian, he fpit in his adverfary's face, to fhew the great deteftation, which he had entertained against that herefy. He afterwards wrote a treatise to justify this unmannerly expreffion of zeal; and he faid, that he was led to it, in order to relieve the forrow conceived from such horrid blafphemy, and to signify how unworthy fuch a mifcreant was of being admitted into the the fociety of any chriftian D. Philpot was a proteftant; and falling now into the hands of people as zealous as himself, but more powerful, he was condemned to the flames, and fuffered at Smithfield. It seems to be almost a general rule, that, in all religions, except the true, no man will fuffer martyrdom, who would not alfo inflict it willingly on all who differ from him. The fame zeal for fpeculative opinions is the cause of both. THE article, upon which almost all the proteftants were condemned, was, their refufal to acknowledge the real presence. Gardiner, who had vainly expected, that a few examples would ftrike a terror into the reformers, finding the work daily multiply upon him, devolved the invidious office on others, chiefly on Bonner, a man of profligate c Fox, vol. iii p. 145, &c. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 302. Heylin, p 48, 49. Godwin. p. 349. D Strype, vol. iii. p. 261. and Coll. No. 58. 1555. profligate manners, and of a brutal character, who seem- CHA P. ed to rejoice in the torments of the unhappy sufferers £. XXXVII. He fometimes whipped the prisoners with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercife: He tore out the beard of a weaver, who refused to relinquish his religion; and that he might give him a specimen of burning, he held his hand to the candle, till the finews and veins fhrunk and burst F. IT is needlefs to be particular in enumerating all the horrid cruelties practifed in England during the course of three years that thefe perfecutions lafted: The favage barbarity on the one hand, and the patient conftancy on the other, are fo fimilar in all thefe martyrdoms, that the narration, very little agreeable in itself, would never be relieved by any variety. Human nature appears not, on any occafion, fo deteftable, and at the fame time so abfurd, as in these religious perfecutions, which fink men below infernal fpirits in wickedness, and below the beasts in folly. A few inftances only may be worth preferving, in order, if poffible, to warn zealous bigots, for ever, to avoid fuch odious and fuch fruitlefs barbarity. FERRAR, bishop of St. David's, was burned in his own diocese; and his appeal to cardinal Pole was not attended to. Ridley, bishop of London, and Latimer, formerly bishop of Worcester, two prelates celebrated for learning and virtue, perifhed together in the flames at Oxford, and supported each other's conftancy by their mutual exhortations. Latimer, when tied to the stake, called to his companion, "Be of good cheer, brother, 86 we shall this day kindle fuch a torch in England, as, I "trust in God, fhall never be extinguished." The executioners had been fo merciful (for that clemency may more naturally be ascribed to them than to the religious zealots) as to tye bags of gunpowder about these prelates, in order to put a fpeedy period to their tortures: The explosion immediately killed Latimer, who was in an extreme old age; Ridley continued alive during fome time in the midst of the flames H. ONE Hunter, a young man of nineteen, an apprentice, having been feduced by a priest into a difpute, had unwarily denied the real prefence. Senfible of his danVOL. IV. ger, A a Heylin, p. 47, 48. Fox, vol. iii. p. 187. P. 216. HBurnet, vol. ii. p. 318. Heylin, p. 52. G Ibid. CHAP. ger, he immediately abfconded: and Bonner, laying hold XXXVII. of his father, threatened him with the greatest feverities, if he did not produce the young man to ftand his trial. 1555 Hunter, hearing the vexations to which his father was expofed, voluntarily furrendered himself to Bonner, and was condemned to the flames by that barbarous prelate. THOMAS HAUKES, when conducted to the stake, agreed with his friends, that, if he found the torture tolerable, he would make them a fignal to that purpose in the midst of the flames. His zeal for the caufe, in which he fuffered, fo fupported him, that he ftretched out his arms, the fignal agreed on; and in that posture he expired. This example, with many others of like conftancy, encouraged multitudes, not only to fuffer, but even to court and afpire to martyrdom. THE tender fex itself, as they have commonly greater propenfity to religion, produced many inftances of the most inflexible courage, in fupporting the profeffion of it, against all the fury of the perfecutors. One execution in particular was attended with circumftances, which, even at that time, excited aftonishment, by reason of their unusual barbarity. A woman in Guernsey, being near the time of her labour when brought to the stake, was thrown into fuch agitation by the torture, that her belly burst, and she was delivered in the midst of the flames. One of the guards immediately fnatched the infant from the fire, and attempted to fave it: But a magiftrate who flood by, ordered it to be thrown back; being determined, he faid, that nothing should survive which fprung from fuch an obftinate and heretical parent *. THE perfons condemned to these punishments were not convicted of teaching, or dogmatizing, contrary to the established religion: They were feized merely on fufpicion; and articles being offered them to fubfcribe, they were immediately, upon their refufal, condemned to the flames. These inftances of barbarity, fo unufual in the nation, excited horror; the conftancy of the martyrs was the object of admiration; and as men have a principle of equity engraven in their minds which even falfe religion is not able totally to obliterate, they were shocked 1 Fox, vol. iii. p. 265. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 337 K Ibid. p. 747. Heylin, p. 57L Ibid. p. 306. |