Then, as Fox proceeds to state, he "was brought by his 'keeper belonging to the Warden of the Fleet, before Bonner, 'who, after his wonted manner of persuasion going about to 'reduce him to his catholic church and the unity thereof; 'that is, from Christ to Antichrist; sometimes with fair 'promises alluring, sometimes with menaces and terrors, fearing him, etc.; to this William answering, said on this wise: "Do what ye will, I am at a point; for the heavens shall as 'soon fall, as I will forsake mine opinion, etc.' Whereupon 'the bishop, after he had commanded these words to be ' registered, called for the depositions of certain witnesses;" and after they had been read, and the prisoner had been asked what he had to say against sentence being passed, and he had replied that he had nothing to say but what he had said, the sentence was passed, and it was carried into execution on the Wednesday after.

(16.) JOHN CARDMAKER. His history is somewhat obscure. It appears that he and Barlow had been brought before the Council in the Star Chamber, on the 9th of November; on which occasion he was committed to the Fleet. That he was amongst those brought before the Commission on the 28th of January is clear; for Fox says "Cardmaker this day submitted himself unto them";" and he also says, referring to the same occasion, and respecting him and Barlow "they both made such an answer, as the Chancellor with his fellow commissioners allowed them for catholic"." That they really did so, seems sufficiently proved by their getting away without condemnation; but Fox, who seems to think that anything is better than the admission that any of the reformers recanted, or quailed, absurdly suggests "Whether they of 'weakness so answered, or he of subtlety would so under'stand their answer, that he might have some forged example 'of a shrinking brother to lay in the dish of the rest, which were to be examined, it may easily be perceived by this, 'that to all of them which followed in examination, he objected 'the example of Barlow and Cardmaker, commending their 'soberness, discretion, and learning 8." So then after all that we have heard of the bloodthirsty Chancellor's rabid zeal to destroy his victims, especially by striking (fairly or not) at

Fox, vi. 562.
7 Ibid. vol. vii. p. 78.

6 Ibid. 588.
8 Fox, vii. 78.

the higher sort, when a Bishop and a Prebendary made a bold, plain, and (on that day particularly) public, profession of the reformed faith, the crafty papist pretended to believe that they fully consented to rank popery, and would not understand anything else and pretended that they had recanted, when they had done no such thing; and not only pretended this to the crowded audience before whom the examination had taken place, but stated it over and over again as a known fact to "all them which followed in examination"-that is to the friends of Barlow and Cardmaker, not one of whom, as far as I see, denied or even questioned it. There are few things liable to become so absurd and inconsistent, as party malice.

But though there can be no doubt that Cardmaker did submit, in such a way that his life was spared at that time, yet it seems as if it was either by some conditional arrangement, or else that he immediately got into fresh trouble; for when Laurence Saunders was excommunicated and sent to the Compter on the 30th of January, he found Cardmaker in confinement there". He was probably kept as a prisoner either because he did not fulfil some promise of submission, or on account of some fresh matter; but, at all events, as Fox expresses it, he "remained there prisoner, to be baited ' of the papists, who would needs seem to have a certain hope 'that Cardmaker was become theirs. Continual and great 'conference divers of them had with him, with reasonings, 'persuadings, threatenings, and all to none effect." Dr. Martin, of whom we have heard before in the case of John Careless, was the "chief doer;" but it seems to have been all in vain, for the "papistical trash" which he had to offer, "Cardmaker answered largely, learnedly, and substantially." So the next things that we find in his history (though not before the 24th of May) are Articles ministered to him by Bonner; the first of which is, "that thou wast and art of the city and diocese of London, and so of the jurisdiction of me, Edmund, Bishop of London ;" to which the sometime Prebendary of Wells "answereth and confesseth the same to be true in every part thereof."

I do not find anything else which shows that Bonner had to do with him. He suffered in Smithfield on the 30th of

9 Fox, vii. 78.

May; and the only other fact which I observe respecting him is that "two or three days" before that time, “one Beard" called on him, professing that he came to him from the Council, to know whether he would recant.

(17.) JOHN WARNE, an upholsterer in Walbrook, appears to have been examined at the same time, and to have suffered on the same day, as Cardmaker; but to have had no other connection with him. According to the Articles ministered against him, which are given by Fox (he "con'fessing and granting the articles and contents thereof to be 'true, according as they were objected in every part; sub'scribing also the same with his hand ") he was not only what the popish party would consider an old offender, but one of that class of mockers which have been already described. The fourth article was, "that thou hast said, that "whereas about a twelvemonth ago, and more, a great rough 'water spaniel of thine was shorn in the head, and had a crown like a priest's made in the same, thou didst laugh at 'it and like it, though thou didst it not thyself, nor knewest 'who did it." Nobody will suppose this to have been the only thing of the sort in which John Warne was engaged; and if it was not very bad in itself, still there was something in it which was indicative of the animus of the man, and of the company which he kept. But another article shows us that he must have begun a course which brought him into notice, and trouble, at a very early age. He was, we are told, on this 23rd of May, 1555, only twenty-nine years of age; and it appears from one of the articles confessed by him, that he had been convented to the Guildhall for heresy under the Act of Six Articles, on the Thursday after the burning of Anne Askew, which must have been about nine years before the time of this present trouble, and when he could not have been more than twenty years of age. He seems to have married the widow of one Robert Lashford, a cutler1o, who must have been a good deal older than he was; as she had, at this time, a daughter by her former marriage, who was twenty years of age. The wife was one of the congregation of Thomas Rose, which was taken in Bow Church-yard on New Year's night, as has been already mentioned. Both she and her daughter suffered at a subsequent period; but

10 Fox, vii. 749,

the history is at present confined to John Warne: and Fox lays the blame of his apprehension and punishment on Dr. Story, putting in a marginal note, "Story persecuteth his kinsfolk," which of course keeps its place in the new edition, though Fox himself in another page of the same volume acknowledges his mistake and says, "I understand since of some, there was no kindred between them, but only that she was his servant"."

But as to John Warne, it seems that he could only be considered by the law as a relapsed heretic, seeing that the article which he subscribed states ;

"That thou, John Warne, wast in time past here, in the city of London, convented in the Guildhall for heresy against the sacrament of the altar, according to the order of the laws of this realm of England in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and when Alderman Barnes was sheriff, and the Thursday after that Anne Askew was burnt in Smithfield; and thereupon thou wast sent a prisoner to Newgate, to whom Edmund Bishop of London did repair with his chaplains, to instruct thee in the true faith of Christ, touching the said sacrament of the altar, and to bring thee from thy error, which was, that in the sacrament of the altar there is not the body of Christ, nor any corporal presence of Christ's body and blood, under the forms of bread and wine; but that in the said sacrament there is only material bread and wine, without any substance of Christ's body and blood at all: and because thou wouldst not leave and forsake thy said heresy therein, but persist and abide obstinately

1 Fox, vii. p. 343.

2 Fox, vii. 749. The passage in which Fox mentions the matter of Dr. Story in the earlier part of the volume, is characteristic of him and of his notion of "recognising" his book for different editions. "The chief procurer of this her death was Dr. Story, being (as it is thought) of some alliance either to her (the said Elizabeth), or else to her late husband: who, though he was, at the first apprehension of his said kinswoman, a very earnest suitor for her deliverance to Dr. Martin, then one of the 'king and queen's commissioners in matters of religion (himself being as 'yet not made commissioner), and had by his suit obtained her deliverance 'for that present, as Dr. Martin himself (the author hereof) hath reported; yet afterwards, upon what occasion God only knoweth, except upon some burning charity, the said Dr. Story, obtaining now the room of one ' of the commissioners, caused not only the said John Warne, but also his wife, and afterwards his daughter, to be again apprehended, never leav'ing them until he had brought them all to ashes. Such was the rage of 'that devout Catholic and white child of the mother church, that neither kindred, nor any other consideration, could prevail with him, although 'it did (at his request) with others, who in respect of him were but 'strangers unto them. The Lord, if it be his will, turn his heart, or else 'rid his poor church from such a hydra, as, thanked be the Lord, now he "hath."-Fox, vii. 343.

and wilfully therein, thou wert, according to the said laws, condemned to death and to be burnt; and thereupon labour being made for thee to the king and others in the court, thou hadst a pardon of King Henry the Eighth, and so thereby didst save thy life."-Fox, vol. vii. p. 80.

As to the proceedings against him when thus again accused, it is not worth while to repeat how the bishop was occupied in "exhorting him with many words to leave his heresies "-how at a subsequent examination "he was earnestly exhorted by the said bishop to recant his opinions" -how he was again examined and "the bishop then, seeing 'that notwithstanding all his fair promises, and terrible 'threatenings (whereof he used store), he could not anything 'prevail; finished this examination with the definitive sen'tence." It is, I am aware, tiresome to repeat such matter as this so often; but without such repetition how can we judge of the real case? Could we without it sufficiently feel the palpable absurdity of representing the blood-thirsty bishop as a person foiled, and discomfited, and triumphed over, whenever a martyr resisted unto death? The bloody wolf seems to have saved John Warne's life once, and he wanted to do it again. But it would not do.

§ 6. BISHOP BONNER'S DEALINGS WITH THE COURT.

We are told that Bishop Bonner's proceedings with his prisoners were stimulated and quickened though our account of them must be interrupted-by a letter which he received about this time," directed from the court," and "sent by a post early in the morning." Fox heads it "A Letter from the King and Queen to Bonner," but as he could not himself, perhaps, view it, or wish his reader to consider it, otherwise than as a matter of confidential correspondence, and privy conspiracy, between the Queen and the bishop, he used the collateral security of a marginal note, "QUEEN MARY STIRRETH BONNER TO SHED INNOCENT BLOOD." This is of course enough for those who run over pages, and down margins, without inquiring whether the titles, and notes, agree with the text. But if anybody looks into the matter he will see that this was not a private and confidential note to Bonner from the Queen, but a document of a particularly public nature, under the sign manual. It will