was done by Latimer, and such as, probably, no other man in the kingdom would have ventured upon, with a monarch like Henry the Eighth. An old Roman custom still prevailed in those times, of each bishop in the realm presenting a handsome gift to the king on New Year's day. Some gave rich articles of gold or silver plate, some a well-filled purse; each endeavouring, as far as his power went, to gratify his sovereign. Among the rest came Latimer, bishop of Worcester, and presented Henry with a New Testament, folded in a napkin, round which was imprinted this awful warning, from the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Fornicators and adulterers God shall judge." Thus, exercising the functions of his high and holy office, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with such an abiding fear of God upon him as utterly cast out all fear of man, this good bishop walked in the steps of Jeremiah, and enjoyed the fulfilment of the promise given to the prophet, "Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord." He remained unmolested, and indeed evidently favoured by the king; until, on the enactment of the iniquitous six-articles act, he saw that he must either lose the blessing of a good conscience, or resign his bishopric. He chose the latter; and giving up the pastoral charge, in which he was imitated also by Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, he retired into private life. It is related of Latimer, that when, among friends in his own chamber, he first put off his episcopal rochet, he gave a skip on the floor for joy, feeling his shoulder lightened, as he said, of so heavy a burden. That weight did not consist in the duties of an office which he, as a faithful pastor loved; but in the burden laid on his conscience, of adherence to the many superstitions and idolatrous customs retained under Henry's nominal reformation of the church.

But, "in the world ye shall have tribulation" is the heritage of God's dear people; and so Latimer found it. Scarcely had he disentangled himself from the snare of his bishopric, when, by the fall of a tree, he was so bruised and injured, as to endanger his life, occasioning him to suffer great bodily pain to the end of his days. Then, coming up to London, he was again molested by the bishops, and at last, committed to the tower, where he remained, until the coming in of blessed king Edward opened both his prison and his mouth. During the short reign of that godly young

prince, Latimer was to be found labouring in every possible way for the promotion of undefiled religion throughout the land. Alike in his own diocese, in the convocationhouse, and at court, his diligence was made manifest. In the royal garden, which in Henry's time had been made the scene of many a licentious revel, the venerable bishop would assemble the king and all his court, to hear the doctrine that distilled as the dew, to refresh and invigorate all within its influence. He preached twice every Sunday, notwithstanding his age, then sixty-seven, and the effects of his severe hurt. Every morning, summer and winter, he was up and at his book by two o'clock; and he not unfrequently travelled to other parts of the realm, there to spread the light of divine knowledge.

It is remarkable that, during these times he never ceased to predict what should shortly come upon the church and kingdom. In the midst of their prosperity, while the young king was still in health, with the promise of many lengthened years before him, Latimer seemed to have a constant foreshowing of the evil to come. He always affirmed that the preaching of the gospel would cost him his life, and that Winchester, then in the tower, was reserved to effect it. A few years proved the correctness of these impressions. Edward died; and very shortly after the proclamation of Mary, a pursuivant was sent into the country to summon Latimer to London, who having some hours' previous intimation of it, was so far from seeking to escape, that he got all things in readiness for the journey. The officer finding him prepared to set out, expressed some surprise, on which the venerable prelate remarked, "My friend, you be a welcome messenger to me: and be it known to you, and to all the world, that I go as willingly to London at this present, being called by my prince to render a reckoning of my doctrine, as ever I was at any place in all the world. I doubt not but that God, as he hath made me worthy to preach his word before two excellent princes, so will he enable me to witness the same unto the third, either to her comfort or discomfort eternally." The pursuivant however, having delivered his letters, abruptly departed, saying he had orders not to tarry for him. From this, it is clear that the wish of his guilty enemies was to drive him to self-exile, by flight; not to meet his bold and godly answers to their false charges; well knowing that his wisdom and constancy would rather confirm the Lord's

people, and confound his foes, than answer the ends of their crafty devices.

But flight was the last thing that would have occurred to bishop Latimer: he obeyed the summons, and repaired to London. Passing through Smithfield on his way, he merrily remarked that Smithfield had long groaned for him; and then, appearing before the council, he quietly endured their unseemly mocks and taunts; and in a spirit alike valiant and cheerful, took up, once more, his abode in the tower as a state prisoner. The extremity of cruel usage that he there experienced, fully confirmed what was before apparent, that the persecutors wished for nothing so much as privately to get rid of him: but the Lord had decreed to his faithful servant the prize of a glorious martyrdom, and who could wrest it away?

The tender mercies of popery-which most falsely assumes the name of a religion, while it is in fact only a system of political craft and worldly aggrandisement, trafficking in men's souls that it may have their bodies in more hopeless subjection-the tender mercies of popery afforded to this aged and wounded father in the church of Christ no better accommodation, during a long and piercing winter, than a damp cell, without one spark of fire, to keep life in his trembling limbs. One day, as he sat nearly perishing with cold, the lieutenant's man entered his dungeon, when Latimer bade him tell his master that if he did not look better to him, perchance he might deceive him. The lieutenant of the tower, on hearing this, hastened to examine whether his prisoner was preparing any means for escape; at the same time upbraiding him with what he had spoken to his man. The bishop replied, "Yea, Mr. Lieutenant, so I said; for you look, I think, that I should burn; but except you let me have some fire, I am like to deceive your expectation; for I am here like to starve with cold."

In the like spirit of calm and cheerful endurance did the old man meet all their cruelty and threats, until, unable to touch his life otherwise than as God had appointed, they were obliged to transport him, with Cranmer and Ridley, to Oxford; where, in the month of April they were condemned, as has been already related, and remanded to several prisons. In October, the mother of abominations resolved to replenish the cup of her drunken rage with the blood of these saints and martyrs of Jesus.

CHAPTER II.

BISHOPS RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

THE archbishop of Canterbury having been called alone before the pope's delegates and the queen's commissioners, at Oxford, on the 12th of September, of whose examination we shall hereafter speak, it was judged expedient to send down another commission from cardinal Pole, on the 28th of the same month, directed to the bishops of Lincoln, Gloucester, and Bristol, to this effect: that they should have full power and authority to cite, examine, and judge Dr. Hugh Latimer and Dr. Nicholas Ridley, pretended bishops of Worcester and London, for the divers and sundry erroneous opinions which they had held and maintained in open disputation at Oxford. The instrument proceeded to empower the commissioners to receive them back, if penitent, and forthwith minister unto them the reconciliation of the holy father the pope; but if they proved stubborn in defending their opinions, then the judges should pass sentence on them, degrade them, and clean cut them off from the church; yielding them to receive the punishment due to all such heresy and schism.

In pursuance hereof, these lords repaired on the last day of December to the divinity school, placing themselves in the lofty seats erected for public lecturers and disputants. Here being set, in pompous trim, with cloth of tissue and cushions of velvet, they sent for the two captive bishops, who presently appeared; but choosing to examine them apart, and to begin with Ridley, these inhuman tormentors sent the aged and feeble Latimer back, not to his prison, where he might have rested a while, but into the outer room, exposed to the rudeness of such as had no right to approach

nearer.

Dr. Ridley being placed before them, stood bareheaded, to hear the supposed royal commission publicly read by a notary; but no sooner was cardinal Pole, legate a latere, named than he put on his cap. The reading being finished, the bishop of Lincoln addressed the prisoner, telling him that neither he nor the other lords, in respect of their own persons, looked for cap or knee; yet as representing the lord cardinal's grace, legate a latere from the pope's

holiness, as well as that he was of a notable parentage, descending from regal blood, (here Ridley moved his cap, and did obeisance) as also worthy to be reverenced for his great knowledge, learning, and virtues, and especially as being in England deputy to the pope, he ought at his name to have uncovered his head. Ending by a threat that if he refused so to do, they would have his cap plucked off.

The scene deserves to be recorded in this day of weak and unfaithful concession: the more so, as Ridley was a man remarkable for meekness, charity, forbearance, and coutesy to all. He replied,

"As touching that you said, my lord, that you in your own persons desire no cap nor knee, but only require the same in consideration that you represent the cardinal's grace's person, I do you to wit, and thereupon make my protestation, that I did put on my cap at the naming of the cardinal's grace, neither for any discourtesy that I bear towards your own persons, neither for any derogation of honour towards the lord cardinal's grace. For I know him to be a man worthy of all humility, reverence and honour, in that he came of the most regal blood, and in that he is a man indeed with manifold graces of learning and virtue; and as touching these virtues and points, I with all humility, (therewith he put off his cap and bowed his knee) and obeisance that I may, will reverence and honour his grace but in that he is legate to the bishop of Rome (and then he put on his cap) whose usurped supremacy and abused authority I utterly refuse and renounce, I may in no wise give any obeisance or honour unto him, lest that my so doing and behaviour might be prejudicial to mine oath, and derogation to the verity of God's word. And therefore that I might not only by confession profess the verity in not reverencing the renounced authority, contrary to God's word, but also in gesture, in behaviour, and in all my doings express the same, I have put on my cap, and for this consideration only; and not for any contumacy to your lordships, neither contempt of this worshipful audience, neither derogation of any honour due to the cardinal his grace, both for his noble parentage, and also his excellent qualities, I have kept on my cap.

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"Master Ridley," said the bishop of Lincoln, you excuse yourself of that with the which we pressed you not, in that you protest you keep on your cap neither for any contumacy towards us, which look for no such honour of