the City ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful
spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. And
then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which was placed there,
and preached a sermon from the text, ‘Though I give my body to be
burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.’ When you
think of the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that
this learned doctor had a rather brazen face. Ridley would have
answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not allowed.
When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself
under his other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in it
before all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered,
that, whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes
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before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that he
was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley’s brother-in-law
was there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both chained
up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light was thrown upon
the pile to fire it. ‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,’ said
Latimer, at that awful moment, ‘and play the man! We shall this
day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust
shall never be put out.’ And then he was seen to make motions with
his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, and to stroke
his aged face with them, and was heard to cry, ‘Father of Heaven,
receive my soul!’ He died quickly, but the fire, after having
burned the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the
iron post, and crying, ‘O! I cannot burn! O! for Christ’s sake
let the fire come unto me!’ And still, when his brother-in-law had
heaped on more wood, he was heard through the blinding smoke, still
dismally crying, ‘O! I cannot burn, I cannot burn!’ At last, the
gunpowder caught fire, and ended his miseries.
Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tremendous
account before God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted in
committing.
Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought out
again in February, for more examining and trying, by Bonner, Bishop
of London: another man of blood, who had succeeded to Gardiner’s
work, even in his lifetime, when Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer
was now degraded as a priest, and left for death; but, if the Queen
hated any one on earth, she hated him, and it was resolved that he
should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost. There is no doubt
that the Queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds,
because they wrote to the Council, urging them to be active in the
kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer was known not to be a
firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people,
and inducing him to recant to the unreformed religion. Deans and
friars visited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various
attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his
prison comforts, and induced him to sign, I fear, as many as six
recantations. But when, after all, he was taken out to be burnt,
he was nobly true to his better self, and made a glorious end.
After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day (who
had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in prison),
required him to make a public confession of his faith before the
people. This, Cole did, expecting that he would declare himself a
Roman Catholic. ‘I will make a profession of my faith,’ said
Cranmer, ‘and with a good will too.’
Then, he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of his
robe a written prayer and read it aloud. That done, he kneeled and
said the Lord’s Prayer, all the people joining; and then he arose
again and told them that he believed in the Bible, and that in what