“Daughter!” observed Gardiner, severely, “I cannot permit this interference. I must interpose my authority to prevent your attempting to shake your husband’s determination.”
“All I ask, my lord, is this,” rejoined Jane, meekly; “that he will abide the issue of the disputation before he renounces his faith for ever. It is a request, which I am sure neither he, nor you will refuse.”
“It is granted, daughter,” replied Gardiner; “the rather that I feel so certain of convincing you that I doubt not you will then as strongly urge his reconciliation as you now oppose it.”
“I would that not my husband alone, but that all Christendom could be auditors of our conference, my lord,” replied Jane. “In this cause I am as strong, as in the late on which I was engaged I was weak. With this shield,” she continued, raising the Bible which she carried beneath her arm, “I cannot sustain injury.”
Advancing towards the table at which the secretary was seated, she laid the sacred volume upon it. She then divested herself of her surcoat, and addressed a few words, in an undertone, to her husband, while the ecclesiastics conferred together. While this was passing, Lord Guilford’s eye accidentally fell upon his father’s inscription on the wall, and he called Jane’s attention to it. She sighed as she looked, and remarked, “Do not let your name be stained like his.”
Perceiving Simon Renard gazing at them with malignant satisfaction, she then turned to Gardiner and said, “My lord, the presence of this person troubles me. I pray you, if he be not needful to our conference, that you will desire him to withdraw.”
The bishop acquiesced, and having signified his wishes to the ambassador, he feigned to depart. But halting beneath the arched entrance, he remained an unseen witness of the proceedings.
A slight pause ensued, during which Jane knelt beside the chair, and fervently besought heaven to grant her strength for the encounter. She then arose, and fixing her eye upon Gardiner, said in a firm tone, “I am ready, my lord, I pray you question me, and spare me not.”
No further intimation was necessary to the bishop, who immediately proceeded to interrogate her on the articles of her faith; and being a man of profound learning, well versed in all the subtleties of scholastic dispute, he sought in every way to confound and perplex her. In this he was likewise assisted by Bonner and Feckenham, both of whom were admirable theologians, and who proposed the most difficult questions to her. The conference lasted several hours, during which Jane sustained her part with admirable constancy, never losing a single point, but retorting upon her opponents questions which they were unable to answer, displaying such a fund of erudition, such powers of argument, such close and clear reasoning, and such profound knowledge of the tenets of her own faith and of theirs, that they were completely baffled and astounded. To a long and eloquent address of Gardiner’s she replied at equal length, and with even more eloquence and fervour, concluding with these emphatic words—”My lord, I have lived in the Protestant faith, and in that faith I will die. In these sad times, when the power of your church is in the ascendant, it is perhaps needful there should be martyrs in ours to prove our sincerity. Amongst these I shall glory to be numbered, happy in the thought that my firmness will be the means in after ages, of benefiting the Protestant church. On this rock,” she continued, pointing to the Bible, which lay open before her, “my religion is built, and it will endure, when yours, which is erected on sandy foundations, shall be utterly swept away. In this sacred volume, I find every tenet of my creed, and I desire no other mediator between my Maker and myself.”
As she said this, her manner was so fervid, and her look so full of inspiration, that all her listeners were awe-stricken, and gazed at her in involuntary admiration. The secretary suspended his task to drink in her words; and even Simon Renard, who, ensconced beneath the doorway, seemed no inapt representation of the spirit of evil, appeared confounded.