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The crime for which almost all the Protestants were condemned, was their refusal to acknowledge the real presence. Gardiner, who had vainly expected that a few examples would strike 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 manners, and of a brutal character, who seemed to rejoice in the torments of the unhappy sufferers.[**] He sometimes whipped the prisoners with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise: 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 sinews and veins shrunk and burst.[***]

* Strype, vol iii. p. 261, and Coll. No. 58.

** Heylin, p. 47, 48.

*** Fox, vol. iii. p. 187.

It is needless to be particular in enumerating all the cruelties practised in England during the course of three years that these persecutions lasted: the savage barbarity on the one hand, and the patient constancy on the other, are so similar in all those martyrdoms, that the narrative, little agreeable in itself, would never be relieved by any variety. Human nature appears not on any occasion so detestable, and at the same time so absurd, as in these religious persecutions, which sink men below infernal spirits in wickedness, and below the beasts in folly. A few instances only may be worth preserving, in order, if possible, to warn zealous bigots forever to avoid such odious and such fruitless 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, perished together in the same flames at Oxford, and supported each other’s constancy by their mutual exhortations. Latimer, when tied to the stake, called to his companion, “Be of good cheer, brother; we shall this day kindle such a torch in England, as, I trust in God, shall never be extinguished.” The executioners had been so merciful (for that clemency may more naturally be ascribed to them than to the religious zealots) as to tie bags of gunpowder about these prelates, in order to put a speedy period to their tortures: the explosion immediately killed Latimer, who was in extreme old age; Ridley continued alive during some time in the midst of the flames.[**]

One Hunter, a young man of nineteen, an apprentice, having been seduced by a priest into a dispute, had unwarily denied the real presence. Sensible of his danger, he immediately absconded; but Bonner, laying hold of his father, threatened him with the greatest severities if he did not produce the young man to stand his trial. Hunter, hearing of the vexations to which his father was exposed, voluntarily surrendered 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 signal to that purpose in the midst of the flames. His zeal for the cause in which he suffered so supported him that he stretched out his arms, the signal agreed on; and in that posture he expired.[***] This example, with many others of like constancy, encouraged multitudes not only to suffer, but even to court and aspire to martyrdom.

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 216.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 318. Heylin, p. 52.

*** Fox, vol. iii. p. 265.

The tender sex itself, as they have commonly greater propensity to religion, produced many examples of the most inflexible courage in supporting the profession of it against all the fury of the persecutors. One execution in particular was attended with circumstances which, even at that time, excited astonishment by reason of their unusual barbarity. A woman in Guernsey, being near the time of her labor when brought to the stake, was thrown into such agitation by the torture, that her belly burst, and she was delivered in the midst of the flames. One of the guards immediately snatched the infant from the fire, and attempted to save it; but a magistrate who stood by ordered it to be thrown back: being determined, he said, that nothing should survive which-sprang from so obstinate and heretical a parent.[*]

The persons condemned to these punishments were not convicted of teaching, or dogmatizing, contrary to the established religion: they were seized merely on suspicion; and articles being offered them to subscribe, they were immediately, upon their refusal, condemned to the flames.[**] These instances of barbarity, so unusual in the nation, excited horror; the constancy of the martyrs was the object of admiration; and as men have a principle of equity engraven in their minds, which even false religion is not able totally to obliterate, they were shocked to see persons of probity, of honor, of pious dispositions, exposed to punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest ruffians for crimes subversive of civil society. To exterminate the whole Protestant party was known to be impossible; and nothing could appear more iniquitous, than to subject to torture the most conscientious and courageous among them, and allow the cowards and hypocrites to escape. Each martyrdom, therefore, was equivalent to a hundred sermons against Popery; and men either avoided such horrid spectacles, or returned from them full of a violent, though secret, indignation against the persecutors. Repeated orders were sent from the council to quicken the diligence of the magistrates in searching out heretics; and in some places the gentry were constrained to countenance by their presence those barbarous executions. These acts of violence tended only to render the Spanish government daily more odious; and Philip, sensible of the hatred which he incurred, endeavored to remove the reproach from himself by a very gross artifice: he ordered his confessor to deliver, in his presence, a sermon in favor of toleration; a doctrine somewhat extraordinary in the mouth of a Spanish friar.[***] But the court, finding that Bonner, however shameless and savage, would not bear alone the whole infamy, soon threw off the mask; and the unrelenting temper of the queen, as well as of the king, appeared without control. A bold step was even taken towards introducing the inquisition into England. As the bishops’ courts, though extremely arbitrary, and not confined by any ordinary forms of law, appeared not to be invested with sufficient power, a commission was appointed, by authority of the queen’s prerogative, more effectually to extirpate heresy.

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 747. Heylin, p. 57. Burnet, vol. ii. p.
337.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 306.

*** Heylin, p. 56.

Twenty-one persons were named; but any three were armed with the powers of the whole. The commission runs in these terms: “That since many false rumors were published among the subjects, and many heretical opinions were also spread among them, the commissioners were to inquire into those, either by presentments, by witnesses, or any other political way they could devise, and to search after all heresies; the bringers in, the sellers, the readers of all heretical books: they were to examine and punish all misbehaviors or negligences in any church or chapel; and to try all priests that did not preach the sacrament of the altar; all persons that did not hear mass, or come to their parish church to service, that would not go in processions, or did not take holy bread or holy water; and if they found any that did obstinately persist in such heresies, they were to put them into the hands of their ordinaries, to be punished according to the spiritual laws; giving the commissioners full power to proceed as their discretions and consciences should direct them, and to use all such means as they would invent for the searching of the premises; empowering them also to call before them such witnesses as they pleased, and to force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after.”[*] Some civil powers were also given the commissioners to punish vagabonds and quarrelsome persons.