This boy; if with one word I force you not
To do me justice on this monstrous slander,-
Do with me as ye will. I've done, and now
Renew an old petition:-if the king,

Abused and cheated of his wonted mercies,
Hath sworn my death ;—so order it, I pray you,
That on my head alone fall all his wrath;
Let these untainted gentlemen go free,

And mine all honour'd brother. Spare the king
The anguish of unnecessary crime,

And with less blood defile your own fair names.

Norfolk. Anne, queen of England, first this court commands You lay aside the state and ornaments

Of England's queen.

Queen

As cheerfully, my lords,

As a young bride her crown of virgin flowers.

Norfolk. Prisoner, give ear! I, Thomas, duke of Norfolk, In name of all th' assembled peers, declare

The verdict of this court :-all circumstance,

All proof, all depositions duly weigh'd,

We do pronounce thee guilty of high treason.-
And, further, at the pleasure of the king,

Adjudge thy body to be burnt with fire,

Or thine head sever'd from thy guilty shoulders.

Queen. Lord God of Hosts !-the way! the truth! the life! Thou know'st me guiltless; yet, oh! visit not

On these misjudging men their wrongful sentence;
Shew them that mercy they deny to me.

My lords, my lords, your sentence I impeach not
Ye have, no doubt, most wise and cogent reasons,
Best heard perhaps in th' open court, to shame
The wretched evidence adduced. My lords,
I ask no pardon of my God, for this

Of which you've found me guilty to the king
In person and in heart I ve been most true.
Haply I've been unwise, irreverent,
And with unseemly jealousies arraign'd
His unexampled goodness. This I say not

To lengthen out my too protracted life,

For God hath given, will give me strength to die.
I'm not so proudly honest, but the grief

Of my suspected chastity is gall

And wormwood to me; were 't not my sole treasure,

It less had pain'd me thus to see it blacken'd.

My lords, I take my leave :-upon your heads,
Upon your families, on all this kingdom,
On him who is its head and chiefest grace,
The palm of Europe's sovereignty, may heaven
Rain blessings to the end of time—that most,
And most abundant, his redeeming grace!

159. THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE INTO ENGLISH.

BISHOP BURNET.

In the Convocation a motion was made of great consequence, that there should be a translation of the Bible in English, to be set up in all the churches of England. The clergy, when they procured Tyndall's translation to be condemned, and suppressed it, gave out that they intended to make a translation into the vulgar tongue; yet it was afterwards, upon a long consultation, resolved, that it was free for the church to give the Bible in a vulgar tongue, or not, as they pleased; and that the king was not obliged to it, and that at that time it was not at all expedient to do it. Upon which, those that promoted the Reformation made great complaints, and said it was visible the clergy knew there was an opposition between the Scriptures and their doctrine. That they had first condemned Wickliff's translation, and then Tyndall's; and though they ought to teach men the word of God, yet they did all they could to suppress it.

In the times of the Old Testament the Scriptures were writ in the vulgar tongue, and all were charged to read and remember the law. The apostles wrote in Greek, which was then the most common language in the world. Christ also did appeal

to the Scriptures, and sent the people to them. And by what St. Paul says of Timothy, it appears that children were then early trained up in that study. In the primitive church, as nations were converted to the faith, the Bible was translated into their tongue. The Latin translation was very ancient; the Bible was afterwards put into the Scythian, Dalmatian, and Gothic tongues. It continued thus for several ages till the state of Monkery rose; and then, when they engrossed the riches, and the Popes assumed the dominion, of the world, it was not consistent. with these designs, nor with the arts used to promote them, to let the Scriptures be much known: therefore legends and strange stories of visions, with other devices, were thought more proper for keeping up their credit and carrying on their ends.

It was now generally desired that, if there were just exceptions against what Tyndall had done, these might be amended in a new translation. This was a plausible thing, and wrought much on all that heard it, who plainly concluded that those who denied the people the use of the Scriptures in their vulgar tongues, must needs know their own doctrine and practices to be inconsistent with it. Upon these grounds Cranmer, who was projecting the most effectual means for promoting a reformation of doctrine, moved in Convocation that they should petition the king for leave to make a translation of the Bible. But Gardiner and all his party opposed it, both in Convocation and in secret with the king. It was said, that all the heresies and extravagant opinions which were then in Germany, and from thence coming over to England, sprang from the free use of the Scriptures. And whereas in May the last year (1535) nineteen Hollanders were accused of some heretical opinions, "denying Christ to be both God and man, or that he took flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary, or that the sacraments had any effect on those that received them," in which opinions fourteen of them remained obstinate, and were burnt by pairs in several places; it was complained that all those drew their damnable error from the indiscreet use of the Scriptures. And to offer the Bible in the English tongue to the whole nation, during these distractions, would prove, as they pretended, the greatest snare that could be. Therefore they proposed that there should be a short exposition of the most useful and necessary doctrines of the Christian faith given to the people in the English

tongue, for the instruction of the nation, which would keep them in a certain subjection to the king and the church in matters of faith.

The other party, though they liked well the publishing such a treatise in the vulgar tongue, yet by no means thought that sufficient; but said, the people must be allowed to search the Scripture, by which they might be convinced that such treatises were according to it. These arguments prevailed with the two houses of Convocation. So they petitioned the king that he would give order to some to set about it. To this great opposition was made at court. Some, on the one hand told the king that a diversity of opinions would arise out of it, and that he could no more govern his subjects if he gave way to that. But, on the other hand, it was represented that nothing would make his supremacy so acceptable to the nation, and make the pope more hateful, than to let them see, that whereas the popes had governed them by a blind obedience, and kept them in darkness, the king brought them into the light, and gave them the free use of the word of God. And nothing would more effectually extirpate the pope's authority, and discover the impostures of the monks, than the Bible in English; in which all people would clearly discern there was no foundation for those things. These arguments, joined with the power that the queen had in his affections, were so much considered by the king, that he gave order for setting about it immediately. To whom that work was committed, or how it proceeded, I know not; for the account of these things has not been preserved, nor conveyed to us with that care that the importance of the thing required. Yet it appears that the work was carried on at a good rate; for three years after this it was printed at Paris; which shows they made all convenient haste in a thing that required so much deliberation.

160.-DEATH OF SIR THOMAS MORE.

From the Pictorial History of England.'

In the month of November, 1534, parliament under the guidance of Cromwell, passed a variety of acts which all had for their object the creating of Henry into a sort of lay-pope, with full power to define and punish heresies, and to support whatever he might deem the true belief, or the proper system of church governThe first fruits and tenths were now annexed to the crown for ever, and a new oath of supremacy was devised and taken by the bishops.

ment.

Some of the monks the poorest orders were the boldest-refused either to take the oath or to proclaim in their churches and chapels that the pope was antiChrist. The system pursued in regard to them was very simple and expeditious; they were condemned of high treason and hanged, their fate in the latter respect being sometimes, but not always, milder than that allotted to the Lutherans and other Protestants, who were burned. Cromwell had no bowels for the poor monks; and the gentler and more virtuous Cranmer seems to have done little or nothing to stop these atrocious butcheries. A jury now and then hesitated to return a verdict, but they were always bullied into compliance by Cromwell and his agents, who sometimes threatened to hang them instead of the prisoners. On the 5th of May John Houghton, prior of the Charter-House in London, Augustine Webster, prior of the Charter-House of Belval, Thomas Lawrence, prior of the Charter-House of Exham, Richard Reynolds, a doctor of divinity and a monk of Sion, and John Hailes, vicar of Thistleworth, were drawn, hanged, and quartered at Tyburn, their heads being afterwards set over the city gates. On the 18th of June, Exmen, Middlemore, and Nudigate, three other Carthusian monks, suffered for the same

cause.

On all these conscientious men, who preferred death to what they considered

a breach of their duty as Catholic priests, the horrible sentence of the law was executed in all its particulars. They were cut down alive, had their bowels torn out, and were then beheaded and dismembered. They suffered on account of the oath of supremacy; but between the executions there was an atrocious interlude of a more doctrinal nature. On the 25th of May there were examined in St. Paul's nineteen men and five women, natives of Holland, who had openly professed the doctrines of the Anabaptists, and denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the sacrament. Fourteen of them were condemned to the flames: two, a man and a woman, suffered in Smithfield; the remaining twelve were sent to other towns, there to be burnt for example's sake, and for the vivid manifestation of the king's orthodoxy.

But greater victims were now stricken; for, casting aside all feelings except those of vengeance, Henry had resolved to shed the blood of Fisher and of More. These illustrious men had both been close prisoners in the Tower ever since the passing of the act of supremacy. The aged bishop was put upon his trial for having maliciously and traitorously said that the king, in spiritual matters, could not be the head of the church. And he was sentenced in the usual manner to die the death of a traitor. While he lay in the Tower, in respect for his sufferings in the cause of the church, his great age, learning, and unquestionable virtue, a cardinal's hat was sent to him from Rome. "Ha!" cried the savage Henry, "Paul may send him the hat; I will take care that he have never a head to wear it on." Accordingly, on the 22nd day of June, of this same year of blood, the old prelate was dragged out of the Tower and beheaded. His grey head was stuck upon London bridge, turned towards the Kentish hills, among which he had passed so many happy and respected years. His body, by the king's orders, was exposed naked to the gaze of the populace, and then thrown into a humble grave in Barking church-yard, without coffin or shroud. Such was the end of Henry's oldest friend, -of an amiable and most accomplished man,-of one of the most indefatigable restorers of ancient learning. Without losing time, the royal monster proceeded against Sir Thomas More. Archbishop Cranmer, Cromwell, and others had waited upon him several times in the Tower, with the object of winning him over, or inducing him to take the oath of supremacy, in order to save his life but More, though he had sometimes shown a timidity of disposition, had now fully made up his mind to die rather than to act contrary to his conscience. It is stated on good authority that certain underhand manovres, which had also been employed against his friend Fisher, were resorted to with the view of entrapping him into treasonable declarations. But the examinations which rest on still better authority are the following. On the fourteenth of June four interrogatories were ministered to him in the Tower by Mr. Bedle, Dr. Aldridge, Dr. Layton, and Dr. Carwen, in the presence of Pelstede, Whally, and Rice.

1. He was asked whether he had had any communication, reasoning, or consultation with any man or person, since he came to the Tower, touching the acts of succession, the act of supreme head, or the act wherein the speaking of certain words against the king's highness is made treason? He replied in the negative.

2. Item, whether he had received any letters of any man, or written any letters to other men, since he came to the Tower, touching the said acts, or any of them, or any other business or affairs concerning the king's highness, his succession, or this his realm ? To this he answered that he had written divers scrolls or letters to his fellow-prisoner Fisher, and received from him some others in return, "whereof the most part contained nothing else but comfort and words from either to other, and declaration of the state that they were in in their bodies, and giving of thanks for such meat or drink that the one had sent to the other." But he admitted that

he had once written to Dr. Fisher, telling him how he had refused to take the oath, and of his determination never to show to the council the cause for which he did so refuse; and that Fisher had replied, telling him how he had answered the council, and reminding him that he had not refused to swear to the succession. After this he said that there passed no other letters between them that anything touched the king's business, till the council went to the Tower to examine him (More) upon the act of supreme head, upon which his fellow-captive wrote to inquire what answer he had made; and thereupon he wrote, "My lord, I am determined to meddle of nothing, but only to give my mind upon God; and the sum of my whole study shall be to think upon the passion of Christ, and my passage out of this world, with the dependencies thereupon; or words to that effect. And, he added, that within a short while after he received another letter from the said Dr. Fisher, stating "that he was informed that there was a word in the statute, maliciously; and, if it were so, that he thought thereby that a man speaking nothing of malice did not offend the statute, and desired the respondent to show him whether he saw any otherwise in it:" to all which he (More) merely replied "that the understanding or interpretation of the said statute should neither be taken after his mind nor after his friend's mind; and therefore it was not good for any man to trust unto any such things." He also admitted that he had warned Fisher not to speak the same words to the council as he (More) had written unto him lest he should give grounds for a suspicion that there was some confederacy between them. What next follows makes the tears rush to the eyes," Also," he said, "that he, considering how it should come to his dear daughter's ear (Mr. Roper's wife) that the council had been with him, and how she should hear things abroad of him that might put her to a sudden flight and fearing lest she, being with child, should take some alarm, and minding therefore to prepare her beforehand to take well-a-worth whatsoever things should betide him, better or worse: he did send unto her, both after the first examination and also after the last, letters to signify how that the council had been to examine him touching the king's statutes, and that he had answered them that he would not meddle with nothing, but would serve God, and what the end thereof should be he could not tell; but whatsoever it were, better or worse, he desired her to take it patiently, and take no thought therefore, but only pray for him. And he said that she had written unto him before divers letters, to exhort him and advertise him to accommodate himself to the king's pleasure; and specially, in the last letter, she used great vehemence and observation to persuade him to incline to the king's desire. * * * And he said that George, the lieutenant's servant, did carry the said letters to and fro." 3. He was asked whether the same letters which he had written in the Tower were forthcoming or not? To this he answered, that he would have had George keep the letters, but that George always said that there was no better keeper than the fire, and so burned them all. He added, that being free from everything secret or treasonable, he had even requested the poor man, for safety sake, to show them to some trusty friend of his that could read, and had told him to lay them before the king's council, if any suspicious matter were found in them; but George feared so his master the lieutenant that he kept the letters to himself, and would needs burn them.

4. The last interrogatory was, whether any man of this realm, or without this realm, did send unto him any letters or message counselling or exhorting him to continue and persist in the opinion that he was in? To which he answered, "Nay." He was further asked with what intent he sent the said letters to Dr. Fisher? His answer was, "that, considering they were both in one prison, and for one cause, he was glad to send unto him, and to hear from him again."