History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 15

The last Hour—More’s Fanaticism—Debates in Convocation—Royal Proclamation—The Bishop of Norwich—Sentences condemned—Latimer’s Opposition—The New Testament Burnt—The Persecution begins—Hitton—Bayfield—Tonstall and Packington—Bayfield arrested—The Rector Patmore—Lollards’ Tower—Tyndale and Patmore—A Musician—Freese the Painter—Placards and Martyrdom of Bennet—Thomas More and John Petit—Bilney

The moment when Henry aimed his first blows at Rome was also that in which he began to shed the blood of the disciples of the gospel. Although ready to throw off the authority of the pope, he would not recognize the authority of Christ: obedience to the Scriptures is, however, the very soul of the Reformation. HRSCV5 858.4

The king’s contest with Rome had filled the friends of Scripture with hope. The artisans and tradesmen, particularly those who lived near the sea, were almost wholly won over to the gospel. “The king is one of us,” they used to boast; “he wishes his subjects to read the New Testament. Our faith, which is the true one, will circulate through the kingdom, and by Michaelmas next those who believe as we do will be more numerous than those of a contrary opinion. We are ready, if needs be, to die in the struggle.” This was indeed to be the fate of many. HRSCV5 858.5

Language such as this aroused the clergy: “The last hour has come,” said Stokesley, who had been raised to the see of London after Tonstall’s translation to Durham; “if we would not have Luther’s heresy pervade the whole of England, we must hasten to throw it in the sea.” Henry was fully disposed to do so; but as he was not on very good terms with the clergy, a man was wanted to serve as mediator between him and the bishops. He was soon found. HRSCV5 858.6

Sir Thomas More’s noble understanding was then passing from ascetic practices to fanaticism, and the humanist turning into an inquisitor. In his opinion, the burning of heretics was just and necessary. He has even been reproached with binding evangelical Christians to a tree in his garden, which he called “the tree of truth,” and of having flogged them with his own hand. More has declared that he never gave “stripe nor stroke, nor so much as a fillip on the forehead,” to any of his religious adversaries; and we willingly credit his denial. All must be pleased to think that if the author of the Utopia was a severe judge, the hand which held one of the most famous pens of the sixteenth century never discharged the duties of an executioner. HRSCV5 859.1

The bishops led the attack. “We must clear the Lord’s field of the thorns which choke it,” said the archbishop of Canterbury to Convocation on the 29th of November 1529; immediately after which the bishop of Bath read to his colleagues the list of books that he desired to have condemned. There were a number of works by Tyndale, Luther, Melancthon, Zwingle, Oecolampadius, Pomeranus, Brentius, Bucer, Jonas, Francis Lambert, Fryth, and Fish. The Bible in particular was set down. “It is impossible to translate the Scripture into English,” said one of the prelates.—“It is not lawful for the laity to read it in their mother tongue,” said another.—“If you tolerate the Bible,” added a third, “you will make us all heretics.”—“By circulating the Scriptures,” exclaimed several, “you will raise up the nation against the king.” Sir T. More laid the bishops’ petition before the king, and some time after, Henry gave orders by proclamation that “no one should preach, or write any book, or keep any school without his bishop’s license;—that no one should keep any heretical book in his house;—that the bishops should detain the offenders in prison at their discretion, and then proceed to the execution of the guilty;—and, finally, that the chancellor, the justices of the peace, and other magistrates, should aid and assist the bishops.” Such was the cruel proclamation of Henry VIII, “the father of the English Reformation. HRSCV5 859.2

The clergy were not yet satisfied. The blind and octogenarian bishop of Norwich, being more ardent than the youngest of his priests, recommenced his complaints. “My diocese is accumbered with such as read the Bible,” said he to the archbishop of Canterbury, “and there is not a clerk from Cambridge but savoureth of the frying-pan. If this continues any time, they will undo us all. We must have greater authority to punish them than we have.” HRSCV5 859.3

Consequently, on the 24th of May 1530, More, Warham, Tonstall, and Gardiner having been admitted into St. Edward’s chamber at Westminster, to make a report to the king concerning heresy, they proposed forbidding, in the most positive manner, the New Testament and certain other books in which the following doctrines were taught: “That Christ has shed his blood for our iniquities, as a sacrifice to the Father.—Faith only doth justify us.—Faith without good works is no little or weak faith, it is no faith.—Laboring in good works to come to heaven, thou dost shame Christ’s blood.” HRSCV5 859.4

While nearly every one in the audience-chamber supported the prayer of the petition, there were three or four doctors who kept silence. At last one of them, it was Latimer, opposed the proposition. Bilney’s friend was more decided than ever to listen to no other voice than God’s. “Christ’s sheep hear no man’s voice but Christ’s,” he answered Dr. Redman, who had called upon him to submit to the church: “trouble me no more from the talking with the Lord my God.” The church, in Latimer’s opinion, presumed to set up its own voice in the place of Christ’s, and the Reformation did the contrary; this was his abridgment of the controversy. Being called upon to preach during Christmas tide, he had censured his hearers because they celebrated that festival by playing at cards, like mere worldlings, and then proceeded to lay before their eyes Christ’s cards, that is to say, his laws. Being placed on the Cambridge commission to examine into the question of the king’s marriage, he had conciliated the esteem of Henry’s deputy, Doctor Butts, the court physician who had presented him to his master, by whose orders he preached at Windsor. HRSCV5 859.5

Henry felt disposed at first to yield something to Latimer. “Many of my subjects,” said he to the prelates assembled in St. Edward’s hall, “think that it is my duty to cause the Scriptures to be translated and given to the people.” The discussion immediately began between the two parties; and Latimer concluded by asking “that the Bible should be permitted to circulate freely in English.”—“But the most part overcame the better,” he tells us.” Henry declared that the teaching of the priests was sufficient for the people, and was content to add, “that he would give the Bible to his subjects when they renounced the arrogant pretension of interpreting it according to their own fancies.”—“Shun these books,” cried the priests from the pulpit, “detest them, keep them not in your hands, deliver them up to your superiors.” Or if you do not, your prince, who has received from God the sword of justice, will use it to punish you.” Rome had every reason to be satisfied with Henry VIII. Tonstall, who still kept under lock and key the Testaments purchased at Antwerp through Packington’s assistance, had them carried to St. Paul’s churchyard, where they were publicly burnt. The spectators retired shaking the head, and saying: “The teaching of the priests and of Scriptures must be in contradiction to each other, since the priests destroy them.” Latimer did more: “You have promised us the word of God,” he wrote courageously to the king; “perform your promise now rather than tomorrow! The day is at hand when you shall give an account of your office, and of the blood that hath been shed with your sword.” Latimer well knew that by such language he hazarded his life; but that he was ready to sacrifice, as he tells us himself. HRSCV5 859.6

Persecution soon came. Just as the sun appeared to be rising on the Reformation, the storm burst forth. “There was not a stone the bishops left unremoved,” says the chronicler, “any corner unsearched, for the diligent execution of the king’s proclamation; whereupon ensued a grievous persecution and slaughter of the faithful.” HRSCV5 860.1

Thomas Hitton, a poor and pious minister of Kent, used to go frequently to Antwerp to purchase New Testaments. As he was returning from one of these expeditions, in 1529, the bishop of Rochester caused him to be arrested at Gravesend, and put to the cruelest tortures, to make him deny his faith. But the martyr repeated with holy enthusiasm: “Salvation cometh by faith and not by works, and Christ giveth it to whomsoever he willeth.” On the 20th of February 1530, he was tied to the stake and there burnt to death. HRSCV5 860.2

Scarcely were Hitton’s sufferings ended for bringing the Scriptures into England, when a vessel laden with New Testaments arrived at Colchester. The indefatigable Bayfield, who accompanied these books, sold them in London, went back to the continent, and returned to England in November; but this time the Scriptures fell into the hands of Sir Thomas More. Bayfield, undismayed, again visited the Low Countries, and soon reappeared, bringing with him the New Testament and the works of almost all the Reformers. “How cometh it that there are so many New Testaments from abroad?” asked Tonstall of Packington; “you promised me that you would buy them all.”—“They have printed more since,” replied the wily merchant; “and it will never be better so long as they have letters and stamps [type and dies.] My lord, you had better buy the stamps too, and so you shall be sure.” HRSCV5 860.3

Instead of the stamps, the priests sought after Bayfield. The bishop of London could not endure this godly man. Having one day asked Bainham (who afterwards suffered martyrdom) whether he knew a single individual who, since the days of the apostles, had lived according to the true faith in Jesus Christ, the latter answered: “Yes, I know Bayfield.” Being tracked from place to place, he fled from the house of his pious hostess, and hid himself at his binder’s, where he was discovered, and thrown into the Lollard’s tower. HRSCV5 860.4

As he entered the prison Bayfield noticed a priest named Patmore, pale, weakened by suffering, and ready to sink under the ill treatment of his jailors. Patmore, won over by Bayfield’s piety, soon opened his heart to him. When rector of Haddam, he had found the truth in Wickliffe’s writings. “They have burnt his bones,” he said, “but from his ashes shall burst forth a well-spring of life.” Delighting in good works, he used to fill his granaries with wheat, and when the markets were high, he would send his corn to them in such abundance as to bring down the prices. “It is contrary to the law of God to burn heretics,” he said; and growing bolder, he added: “I care no more for the pope’s curse than for a bundle of hay.” HRSCV5 860.5

His curate, Simon Smith, unwilling to imitate the disorderly lives of the priests, and finding Joan Bennore, the rector’s servant, to be a discreet and pious person, desired to marry her. “God,” said Patmore, “has declared marriage lawful for all men; and accordingly it is permitted to the priests in foreign parts.” The rector alluded to Wittenberg, where he had visited Luther. After his marriage Smith and his wife quitted England for a season, and Patmore accompanied them as far as London. HRSCV5 860.6

The news of this marriage of a priest—a fact without precedent in England—made Stokesley throw Patmore into the Lollards’ tower, and although he was ill, neither fire, light, nor any other comfort was granted him. The bishop and his vicar-general visited him alone in his prison, and endeavoured by their threats to make him deny his faith. HRSCV5 860.7

It was during these circumstances that Bayfield was thrust into the tower. By his Christian words he revived Patmore’s languishing faith, and the latter complained to the king that the bishop of London prevented his feeding the flock which God had committed to his charge. Stokesley, comprehending whence Patmore derived his new courage, removed Bayfield from the Lollards’ tower, and shut him up in the coal-house, where he was fastened upright to the wall by the neck, middle, and legs. The unfortunate gospeller of Bury passed his time in continual darkness, never lying down, never seated, but nailed as it were to the wall, and never hearing the sound of human voice. We shall see him hereafter issuing from this horrible prison to die on the scaffold. HRSCV5 860.8

Patmore was not the only one in his family who suffered persecution; he had in London a brother named Thomas, a friend of John Tyndale, the younger brother of the celebrated reformer. Thomas had said that the truth of Scripture was at last reappearing in the world, after being hidden for many ages; and John Tyndale had sent five marks to his brother William, and received letters from him. Moreover, the two friends (who were both tradesmen) had distributed a great number of Testaments and other works. But their faith was not deeply rooted, and it was more out of sympathy for their brothers that they had believed; accordingly, Stokesley, so completely entangled them, that they confessed their “crime.” More, delighted at the opportunity which offered to cover the name of Tyndale with shame, was not satisfied with condemning the two friends to pay a fine of £100 each; he invented a new disgrace. He sewed on their dress some sheets of the New Testament which they had circulated, placed the two penitents on horseback with their faces towards the tail, and thus paraded them through the streets of London, exposed to the jeers and laughter of the populace. In this, More succeeded better than in his refutation of the reformer’s writings. HRSCV5 861.1

From that time the persecution became more violent. Husbandmen, artists, tradespeople, and even noblemen, felt the cruel fangs of the clergy and of Sir Thomas More. They sent to jail a pious musician who used to wander from town to town, singing to his harp a hymn in commendation of Martin Luther and of the Reformation. A painter, named Edward Freese, a young man of ready wit, having been engaged to paint some hangings in a house, wrote on the borders certain sentences of the Scripture. For this he was seized and taken to the bishop of London’s palace at Fulham, and there imprisoned, where his chief nourishment was bread made out of sawdust. His poor wife, who was pregnant, went down to Fulham to see her husband; but the bishop’s porter had orders to admit no one, and the brute gave her so violent a kick, as to kill her unborn infant, and cause the mother’s death not long after. The unhappy Freese was removed to the Lollards’ tower, where he was put into chains, his hands only being left free. With these he took a piece of coal, and wrote some pious sentences on the wall; upon this he was manacled, but his wrists were so severely pinched, that the flesh grew up higher than the irons. His intellect became disturbed; his hair in wild disorder soon covered his face, through which his eyes glared fierce and haggard. The want of proper food, bad treatment, his wife’s death, and his lengthened imprisonment, entirely undermined his reason; when brought to St. Paul’s, he was kept three days without meat; and when he appeared before the consistory, the poor prisoner, silent and scarce able to stand, looked around and gazed upon the spectators “like a wild man.” The examination was begun, but to every question put to him, Freese made the same answer: “My Lord is a good man.” They could get nothing from him but this affecting reply. Alas! the light shone no more upon his understanding, but the love of Jesus was still in his heart. He was sent back to Bearsy Abbey, where he did not remain long; but he never entirely recovered his reason. Henry VIII and his priests inflicted punishments still more cruel even than the stake. HRSCV5 861.2

Terror began to spread far and wide. The most active evangelists had been compelled to flee to a foreign land; some of the most godly were in prison; and among those in high station there were many, and perhaps Latimer was one, who seemed willing to shelter themselves under an exaggerated moderation. But just as the persecution in London had succeeded in silencing the most timid, other voices more courageous were raised in the provinces. The city of Exeter was at that time in great agitation; placards had been discovered on the gates of the cathedral containing some of the principles “of the new doctrine.” While the mayor and his officers were seeking after the author of these “blasphemies,” the bishop and all his doctors, “as hot as coals,” says the chronicler, were preaching in the most fiery style. On the following Sunday, during the sermon, two men who had been the busiest of all the city in searching for the author of the bills were struck by the appearance of a person seated near them. “Surely this fellow is the heretic,” they said. But their neighbors’s devotion, for he did not take his eyes off his book, quite put them out; they did not perceive that he was reading the New Testament in Latin. HRSCV5 861.3

This man, Thomas Bennet, was indeed the offender. Being converted at Cambridge by the preaching of Bilney, whose friend he was, he had gone to Torrington for fear of the persecution, and thence to Exeter, and after marrying to avoid unchastity (as he says), he became schoolmaster. Quiet, humble, courteous to everybody, and somewhat timid, Bennet had lived six years in that city without his faith being discovered. At last his conscience being awakened, he resolved to fasten by night to the cathedral gates certain evangelical placards. “Everybody will read the writing,” he thought, and “nobody will know the writer.” He did as he had proposed. HRSCV5 861.4

Not long after the Sunday on which he had been so nearly discovered, the priests prepared a great pageant, and made ready to pronounce against the unknown heretic the great curse “with book, bell, and candle.” The cathedral was crowded, and Bennet himself was among the spectators. In the middle stood a great cross on which lighted tapers were placed, and around it were gathered all the Franciscans and Dominicans of Exeter. One of the priests having delivered a sermon on the words: There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel, the bishop drew near the cross and pronounced the curse against the offender. He took one of the tapers and said: “Let the soul of the unknown heretic, if he be dead already, be quenched this night in the pains of hell-fire, as this candle is now quenched and put out;” and with that he put out the candle. Then taking off a second, he continued: “and let us pray to God, if he be yet alive, that his eyes by put out, and that all the senses of his body may fail him, as now the light of this candle is gone;” extinguishing the second candle. After this, one of the priests went up to the cross and struck it, when the noise it made in falling re-echoing along the roof so frightened the spectators that they uttered a shriek of terror, and held up their hands to heaven, as if to pray that the divine curse might not fall on them. Bennet, a witness of this comedy, could not forbear smiling. “What are you laughing at?” asked his neighbors; “here is the heretic, here is the heretic, hold him fast.” This created great confusion among the crowd, some shouting, some clapping their hands, others running to and fro; but, owing to the tumult, Bennet succeeded in making his escape. HRSCV5 862.1

The excommunication did but increase his desire to attack the Romish superstitions; and accordingly, before five o’clock the next morning (it was in the month of October 1530), his servant-boy fastened up again by his orders on the cathedral gates some placards similar to those which had been torn down. It chanced that a citizen going to early mass saw the boy, and running up to him, caught hold of him and pulled down the papers; and then dragging the boy with one hand, and with the placards in the other, he went to the mayor of the city. Bennet’s servant was recognized; his master was immediately arrested, and put in the stocks, “with as much favor as a dog would find,” says Foxe. HRSCV5 862.2

Exeter seemed determined to make itself the champion of sacerdotalism in England. For a whole week, not only the bishop, but all the priests and friars of the city, visited Bennet night and day. But they tried in vain to prove to him that the Roman church was the true one. “God has given me grace to be of a better church,” he said.—“Do you not know that ours is built upon St. Peter?”—“The church that is built upon a man,” he replied, “is the devil’s church and not God’s.” His cell was continually thronged with visitors; and, in default of arguments, the most ignorant of the friars called the prisoner a heretic, and spat upon him. At length they brought to him a learned doctor of theology, who, they supposed, would infallibly convert him. “Our ways are God’s ways,” said the doctor gravely. But he soon discovered that theologians can do nothing against the word of the Lord. “He only is my way,” replied Bennet, “who saith, I am the way, the truth, and the live. In his way will I walk;—his truth will I embrace;—his everlasting life will I seek.” HRSCV5 862.3

He was condemned to be burnt; and More having transmitted the order de comburendo with the utmost speed, the priests placed Bennet in the hands of the sheriff on the 15th of January 1531, by whom he was conducted to the Liverydole, a field without the city, where the stake was prepared. When Bennet arrived at the place of execution, he briefly exhorted the people, but with such unction, that the sheriff’s clerk, as he heard him, exclaimed: “Truly this is a servant of God.” Two persons, however, seemed unmoved: they were Thomas Carew, and John Barnehouse, both holding the station of gentlemen. Going up to the martyr, they exclaimed in a threatening voice: “Say, Precor sanctam Mariam et omnes sanctos Dei.”—“I know no other advocate but Jesus Christ,” replied Bennet. Barnehouse was so enraged at these words, that he took a furze-bush upon a pike, and setting it on fire, thrust into the martyr’s face, exclaiming: “Accursed heretic, pray to our Lady, or I will make you do it.”—“Alas!” replied Bennet patiently, “trouble me not;” and then holding up his hands, he prayed: “Father, forgive them!” The executioners immediately set fire to the wood, and the most fanatical of the spectators, both men and women, seized with an indescribable fury, tore up stakes and bushes, and whatever they could lay their hands on, and flung them all into the flames to increase their violence. Bennet, lifting up his eyes to heaven, exclaimed: HRSCV5 862.4

“Lord, receive my spirit.” Thus died, in the sixteenth century, the disciples of the Reformation sacrificed by Henry VIII. HRSCV5 863.1

The priests, thanks to the king’s sword, began to count on victory; yet schoolmasters, musicians, tradesmen, and even ecclesiastics, were not enough for them. They wanted nobler victims, and these were to be looked for in London. More himself, accompanied by the lieutenant of the Tower, searched many of the suspected houses. Few citizens were more esteemed in London than John Petit, the same who, in the house of commons, had so nobly resisted the king’s demand about the loan. Petit was learned in history and in Latin literature: he spoke with eloquence, and for twenty years had worthily represented the city. Whenever any important affair was debated in parliament, the king feeling uneasy, was in the habit of inquiring, which side he took? This political independence, very rare in Henry’s parliaments, gave umbrage to the prince and his ministers. Petit, the friend of Bilney, Fryth, and Tyndale, had been one of the first in England to taste the sweetness of God’s word, and had immediately manifested that beautiful characteristic by which the gospel faith makes itself known, namely, charity. He abounded in almsgiving, supported a great number of poor preachers of the gospel in his own country and beyond the seas; and whenever he noted down these generous aids in his books, he wrote merely the words: “Lent unto Christ.” He moreover forbade his testamentary executors to call in these debts. HRSCV5 863.2

Petit was tranquilly enjoying the sweets of domestic life in his modest home in the society of his wife and two daughters, Blanche and Audrey, when he received an unexpected visit. One day, as he was praying in his closet, a loud knock was heard at the street door. His wife ran to open it, but seeing Lord-chancellor More, she returned hurriedly to her husband, and told him that the lord-chancellor wanted him. More, who followed her, entered the closet, and with inquisitive eye ran over the shelves of the library, but could find nothing suspicious. Presently he made as if he would retire, and Petit accompanied him. The chancellor stopped at the door and said to him: “You assert that you have none of these new books?”—“You have seen my library,” replied Petit.—“I am informed, however,” replied More, “that you not only read them, but pay for the printing.” And then he added in a severe tone: “Follow the lieutenant.” In spite of the tears of his wife and daughters this independent member of parliament was conducted to the Tower, and shut up in a damp dungeon, where he had nothing but straw to lie upon. His wife went thither each day in vain, asking with tears permission to see him, or at least to send him a bed; the jailers refused her everything; and it was only when Petit fell dangerously ill that the latter favor was granted him. This took place in 1530, sentence was passed in 1531; we shall see Petit again in his prison. He left it, indeed, but only to sink under the cruel treatment he had there experienced. HRSCV5 863.3

Thus were the witnesses to the truth struck down by the priests, by Sir Thomas More, and by Henry VIII. A new victim was to be the cause of many tears. A meek and humble man, one dear to all the friends of the gospel, and whom we may regard as the spiritual father of the Reformation in England, was on the point of mounting the burning pile raised by his persecutors. Some time prior to Petit’s appearance before his judges, which took place in 1531, an unusual noise was heard in the cell above him; it was Thomas Bilney, whom they were conducting to the Tower. We left him at the end of 1528 after his fall. Bilney had returned to Cambridge tormented by remorse; his friends in vain crowded round him by night and by day; they could not console him, and even the Scriptures seemed to utter no voice but that of condemnation. Fear made him tremble constantly, and he could scarcely eat or drink. At length a heavenly and unexpected light dawned in the heart of the fallen disciple; a witness whom he had vexed—the Holy Spirit—spoke once more in his heart. Bilney fell at the foot of the cross, shedding floods of tears, and there he found peace. But the more God comforted him, the greater seemed his crime. One only thought possessed him, that of giving his life for the truth. He had shrunk from before the burning pile; its flames must now consume him. Neither the weakness of his body, which his long anguish had much increased, nor the cruelty of his enemies, nor his natural timidity, nothing could stop him he strove for the martyr’s crown. At ten o’clock one night, when every person in Trinity Hall was retiring to rest, Bilney called his friends round him, reminded them of his fall, and added: “You shall see me no more Do not stay me: my decision is formed, and I shall carry it out. My face is set to go to Jerusalem.” Bilney repeated the words used by the Evangelist, when he describes Jesus going up to the city where he was put to death. Having shaken hands with his brethren, this venerable man, the foremost of the evangelists of England in order of time, left Cambridge under cover of the night, and proceeded to Norfolk, to confirm in the faith those who had believed, and to invite the ignorant multitude to the Saviour. We shall not follow him in this last and solemn ministry; these facts and others of the same kind belong to a later date. Before the year 1531 closed in, Bilney, Bainham, Bayfield, Tewkesbury, and many others, struck by Henry’s sword, sealed by their blood the testimony rendered by them to the perfect grace of Christ. HRSCV5 863.4