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TORTURE OF FOREST.

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so to content the people that therewith I might also convert Forest, God so helping, or rather altogether working; wherefore I would that he should hear what I shall say."

The Bishop preached his sermon at the foot of the gallows. At its close he asked the sufferer what state he would die in; to which he replied, "that if an angel should come down from heaven to teach him any other doctrine than he had received and believed from his youth, he would not now believe him; and that if his body should be cut joint by joint, or member after member, burnt, hanged, or what pain soever might be done to his body, he would never turn from his old profession." He then, addressing Latimer, told him that "seven years past he durst not have made such a sermon for his life." The execution was conducted with a barbarity unusual even in that age. Forest was suspended, living, by chains over a fire, and thus slowly consumed.

These, with similar executions, furnished a sad precedent for the Roman Catholic party when they came again into power in the reign of Mary. They doubtless, also, greatly embittered the strife in Henry's day. It is,

however, difficult to see how they could have been avoided in an age when death was the common penalty for offences against the state. While we regret that the establishment of the Reformation was thus marked by the blood of its opponents-in many instances, doubtless, sincerely religious menwe must remember that the government was assailed by threats without and plots within its dominions, and that great revolutions have seldom, if ever, been effected without being marked by similar faults.

Latimer was also engaged this year in exposing the blood of Hailes. This was a relic which purported to be a portion of the blood of our Saviour, and brought great gain to the monastery which possessed it.

Commissioners were now by authority of an act of Parliament engaged in their visitation of the religious houses. Latimer writes to Cromwell: "Sir, we have been bolting and sifting the blood of Hailes all this forenoon. It was wonderously closely and craftily inclosed and stopped up, for taking of care. And it cleaveth fast to the bottom of the little glass that it is in. And verily, it seemeth to be an unctuous gum and com

EXPOSURE OF IMPOSTURE.

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pound of many things. It hath a certain unctuous moistness; and though it seem somewhat like blood when it is in the glass, yet when any parcel of the same is taken out, it turneth to a yellowness, and is cleaving like glue."

We again hear of the blood of Hailes in November of the same year, when it was publicly exhibited to the people by Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester, during his sermon at Paul's Cross, as a pitiful imposture.

CHAPTER X.

CHARGE OF SEDITION-PREACHING-DESTRUCTION OF THE MONASTERIES-PLEA FOR GREAT MALVERN AND WORCESTER THE TURNED-DOWN LEAF-BISHOP GARDINER -THE SIX ARTICLES-CROMWELL-HENRY'S WIVES— ANNE OF CLEVES-BISHOP LATIMER'S RESIGNATIONMANAGEMENT OF HIS DIOCESE-INJURY AND IMPRISON

MENT.

N 1539 the enemies of Latimer appear to have made another attempt to injure his position with the King. He has himself told the story in one of his sermons before Edward the Sixth.

"In the King's days that dead is, a many of us were called together before him to say our minds in certain matters. In the end, one kneeleth me down and accuseth me of sedition, that I had preached seditious doctrine. A heavy salutation, and a hard point of such a man's doing, as if I should name him, ye would not think it. The King turned to me and said: 'What say you to that, sir?'

PREACHING TO THE KING.

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Then I kneeled down, and turned me first to mine accuser, and required him: Sir, what form of preaching would you appoint me to preach before a king? Would you have me for to preach nothing as concerning a king in the King's sermon? Have you any commission to appoint me what I shall preach?' Besides this, I asked him divers other questions, and he would make no answer to none of them all; he had nothing to say. Then I turned me to the King, and submitted myself to his Grace, and said: 'I never thought myself worthy, nor I never sued to be a preacher before your Grace, but I was called to it, and would be willing, if you mislike me, to give place to my betters; for I grant there be a great many more worthy of the room than I am. And if it be your Grace's pleasure so to allow them for preachers, I could be content to bear their books after them. But if your Grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire your Grace to give me leave to discharge my conscience; give me leave to frame my doctrine according to mine audience. I had been a very dolt to have preached so at the borders of your realm as I preach before your Grace.'

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