Proclamation Against Papal Bulls.
The first blows were aimed at the court-chaplain. The bishops, finding it dangerous to have such a man near the king, would have liked (Latimer tells us) to place him on burning coals.[[139]] But Henry loved him, the blow failed, and the priests had to turn to those who were not so well at court. Thomas Bilney, whose conversion had begun the Reformation in England,[[140]] had been compelled to do penance at St. Paul’s Cross; but from that time he became the prey of the direst terror. His backsliding had manifested the weakness of his faith. Bilney possessed a sincere and lively piety, but a judgment less sound than many of his friends. He had not got rid of certain scruples which in Luther and Calvin had yielded to the supreme authority of God’s Word.[[141]] In his opinion none but priests consecrated by bishops had the power to bind and loose.[[142]] This mixture of truth and error had caused his fall. Such sincere but imperfectly enlightened persons are always to be met with—persons who, agitated by the scruples of their conscience, waver between Rome and the Word of God.
At last faith gained the upper hand in Bilney. Leaving his Cambridge friends, he had gone into the Eastern counties to meet his martyrdom. One day, arriving at a hermitage in the vicinity of Norwich, where a pious woman dwelt, his words converted her to Christ.[[143]] He then began to preach ‘openly in the fields’ to great crowds. His voice was heard in all the county. Weeping over his former fall, he said: ‘That doctrine which I once abjured is the truth. Let my example be a lesson to all who hear me.’
Before long he turned his steps in the direction of London, and, stopping at Ipswich, was not content to preach the Gospel only, but violently attacked the errors of Rome before an astonished audience.[[144]] Some monks had crept among his hearers, and Bilney, perceiving them, called out: ‘The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world. If the Bishop of Rome dares say that the hood of St. Francis saves, he blasphemes the blood of the Saviour.’ John Huggen, one of the monks, immediately made a note of the words. Bilney continued: ‘To invoke the saints and not Christ, is to put the head under the feet and the feet above the head.’[[145]] Richard Seman, the other brother, took down these words. ‘Men will come after me,’ continued Bilney, ‘who will teach the same faith, the true gospel of our Saviour, and will disentangle you from the errors in which deceivers have bound you so long.’ Brother Julius hastened to write down the bold prediction.
Latimer, surrounded by the favors of the king and the luxury of the great, watched his friend from afar. He called to mind their walks in the fields round Cambridge, their serious conversation as they climbed the hill afterwards called after them the ‘heretic’s hill,’[[146]] and the visits they had paid together to the poor and to the prisoners.[[147]] Latimer had seen Bilney very recently at Cambridge in fear and anguish, and had tried in vain to restore him to peace. ‘He now rejoiced that God had endued him with such strength of faith that he was ready to be burnt for Christ’s sake.’
Bilney And Petit In Prison.
Bilney, drawing still nearer to London, arrived at Greenwich about the middle of July. He procured some New Testaments, and, hiding them carefully under his clothes, called upon a humble Christian named Staple. Taking them ‘out of his sleeves,’ he desired Staple to distribute them among his friends. Then, as if impelled by a thirst for martyrdom, he turned again towards Norwich, whose bishop, Richard Nix, a blind octogenarian, was in the front rank of the persecutors. Arriving at the solitary place where the pious ‘anachoress’ lived, he left one of the precious volumes with her. This visit cost Bilney his life. The poor solitary read the New Testament, and lent it to the people who came to see her. The bishop, hearing of it, informed Sir Thomas More, who had Bilney arrested,[[148]] brought to London, and shut up in the Tower.
Bilney began to breathe again: a load was taken off him; he was about to suffer the penalty his fall deserved. In the room next his was John Petit, a member of parliament of some eloquence, who had distributed his books and his alms in England and beyond the seas. Philips, the under-gaoler of the Tower, who was a good man, told the two prisoners that only a wooden partition separated them, which was a source of great joy to both. He would often remove a panel, and permit them to converse and take their frugal meals together.[[149]]
This happiness did not last long. Bilney’s trial was to take place at Norwich, where he had been captured: the aged Bishop Nix wanted to make an example in his diocese. A crowd of monks—Augustins, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carmelites—visited the prison of the evangelist to convert him. Dr. Gall, provincial of the Franciscans, having consented that the prisoner should make use of Scripture,[[150]] was shaken in his faith; but, on the other hand, Stokes, an Augustin and a determined papist, repeated to Bilney: ‘If you die in your opinions, you will be lost.’
The trial commenced, and the Ipswich monks gave their evidence. ‘He said,’ deposed William Cade, ‘that the Jews and Saracens would have been converted long since, if the idolatry of the Christians had not disgusted them with Christianity.’—‘I heard him say,’ added Richard Neale: ‘“down with your gods of gold, silver, and stone.”’—‘He stated,’ resumed Cade, ‘that the priests take away the offerings from the saints, and hang them about their women’s necks; and then, if the offerings do not prove fine enough, they are put upon the images again.’[[151]]