On the 4th of July they were both taken to Smithfield: the executioners fastened them to the post, back to back; the torch was applied, the flame rose in the air, and Fryth, stretching out his hands, embraced it as if it were a dear friend whom he would welcome. The spectators were touched, and showed marks of lively sympathy. ‘Of a truth,’ said an evangelical Christian in after days, ‘he was one of those prophets whom God, having pity on this realm of England, raised up to call us to repentance.’[[332]] His enemies were there. Cooke, a fanatic priest, observing some persons praying, called out: ‘Do not pray for such folks, any more than you would for a dog.’[[333]] At this moment a sweet light shone on Fryth’s face, and he was heard beseeching the Lord to pardon his enemies. Hewet died first, and Fryth thanked God that the sufferings of his young brother were over. Committing his soul into the Lord’s hands, he expired. ‘Truly,’ exclaimed many, ‘great are the victories Christ gains in his saints.’

So many souls were enlightened by Fryth’s writings, that this reformer contributed powerfully to the renovation of England. ‘One day, an Englishman,’ says Thomas Becon, prebendary of Canterbury and chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, ‘having taken leave of his mother and friends, travelled into Derbyshire, and from thence to the Peak, a marvellous barren country,’ and where there was then ‘neither learning nor yet no spark of godliness.’ Coming into a little village named Alsop in the Dale, he chanced upon a certain gentleman also named Alsop, lord of that village, a man not only ancient in years, but also ripe in the knowledge of Christ’s doctrine. After they had taken ‘a sufficient repast,’ the gentleman showed his guest certain books which he called his jewels and principal treasures: these were the New Testament and some books of Fryth’s. In these godly treatises this ancient gentleman occupied himself among his rocks and mountains both diligently and virtuously. ‘He did not only love the Gospel,’ adds Cranmer’s chaplain, he ‘lived it also.’[[334]]

Fryth’s writings were not destined to be read always with the same avidity: the truth they contain is, however, good for all times. The books of the apostles and of the reformers which that gentleman of Alsop read in the sixteenth century were better calculated to bring joy and peace to the soul than the light works read with such avidity in the world.

CHAPTER XX.
ENGLAND SEPARATES GRADUALLY FROM THE PAPACY.
(1533.)

Anne Boleyn.

When Fryth mounted the scaffold, Anne Boleyn had been seated a month on the throne of England. The salvoes of artillery which had saluted the new queen had re-echoed all over Europe. There could be no more doubt: the Earl of Wiltshire’s daughter, radiant with grace and beauty, wore the Tudor crown; every one, especially the imperial family, must bear the consequences of the act. One day Sir John Hacket, English envoy at Brussels, arrived at court just as Mary, regent of the Low Countries, was about to mount her horse. ‘Have you any news from England?’ she asked him in French.—‘None,’ he replied. Mary gave him a look of surprise,[[335]] and added: ‘Then I have, and not over good methinks.’ She then told him of the king’s marriage, and Hacket rejoined with an unembarrassed air: ‘Madam, I know not if it has taken place, but everybody who considers it coolly and without family prejudice will agree that it is a lawful and a conscientious marriage.’ Mary, who was niece of the unhappy Catherine, replied: ‘Mr. Ambassador, God knows I wish all may go well; but I do not know how the emperor and the king my brother will take it, for it touches them as well as me.’—‘I think I may be certain,’ returned Sir John, ‘that they will take it in good part.’—‘That I do not know, Mr. Ambassador,’ said the regent, who doubted it much; and then mounting her horse, she rode out for the chase.[[336]]

Charles V. was exasperated: he immediately pressed the pope to intervene, and on the 12th of May, Clement cited the king to appear at Rome. The pontiff was greatly embarrassed: having a particular liking for Benet, Henry’s agent, he took him aside, and said to him privately:[[337]] ‘It is an affair of such importance that there has been none like it for many years. I fear to kindle a fire that neither pope nor emperor will be able to quench.’ And then he added unaffectedly: ‘Besides, I cannot pronounce the king’s excommunication before the emperor has an army ready to constrain him.’ Henry being told of this aside made answer: ‘Having the justice of our cause for us, with the entire consent of our nobility, commons, and subjects, we do not care for what the pope may do.’ Accordingly he appealed from the pope to a general council.

The pope was now more embarrassed than ever; ‘I cannot stand still and do nothing,’ he said.[[338]] On the 12th of July he revoked all the English proceedings and excommunicated the king, but suspended the effects of his sentence until the end of September. ‘I hope,’ said Henry contemptuously, ‘that before then the pope will understand his folly.’[[339]]

He reckoned on Francis I. to help him to understand it; but that prince was about to receive the pope’s niece into his family, and Henry made every exertion, but to no effect, to prevent the meeting of Clement and Francis at Marseilles. The King of England, who had already against him the Netherlands, the Empire, Rome, and Spain, saw France also slipping from him. He was isolated in Europe, and that became a serious matter. Agitated and indignant, he came to an extraordinary resolution, namely, to turn to the disciples and friends of that very Luther whom he had formerly so disdainfully treated.

Missions Of Vaughan And Mann.