During this time the unfortunate Elizabeth saw all the evils she had caused rise up before her eyes: she was grieved and agitated, she was angry with herself and trembled at the idea of the temporal and eternal penalties she had deserved. Death was about to end this drama of fanaticism. On the 20th April the false prophetess was carried to Tyburn with her accomplices, in the midst of a great crowd of people. On reaching the scaffold, she said: 'I am the cause not only of my own death, which I have richly deserved, but of the death of all those who are going to suffer with me. Alas! I was a poor wretch without learning,[34] but the praises of the priests about me turned my brain, and I thought I might say anything that came into my head. Now I cry to God and implore the king's pardon.' These were her last words. She fell—she and her accomplices—under the stroke of the law.
These were the means to which fervent disciples of Rome had recourse to combat the Reformation in England. Such weapons recoil against those who employ them. The blindest partisans of the Church of the popes continued to look upon this woman as a prophetess, and her name was in great favor during the reign of Mary. But the most enlightened Roman catholics are now careful not to defend the imposture.[35] The fanatical episode was not without its use: it made the people understand what these pretended visions and false miracles were, through which the religious orders had acquired so much influence; and so far contributed to the suppression of the monasteries within whose walls such a miserable deception had been concocted.
[2] Burnet.
[3] Supra, vol. iv, bk. vi. ch. xxi.
[4] Pallavicini, Concil. Trid. lib. i. Herbert, p. 397. Burnet, i. p. 131. Collyer, ii. p. 80.
[5] Carne and Revett to Henry.—State Papers, vii. p. 553.
[6] Carne and Revett to Henry.—State Papers, vii. p. 553.
[7] 'It was to our heaviness.' Carne and Revett to Henry.—State Papers, vii. p. 553.
[8] Du Bellay to the King. Le Grand, Preuves du divorce, p. 634.
[9] 'Se donne au diable.'—Ibid.