"After Master Garret escaped, the commissary being in extreme pensiveness, knew no other remedy but this extraordinary, and caused a figure to be made by one expert in astronomy—and his judgment doth continually persist upon this, that he fled in a tawny coat south-eastward, and is in the middle of London, and will shortly to the sea side. He was curate unto the parson of Honey Lane.[73] It is likely he is privily cloaked there. Wherefore, as soon as I knew the judgment of this astronomer, I thought it expedient and my duty with all speed to ascertain your good lordship of all the premises; that in time your lordship may advertise my lord his Grace, and my lord of London. It will be a gracious deed that he and all his pestiferous works, which he carrieth about, might be taken, to the salvation of his soul, opening of many privy heresies, and extinction of the same."[74]
Tuesday, Feb. 24.
We might much desire to know what the bishop's sensations were in reading this letter—to know whether it occurred to him that in this naïve acknowledgment, the Oxford heresy hunters were themselves confessing to an act of heresy; and that by the law of the church, which they were so eager to administer, they were liable to the same death which they were so zealous to secure for the poor vendors of Testaments. So indeed they really were. Consulting the stars had been ruled from immemorial time to be dealing with the devil; the penalty of it was the same as for witchcraft; yet here was a reverend warden of a college considering it his duty to write eagerly of a discovery obtained by these forbidden means, to his own diocesan, begging him to communicate with the Cardinal of York and the Bishop of London, that three of the highest church authorities in England might become participes criminis, by acting on this diabolical information.
The principal ports set for Garret's capture.
Meanwhile, the commissary, not wholly relying on the astrologer, but resolving prudently to make use of the more earthly resources which were at his disposal, had sent information of Garret's escape to the corporations of Dover, Rye, Winchester, Southampton, and Bristol, with descriptions of the person of the fugitive; and this step was taken with so much expedition, that before the end of the week no vessel was allowed to leave either of those harbours without being strictly searched.
The natural method proved more effectual than the supernatural, though again with the assistance of a singular accident. Garret had not gone to London; unfortunately for himself, he had not gone to Wales as he had intended. He left Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February 21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[75] where he lay concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny Garret goes to Bristol, and is taken by the father-in-law of the Oxford proctor. dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to receive him. His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky. The "chapman" of the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connexion acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast-guard had been set before Garret's arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty of the council, had kept privy watch," and searched suspicious houses at Master Wilkyns's instance; the whole population were on the alert, and when the next afternoon, a week after his escape, the poor heretic, footsore and weary, dragged himself into the town, he found that he had walked into the lion's mouth.[76] He quickly learnt the danger to which he was exposed, and hurried off again with the best speed which he could command; but it was too late. The chapman, alert and indefatigable, had heard that a stranger had been seen in the street; the police were set upon his track, and he was taken at Bedminster, a suburb on the opposite bank of the Avon, and hurried before a magistrate, where he at once acknowledged his identity.
Saturday, Feb. 28.
With such happy success were the good chapman's efforts rewarded. Yet in this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its alloy. In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting the Master Wilkyns's triumph, hopes, and disappointment. prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the hour. The sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited disappointment. Garret had been taken beyond the liberties of the city; it was necessary, therefore, to commit him to the county gaol, and he was sent to Ilchester. "Master Wilkyns offered himself to be bound to the said justice in three Garret is sent to Ilchester, and thence to London, hundred pounds to discharge him of the said Garret, and to see him surely to Master Proctor's of Oxford; yet could he not have him, for the justice said that the order of the law would not so serve."[77] The fortunate captor had therefore to content himself with the consciousness of his exploit, and the favourable report of his conduct which was sent to the bishops; and Garret went first to Ilchester, and thence was taken by special writ, and surrendered to Wolsey.
Thus unkind had fortune shown herself to the chief criminal, guilty of the unpardonable offence of selling Testaments at Oxford, and therefore hunted down as a mad dog, and a common enemy of mankind. He escaped for the Where he abjures. present the heaviest consequences, for Wolsey persuaded him to abjure. A few years later we shall again meet him, when he had recovered his better nature, and would not abjure, and died as a brave man should die. In the mean time we return to the university, where the authorities were busy trampling out the remains of the conflagration.
The investigation at Oxford continues.