The Reign of Mary Tudor

by James Anthony Froude

The introduction of the Register was the Inquisition under another name. There was no limit, except in the humanity or the prudence of the bishops, to the tyranny which they would be enabled to exercise. The cardinal professed to desire that, before heretics were punished with death, mild means should first be tried with them;[439] the meaning which he attached to the words was illustrated in an instant example.

The instructions were the signal for the bishops to commence business. On the day of their appearance, Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates, formed a court in St. Mary Overy's Church, in Southwark; and Hooper, and Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, were brought up before them.

Rogers had been distinguished in the first bright days of Protestantism. He had been a fellow-labourer with Tyndal and Coverdale, at Antwerp, in the translation of the Bible. Afterwards, taking a German wife, he lived for a time at Wittenberg, not unknown, we may be sure, to Martin Luther. On the accession of Edward, he returned to England, and worked among the London clergy till the end of the reign; and on Mary's accession he was one of the preachers at Paul's Cross who had dared to speak against the reaction. He had been rebuked by the council, and his friends had urged him to fly; but, like Cranmer, he thought that duty required him to stay at his post, and, in due time, without, however, having given fresh provocation, he was shut up in Newgate by Bonner.

Hooper, when the unfortunate garment controversy was brought to an end, had shown by his conduct in his diocese that in one instance at least doctrinal fanaticism was compatible with the loftiest excellence. While the great world was scrambling for the church property, Hooper was found petitioning the council for leave to augment impoverished livings out of his own income.[440] In the hall of his palace at Gloucester a profuse hospitality was offered daily to those who were most in need of it. The poor of the city were invited by relays to solid meat dinners, and the bishop with the courtesy of a gentleman dined with them, and treated them with the same respect as if they had been the highest in the land. He was one of the first persons arrested after Mary's accession, and the cross of persecution at once happily made his peace with Ridley. In an affectionate interchange of letters, the two confessors exhorted each other to constancy in the end which both foresaw, determining "if they could not overthrow, at least, to shake those high altitudes" of spiritual tyranny.[441] The Fleet prison had now been Hooper's house for eighteen months. At first, on payment of heavy fees to the warden, he had lived in some degree of comfort; but as soon as his deprivation was declared, Gardiner ordered that he should be confined in one of the common prisoners' wards; where "with a wicked man and a wicked woman" for his companions, with a bed of straw and a rotten counterpane, the prison sink on one side of his cell and Fleet ditch on the other, he waited till it would please parliament to permit the dignitaries of the Church to murder him.[442]

These were the two persons with whom the Marian persecution opened. On their appearance in the court, they were required briefly to make their submission. They attempted to argue; but they were told that when parliament had determined a thing, private men were not to call it in question, and they were allowed twenty-four hours to make up their minds. As they were leaving the church Hooper was heard to say, "Come, brother Rogers, must we two take this matter first in hand and fry these faggots?" "Yea, sir, with God's grace," Rogers answered. "Doubt not," Hooper said, "but God will give us strength."

They were remanded to prison. The next morning they were brought again before the court. "The queen's mercy" was offered them, if they would recant; they refused, and they were sentenced to die. Rogers asked to be allowed to take leave of his wife and children. Gardiner, with a savage taunt, rejected the request. The day of execution was left uncertain. They were sent to Newgate to wait the queen's pleasure. On the 30th, Taylor of Hadley, Laurence Sandars, rector of All Hallows, and the illustrious Bradford, were passed through the same forms with the same results. Another, a notorious preacher, called Cardmaker, flinched, and made his submission.

Rogers was to "break the ice," as Bradford described it.[443] On the morning of the 4th of February the wife of the keeper of Newgate came to his bedside. He was sleeping soundly, and she woke him with difficulty to let him know that he was wanted. The Bishop of London was waiting, she said, to degrade him from the priesthood, and he was then to go out and die. Rubbing his eyes, and collecting himself, he hurried on his clothes. "If it be thus." he said, "I need not tie my points." Hooper had been sent for also for the ceremony of degradation. The vestments used in the mass were thrown over them, and were then one by one removed. They were pronounced deposed from the priestly office, incapable of offering further sacrifice—except, indeed, the only acceptable sacrifice which man can ever offer, the sacrifice of himself. Again Rogers entreated permission to see his wife, and again he was refused.

The two friends were then parted. Hooper was to suffer at Gloucester, and returned to his cell; Rogers was committed to the sheriff, and led out to Smithfield. The Catholics had affected to sneer at the faith of their rivals. There was a general conviction among them, which was shared probably by Pole and Gardiner, that the Protestants would all flinch at the last; that they had no "doctrine that would abide the fire." When Rogers appeared, therefore, the exultation of the people in his constancy overpowered the horror of his fate, and he was received with rounds of cheers. His family, whom he was forbidden to part with in private, were waiting on the way to see him—his wife with nine little ones at her side and a tenth upon her breast—and they, too, welcomed him with hysterical cries of joy, as if he were on his way to a festival.[444] Sir Robert Rochester was in attendance at the stake to report his behaviour. At the last moment he was offered pardon if he would give way, but in vain. The fire was lighted. The suffering seemed to be nothing. He bathed his hands in the flame as "if it was cold water," raised his eyes to heaven, and died.

The same night a party of the royal guard took charge of Hooper, the order of whose execution was arranged by a mandate from the crown. As "an obstinate, false, and detestable heretic," he was to be burned in the city "which he had infected with his pernicious doctrines;" and "forasmuch as being a vainglorious person, and delighting in his tongue," he "might persuade the people into agreement with him, had he liberty to use it," care was to be taken that he should not speak either at the stake or on his way to it.[445] He was carried down on horseback by easy stages; and on the forenoon of Thursday, the 7th, he dined at Cirencester, "at a woman's house who had always hated the truth, and spoken all evil she could of him." This woman had shared in the opinion that Protestants had no serious convictions, and had often expressed her belief that Hooper, particularly, would fail if brought to the trial. She found that both in him and in his creed there was more than she had supposed; and "perceiving the cause of his coming, she lamented his case with tears, and showed him all the friendship she could."

At five in the evening he arrived at Gloucester. The road, for a mile outside the town, was lined with people, and the mayor was in attendance, with an escort, to prevent a rescue. But the feeling was rather of awe and expectation, and those who loved Hooper best knew that the highest service which he could render to his faith was to die for it.