“I replied: ‘You cannot prove it.’
“ ‘I will prove it,’ he said, ‘thus: Whoever denies Holy Scripture is a heretic; you deny this to be Holy Scripture: Ergo.’
“I replied: ‘This is no true syllogism; it shifts from general to particular, and so has four terms.’
“The old man answered: ‘I could make syllogisms before you were born.’
“ ‘Very likely,’ I said; ‘but the one you have just produced is not a true one.’
“However, the good old man[77] would not try a new middle term, and made no further attempt to prove me a heretic. But one urged one thing, and another another, not in the way of argument, but after their usual plan, asking me such questions as they knew very well I did not like to answer; and then, in the end, they sent me back to prison.”
XII.
“On another occasion they examined me, and all the other Catholics that were confined in the same prison with me, in a public place called Guildhall, where Topcliffe and several other Commissioners were present. When they had put their usual questions, and received from me the usual answers, they came to the point, intending, I imagine, to sound us all as to our feelings towards the State, or else to entrap us in some expressions about the State that might be made matter of accusation. They asked me, then, whether I acknowledged the Queen as the true Governor and Queen of England.
“I answered: ‘I do acknowledge her as such.’
“ ‘What,’ said Topcliffe, ‘in spite of Pius V.'s excommunication?’