"And if so, deserved all to die,' continued the speaker.
"Ay, and so they do, sir," quoth the sleeper. "I pray you let them all be hanged." Upon which every one [{755}] laughed, and the aged gentleman also; and then he said,
"Good my friends, I ween 'tis a rash thing to speak in favor of recusants nowadays, and what few could dare to do but such as cannot be suspected of disloyalty to the queen and the country, and who, having drunk of the cup of affliction in their youth, even to the dregs, and held life for a long time as a burden which hath need to be borne day by day, until the wished for hour of release doth come—and the sooner, the more welcome—have no enemies to fear, and no object to attain. And if so be that you will bear with me for a few moments, yea, if ye procure me to be hanged to-morrow" (this he said with a pleasant smile; and, "Marry, fear not, Mr. Roper," and "I' faith, speak on, sir," was bruited round him by his astonished auditors), "I will recite to you some small part of the miseries which have been endured of late years by such as cannot be charged with the least thought of treason, or so much as the least offence against the laws, except in what touches the secret practice of their religion. Women have, to my certain knowledge, been hung up by the hands in prisons (which do overflow with recusants, so that at this time there remaineth no room for common malefactors), and cruelly scourged, for that they would not confess by which priest they had been reconciled or absolved, or where they had heard mass. Priests are often tortured to force them to declare what they hear in confession, who harbor priests and Papists, where such and such recusants are to be found, and the like questions; and in so strenuous a manner, that needles have been thrust under their nails, and one man, not long since, died of his racking. O sirs and gentle ladies, I have seen with mine own eyes a youth, the son of one of my friends—young Mark Typper, born of honest and rich parents, skilful in human learning, having left his study for a time, and going home to see his friends—whipped through the streets of London, and burnt in the ear, because, forsooth, a forward judge, to whom he had been accused as a Papist, and finding no proof thereof, condemned him as a vagabond. And what think you, good people, of the death of Sir Robert Tyrwit's son, who was accused for hearing of a mass at the marriage of his sister, and albeit at the time of his arrest in a grievous fever, was pulled out of the house and thrust into prison, even as he then was, feeble, faint, and grievously sick? His afflicted parents entreat, make intercession, and use all the means they can to move the justices to have consideration of the sick; not to heap sorrow upon sorrow, nor affliction on the afflicted; not to take away the life of so comely a young gentleman, whom the physicians come and affirm will certainly die if he should be removed. All this is nothing regarded. They lay hold on the sick man, pull him away, shut him up in prison, and within two days next after he dies. They bury him, and make no scruple or regard at all. O sirs, bethink you what these parents do feel when they hear Englishmen speak of the murders of Protestants in France as an unheard of crime. If, in these days, one in a family of recusants doth covet the inheritance of an elder brother—yea, of a father—he hath but to conform to the now established religion (I leave you to think with how much of piety and conscience), and denounce his parent as a Papist, and straightway he doth procure him to be despoiled, and his lands given up to him. Thus the seeds of strife and bitter enmity have been sown broadcast through the land, the bands of love in families destroyed, the foundations of honor and beneficence blown up, the veins and sinews of the common society of men cut asunder, and a fiendly force of violence and a deadly poison of suspicion used against such as are accused of no other crime than their religion, which they yet adhere to; albeit their fortunes be ruined by fines and their lives in [{756}] constant jeopardy from strenuous laws made yet more urgent by private malice. My friends, I would that not one hair of the head of so much as one Huguenot had been touched in France; that not one Protestant had perished in the flames in the late queen's reign, or in that of her present majesty; and also that the persecution now framed in this country against Papists, and so handled as to blind men's eyes and work in them a strange hypocrisy, yea and in some an innocent belief that freedom of men's souls be the offspring of Protestant religion, should pass away from this land. I care not how soon (as mine honored father-in-law, and in God too, I verily might add, was wont to say),—I care not how soon I be sewn up in a bag and cast into the Thames, if so be I might first see religious differences at an end, and men of one mind touching God's truth."
Here this noble and courageous speaker ceased, and various murmurs rose among the company. One lady remarked to her neighbor: "A marvellous preacher that of seditious doctrines, methinks."
And one gentleman said that if such talk were suffered to pass unpunished in her majesty's subjects, he should look to see massing and Popery to rear again their heads in the land.
And many loudly affirmed none could be Papists, or wish them well, and be friends to the queen's government, and so it did stand to reason that Papists were traitors.
And another said that, for his part, he should desire to see them less mercifully dealt with; and that the great clemency shown to such as did refuse to come to church, by only laying fines on them, and not dealing so roundly as should compel them to obedience, did but maintain them in their obstinacy; and he himself would as lief shoot down a seminary priest as a wolf, or any other evil beast.
I noticed this last speaker to be one of those who had spoken with most abhorrence of the massacres in France.
One lady called out in a loud voice that Papists, and such as take their part, among which she did lament to see Mr. Roper, should be ashamed so much as to speak of persecution; and began to relate the cruelties practised upon Protestants twenty years back, and the burning at Oxford of those excellent godly men, the bishops of London and Worcester.
Mr. Roper listened to her with an attentive countenance, and then said: