HUGH LATIMER (1485(?)–1555)
From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
On the 22nd of May 1518 they placed the old man on a sledge and dragged him from Newgate to Smithfield, where he was hung in chains from a gallows over a fire. This was the most terrible of all deaths. In ordinary cases, the sufferer, bound to a thick stake with iron chains, was enclosed up to the middle, and perhaps higher, with dry faggots: it would seem that the fierce flames enveloping the victim caused death by suffocation in a very few moments. Latimer, for instance, died in this manner almost immediately; if, however, the flames were blown away, the lower parts of the body might be slowly burned before death ensued: this was the case with Ridley. When, however, the sufferer was simply dangled over a fire, the flames blown this way and that, the agony might last for hours.
In the case of Forest, the bystanders took pity on the old man and threw the gallows into the fire, so that an end was soon made. “In what state,” asked Latimer before the fire was lit, “will you die?” Whereupon the old man replied in a loud voice: “If an angel should come down from heaven to teach men any other doctrine than what I have received and believed from my youth, I would not believe him; and if my body should be cut joint after joint, member after member, hanged, burned, or whatever pain might be done to me, yet would I never turn from my old profession.” A brave old man!
BISHOP RIDLEY (1500(?)–1555)
From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London
After the Carthusians the principal sufferers seem to have been the Observant Friars, of whom a large number suffered for refusing to acknowledge the King’s supremacy. We may read in the Antiquities of the English Franciscans a great many stories of these sufferings. One hopes that there is exaggeration. For some, according to this book, were carried about the country in chains; some were racked and then strangled; some were starved to death; miracles attended the death of some: the whole prison, in one case, became filled with a heavenly and miraculous light; and an earthquake, in another case, testified to the Divine displeasure at another martyrdom.
On the 22nd day of June 1534, three days after the execution of the three Carthusians, Exmew, Middlemore, and Newdigate, was beheaded that illustrious Catholic martyr, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, for maintaining the Pope’s supremacy; and a fortnight later, that still more illustrious martyr, Thomas More. The witty and pleasant manner of his conversation was kept up to the last. Grafton thus speaks of his last moments:—
“Besides his learning he had a great wit, and in talking verie pleasant and merie conceited, and that even to the last hower; insomuch that at hys comming to the Tower, one of the officers demanded his upper garment for his fee (meaning hys Gowne) and he aunswered, he should haue it, and toke him his cap, saying it was the uppermost garment that he had. Likewise even going to his death at the Tower gate a pore woman called to him and besought him to declare that he had certayn evidence of hers in the time that he was in office (which after he was apprehended she could not come by) and that he would intreat she might have them agayne, or else she was undone. He aunswered good woman have pacience a little while, for the King is so good unto me that even within this half houre he will discharge me of all businesses, and help thee himselfe. Also when he went up the stayres on the Scaffolde, he desired one of the Shriefes officers to give him his hand to help him up, and sayde, when I come downe agayne, let me shift for myself as well as I can. Also the hangman kneeled downe to him asking him forgivenesse of his death (as the manner is) to whome he sayde I forgive thee, but I promise thee that thou shalt never have honestie of the stryking of my head, my neck is so short. Also even when he should lay downe his head on the block, he having a great gray beard, striked out his beard and sayde to the hangman, I pray you let me lay my beard over the block least ye should cut it.” (Chronicle of England, Grafton, vol. ii. p. 454.)
The martyrdom of the Carthusians was the most significant, the most revengeful, the most audacious act of the new Head of the Church, the Act by which he defied, once for all, the whole power of the Pope, of Spain, and even of France. The world trembled, people looked for some supernatural manifestation, some unmistakable sign of the Divine wrath: none came, and they understood that here was an act of open war, and that the Divine will as to the issue had not been pronounced.
Let us pass to the Marian Persecution. I have called attention to the fact that the greater number of the martyrs belonged to the middle class and to the rank or status of craftsmen. Thus, Christopher Wade was a linen weaver; Thomas Wats a linen draper; John Warren was an upholsterer; John Ardeley was a husbandman; Robert Bromley was a grocer; Thomas Ormond was a fuller; Williams a weaver; Margery Polley widow of a craftsman; Dirick Carver a brewer; John Laneden a rustic; John Tudson an artificer; Joan Warne a maidservant. There were wives and widows among them, “simple women,” artificers and ’prentices, maid-servants and girls.