tion to a public audience, and to this purpose desired

him to subscribe the instrument with his own hand and sign it." Of any new submission on the fatal morning this historian seems to have entertained no belief. Burnet is alike silent. Thus too the Romish biographer of Pole, with the printed submissions of the archbishop at his service, speaks apparently of none but that which is numbered the fifth by Bonner, and after noticing the writ for burning him, says, "Cranmer had again renewed his subscription, and transcribed a fair copy of the whole; but, having some misgivings of his approaching punishment, he secretly wrote another declaration, which contradicted, in every point, the doctrine he had before signed." What here is called a renewed subscription, is affirmed, however, in the recent history of our country, to be nothing less than the copy of a "seventh instrument of abjuration." Is it improbable, however, that what the friar proposed, was merely the fifth recantation more correctly written than the hastily printed copy had given it? To this the signature of Cranmer was requisite, and it was made, together with that of the friar; but, it is especially to be observed, is undated. It would now be ready for Bonner's publication, as the fifth instrument; while a written abbreviation of the material parts of it would be sufficient for Cranmer

"openly to profess before the people ;" and accordingly Bonner, without the statement of its being a new subscription, without the pretence of its being a seventh recantation, prints only what the martyr was to have spoken, but basely conceals the fact that he did not speak it. The faith that he was to assert was thus worded for him. "First, I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, &c. And I believe every article of the catholic faith, every clause, word, and sentence, taught by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles, and Prophets, in the New and Old Testament, and all articles explicate and set forth in general councils. And now I come to the great thing that so much troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I did, that is, setting abroad untrue books and writings, contrary to the truth of God's Word, which now I renounce and condemn, and refuse them utterly as erroneous and for none of mine. But you must know also what books they were, that you may beware of them, or else my conscience is not discharged. For they be the books which I wrote against the sacrament of the altar, since the death of king Henry the Eighth. But whatsoever I wrote then, now is time and place to say truth. Wherefore renouncing all those books, and whatsoever in them is contained, I say, and

All the submyssyons, ut supr. sign. B. 2. a.

believe, that our Saviour Christ Jesus is really and substantially contained in the blessed sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine."

So ends the tract, affirmed in the title-page "to have been seen and examined by Bonner." Upon him, therefore, rests the responsibility of the compilation, even if by any other hand than his own it had been compiled; upon him the shame also, which if not to other parts of it, at least to the conclusion, belongs, where what the sufferer really spoke is concealed, but what was prepared for him to have spoken is related, and by many of the compiler's party was afterwards reported, as if indeed he did speak it.

1

To Cranmer's own words in abhorrence of his weakness, and to the brightening of his character in the flame that consumed him, we will now attend.

Hallam, 8vo. i. 136.

CHAPTER VI.

1556.

Cranmer retracts his recantations, and is burnt.

THE last humiliating paper, which bore the date of the 18th of March, served only to expedite the execution of Cranmer. It had all along been resolved that he should suffer. The fatal morning was now fixed for the 21st of the month. Against that day Dr. Cole, provost of Eton College, had before been 'secretly commanded by the queen to prepare a sermon. Nobility and gentry, residing near Oxford, had been also desired at the same time to attend, not without their servants and retinue, lest the death of the archbishop should excite a tumult. On the 20th, Dr. Cole visited the prisoner; and there can be little doubt that Cranmer found by his discourse, what was not however distinctly named, that his last hour was fixed. Have you continued, said Cole, in the catholic faith, wherein before I left you?-By

1 Foxe. Burnet. Strype.

God's grace, replied the archbishop, I would be more confirmed in the catholic faith. Other conversation, we may be sure, would afford hints that could not be mistaken. I agree with 'another of his biographers in believing, that after Cole had left the prison, Cranmer drew up his prayer, his exhortation, his repentant speech. On the morning of the 21st, Cole is again described as visiting him, at a very early hour, as it should seem, when he asked him if he had any money; and, being answered that he had none, supplied him with fifteen crowns; an intimation that at his death might be distributed, what then at funerals was not infrequent, the dole or distribution of alms to the poor. Dr. Cole then left him. The Spanish friar is represented as next approaching him, and offering "a paper with articles which he should openly profess in his recantation before the people." The paper is thus described, by two eloquent historians of our country; the first of whom can hardly in any respect be contradicted, while the other must allow us a review of his narrative. "The court," says Hume,

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equally perfidious and cruel, were determined that his recantation should avail him nothing; and they sent him orders that he should be required to acknowledge his errors in church before the whole people, and that he should thence be immediately