Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/260

1533, says Maurice,^[1] was ushered in with signs in heaven and prodigies upon earth, as if the end of the world was at hand; as indeed of the monks and the monks' world the end was truly at hand. And then came the spring of 1534, when the Act was passed cutting off the Princess Mary from the succession, and requiring of all subjects of the realm an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth, and a recognition of the King's marriage with Queen Anne. Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher went to the Tower, as we saw, rather than swear; and about the same time the royal commissioners appeared at the Charterhouse to require the submission of the brethren. The regular clergy through the kingdom had bent to the storm. The conscience of the London Carthusians was less elastic; they were the first and, with the exception of More and Fisher, the only recusants. 'The prior did answer to the commissioners,'^[2] Maurice tells us, 'that he knew nothing of such matters, and could not meddle with them; and they continuing to insist, and the prior being still unable to give other answer, he was sent with Father Humphrey, our proctor, to the Tower.' There he remained for a month; and at the end of it he was persuaded by 'certain good and learned men'^[3] that the cause was not one for which it was lawful to suffer. He undertook to comply, sub conditione, with some necessary reservations, and was sent home to the cloister. As soon as he returned the brethren as-

1. Historia Martyrum, cap. 9.
2. See Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, p. 370.
3. Stokesley, Bishop of London, among others: State Papers, vol. i. pp. 423–4.