in public token of mourning; 'and to give them example, he caused his own head to be polled; and from thenceforth his beard to be knotted, and to be no more shaven.'[1]
The friars of Charterhouse suffered for the Catholic faith, as Protestants had suffered, and were still to suffer, for a faith fairer than theirs. In this same month of May, in the same year, the English annals contain another entry of no less sad significance. The bishops, as each day they parted further from their old allegiance, and were called in consequence by the hateful name of heretics, were increasingly anxious to prove by evident tokens their zeal for the true faith; and although the late act of heresy had moderated their powers, yet power enough remained to enable them to work their will upon all extreme offenders. Henry, also, it is likely, was not sorry of an opportunity of showing that his justice was even-handed, and that a schism from the Papacy was not a lapse into heterodoxy. His mind was moving. Latimer and Shaxton, who three years before had been on trial for their lives, were soon to be upon the bench; and in the late injunctions, the Bible, and not the decrees of the Church, had been held up as the canon of truth. But heresy, though the definition of it was changing, remained a crime; and although the limits of permitted belief were imperceptibly enlarging, to transgress the recognized boundaries was an offence enormous as ever.
- ↑ Stow, p. 571. And see the Diary of Richard Hilles, merchant, of London, MS., Balliol College, Oxford.
