the cruel craft of his enemies, and his own folly and baseness and cowardice. It was as if the evil spirit had departed from him, and he was once more in his right mind. All at once he recovered his manliness and his courage.
Cole, the preacher, at the end of his sermon had said: 'Lest any man should doubt the sincerity of this man's repentance, you shall hear him speak before you. I pray you. Master Cranmer, that you will now perform that you promised not long ago—that you would openly express the true and undoubted profession of your faith.' Then Cranmer spoke, and, after a prayer for forgiveness, he entered upon a kind of sermon, in which he solemnly warned his hearers, with all the earnestness of a dying man, against what he considered the prevailing vices of the time; and finally, when the interest of his hearers was wound up to the very highest pitch, he began with the words: 'And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life'—words which might, quite naturally, lead up to a recantation of his heresy. Then followed—'and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here I now renounce and refuse as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, to save my life, if it might be; and that is all such bills and papers as I have written and signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand, therefore, shall first be punished; for, if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burnt.' The consternation produced by this bold speech seems to have been so great that, for the moment, those in authority forgot
