342
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 17.
to both its cruel extremes only where a special purpose was working upon passions specially excited.
graceful to the two divisions of the Government who pretended to have received offence. The scene was as painful as it was monstrous. Both groups of sufferers were obstinate or constant; both alike complained of the mode of sentence under which they were condemned. They had never been called to answer for their supposed offences; and Christians under grace, they said, were now worse off than Jews under the law. The law would have no man die unless he were first heard in his defence, and Heathen and Christian, sage and emperor, the whole world, except England, observed the same rule.
'Here in England, if two witnesses will swear and affirm before the council that they have heard a man speak against his duty to his King, or contrary to the articles of religion, that man may be condemned to suffer death, with the pains appointed by the law, although he be absent or ignorant of the charge, and without any other form of proof. Innocence is no safeguard when such an opening is offered to malice or revenge. Corruption or passion may breed false witness; and the good may be sacrificed, and the wicked, who have sworn away their lives, may escape with impunity. There is no security for any man, unless the person accused is brought face to face with the witnesses who depose against him.'Of the iniquity of the system no other evidence is needed than these executions just passed. One who suffered for treason declared that he had never spoken good or bad of the Pope's authority, nor could he tell how he had provoked the King's displeasure, unless it were, that ten years ago his opinion was required on the divorce of Queen Catherine, the Emperor's aunt, and he had said he considered her the King's lawful wife. The rest spoke equally firmly and equally simply, and such loud murmurs rose among the people, and their natural disposition to turbulence was so excited, that had there been any one to lead them, they would have broken out into dangerous sedition. Inquiries were made instantly into the origin of the riot. The names of those who have repeated the words of the sufferers have been demanded, and this, I suppose, will be made the occasion of a worse butchery. It is no easy thing to keep a people in revolt against the Holy See and the authority of the Church, and yet free from the infection of the new doctrines—or, on the other hand, if they remain orthodox, to prevent them from looking with attachment to the Papacy. But the council here will have neither the one nor the other. They will have their ordinances obeyed, however often they change them, and however little the people can comprehend what they are required to believe.'—Marillac to Francis I., Aug. 6, 1540: MS. Bibliot. Impér. Paris.
