to admonish you to have in this behalf such regard henceforth unto the office of a good pastor and bishop, as where any such offenders shall be, by the said justices of the peace, brought unto you, ye do use your good wisdom and discretion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it may be, or else in proceeding against them, if they continue obstinate, according to the order of the laws, so as, through your good furtherance, both God's glory may be the better advanced, and the commonwealth more quietly governed.'[1]
Under the fresh impulse of this letter, fifty persons were put to death at the stake in the three ensuing months,—in the diocese of London, under Bonner; in the diocese of Rochester, under Maurice Griffin; in the diocese of Canterbury, where Pole, the Archbishop designate, so soon as Cranmer should be despatched, governed through Harpsfeld, the Archdeacon, and Thornton, the suffragan Bishop of Dover. Of these sacrifices, which were distinguished all of them by a uniformity of quiet heroism in the sufferers, that of Cardmaker, prebendary of Wells, calls most for notice.
The people, whom the cruelty of the Catholic party was re- converting to the Reformation with a rapidity like that produced by the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, looked on the martyrs as soldiers are looked at who are called to accomplish, with the sacrifice of
- ↑ Burnet's Collectanea. This letter is addressed to Bonner, and was taken from Bonner's Register; but, from the form, it was evidently a circular. The Bishop of London had not deserved to be singled out to be especially admonished for want of energy.
