ve written at all in such
a strain was as brave a step as was ever deliberately ventured. Like
most brave acts, it did not go unrewarded; for Henry remained ever
after, however widely divided from him in opinion, his unshaken friend.

[Sidenote: He retires from the court to West Kingston, but preaches
widely about the country.]

In 1531, the king gave him the living of West Kingston, in Wiltshire,
where for a time he now retired. Yet it was but a partial rest. He had
a special licence as a preacher from Cambridge, which continued to him
(with the king's express sanction)[119] the powers which he had received
from Wolsey. He might preach in any diocese to which he was invited; and
the repose of a country parish could not be long allowed in such stormy
times to Latimer. He had bad health, being troubled with headache,
pleurisy, colic, stone; his bodily constitution meeting feebly the
demands which he was forced to make upon it.[120] But he struggled on,
travelling up and down to London, to Kent, to Bristol, wherever
opportunity called him; marked for destruction by the bishops, if he was
betrayed into an imprudent word, and himself living in constant
expectation of death.[121]

[Sidenote: He is cited before Stokesley,]

[Sidenote: And expects death.]

At length the Bishop of London believed that Latimer was in his power.
He had preached at St. Abb's, in the city, "at the request of a company
of merchants,"[122] in the beginning of the winter of 1531; and soon
after his return to his living, he was informed that he was to be cited
before Stokesley. His friends in the neighbourhood wrote to him,
evidently in great alarm, and more anxious that he might clear himself
than expecting that he would be able to do so;[123] he himself, indeed,
had almost made up his mind that the end was coming.[124]

[Sidenote: January 10.]

[Sidenote: Method of prosecution in cases of suspected heresy.]

[Sidenote: The charge against Latimer submitted to convocation.]

[Sidenote: The efforts for his conviction baffled by his skill in
reply.]

The citation was delayed for a few weeks. It was issued at last, on the
10th of January, 1531-2,[125] and was served by Sir Walter Hungerford,
of Farley.[126] The offences with which he was charged were certain
"excesses and irregularities" not specially defined; and the practice of
the bishops in such cases was not to confine the prosecution to the acts
committed, but to draw up a series of arti