"I know nothing of the matter mentioned; I am unacquainted with the
world without; my office is to minister to God, and to save poor souls
from Satan." He was committed to the Tower for one month. Then Dr.
Bonner persuaded the prior to sign with "certain reservations." He was
released and went back to his cloister-cell to weep. Calling his monks
together he said he was sorry; it looked like deceit, but he desired to
save his brethren and their order. The commissioners returned; the monks
were under suspicion; the reservations were disliked, and they must sign
without conditions. In great consternation the prior assembled the
monks. All present cried out: "Let us die together in our integrity, and
heaven and earth shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off."
Prior Houghton conceived a generous idea. "If it depends on me alone; if
my oath will suffice for the house, I will throw myself on the mercy of
God; I will make myself anathema, and to preserve you from these
dangers, I will consent to the king's will." Thus did the noble old man
consent to go into heaven with a lie on his conscience, hoping to escape
by the mercy of God, because he sought to save the lives of his
brethren. But all this was of no avail; Cromwell had determined that
this monastery must fall, and fall it did. The monks prepared for their
end calmly and nobly; beginning with the oldest brother, they knelt
before each other and begged forgiveness for all unkindness and offence.
"Not less deserving," says Froude, "the everlasting remembrances of
mankind, than those three hundred, who, in the summer morning, sate
combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae." But rebellion
was blazing in Ireland, and the enemies of the king were praying and
plotting for his ruin. These monks, with More and Fisher, were an
inspiration to the enemies of liberty and the kingdom. Catholic Europe
crouched like a tiger ready to spring on her prostrate foe. It is sad,
but these recluses, praying for the pope, instilling a love for the
papacy in the confessional, these honest and conscientious but dangerous
men must be shorn of their power to encourage rebels. There was a farce
of a trial. Houghton was brought to the scaffold and died protesting his
innocence. His arm was cut off and hung over the archway of the
Charterhouse, as other arms and heads were hideously hanging over many a
monastic gate in Merry England. Nine of the monks died of prison fever,
and other