what to assent to. On the one side, I am loath to
load the Lord Cobham's memory with causeless
crimes, knowing the perfect hatred the clergy in
that age bare unto him, and all that looked towards
the reformation in religion. Besides, that twenty
thousand men should be brought into the field, and
no place assigned whence they should have been
raised,[293-a] or where mustered, is clogged with
much improbability, the rather because only the
three persons as is aforesaid are mentioned by name
of so vast a number.

"On the other side (continues Fuller), I am much
startled with the evidence which appeareth against
him. Indeed I am little moved with what T.
Walsingham writes, (whom all later authors follow,
as a flock the bell-wether,) knowing him a
Benedictine monk of St. Alban's, bowed by interest
to partiality; but the records in the Tower, and
acts of parliament therein, wherein he was solemnly
condemned for a traitor as well as a heretic,
challenge belief. For with what confidence can any
private person promise credit from posterity to his
own writings if such public documents be not
entertained by him for authentical? Let Mr. Fox
therefore be Lord Cobham's compurgator; I dare not.
And, if my hand were put on the Bible, I should
take it back again; yet so that, as I will not
acquit, I will not condemn him, but leave all to
the last day of the revelation of the righteous
judgment of God."--Fuller's Church History, An.
1414.]

[Footnote 293-a: Fuller either had not read, or had
forgotten, that the twenty thousand men were to be
raised in the city, and to be mustered in St.
Giles' Field; but that the timely closing of the
city gates is said to have prevented their junction
with the party beyond the walls: and he was