ver their deeds of blood, and
sacrificing their fellow-creatures to the image they had set up. The
case of Clayton puts the excessive enormities of the hierarchy (p. 395)
of that day in a more striking point of view than many others of the
more generally cited instances of persecution. Clayton's was not the
case of a powerful man like Cobham, whose very character and station,
and rank and influence, made him formidable: Clayton's was not the
case of a learned man, or an eloquent preacher, or an active, zealous
propagator of those new doctrines from which the see of Rome
anticipated so much evil to her cause. His was the case of a
tradesman, unable to read himself, and engaging another to read to him
out of a book which seemed to give him pleasure; the place of reading
being a private room in a private house, the time of reading being the
Lord's day, and other festivals of the church; and the witnesses
against him being his own servant and his own apprentice. Had the
record of this sad persecution been written by an enemy to the
priesthood, we should have suspected that the whole case was
misrepresented, that a colouring had been unfairly given to the
proceedings, to make them more odious in our sight; and though, at the
best, such proceedings must be detestable, we should have deemed that
in this case the facts had been distorted to meet the prejudiced views
of the writer. But the proceedings are registered in the authentic
records of the Archbishop of Canterbury,[298] and are minutely (p. 396)
detailed in all the circumstances of time, and place, and person.

[Footnote 298: Printed in "Wilkins' Concilia."]

John Clayton was a currier, or skinner, living in the parish of St.
Anne's, "Aldrychgate." In those days few tradesmen could read, and he
was not an exception. But he had at an early period formed a very
favourable opinion of the new doctrines; the preaching of Wickliffe's
followers, or, it may be, of Wickliffe himself, had made so deep an
impression on his mind, that nothing could shake the firmness and
constancy of his belief to the day of his death. His predilection for
"Lollardy," as the profession of the new doctrines was called, became
known to the ecclesiastical rulers long before the statute for burning
heretics was passed in England; and his religious opinions exposed him
to great troubles and hardships, even in the reign of Richard II. He
was arrested on suspicion of heresy, and