ted to
Winchester. On the whole, he managed to keep on good terms with the
king; but his famous six articles in support of the Real Presence sent
so many to the stake that the title of "the bloody statute" has clung to
them. During the reign of Edward VI. he was kept prisoner in the Tower,
and in 1550 was deprived of his bishopric, which was restored to him on
the accession of Mary, whom he crowned at Westminster. He performed also
the marriage service of Mary and Philip of Spain, mentioned on page 13.
"His malice," says Fuller, "was like what is commonly said of white
powder which surely discharged the bullet yet made no report, being
secret in all his acts of cruelty. This made him often chide Bonner,
calling him 'ass,' though not so much for killing poor people as for not
doing it more cunningly." Cruel and vengeful as he was, it is yet
possible that he has been rather unjustly accused of personal delight in
his victims' sufferings; but, while the persecutions under Mary continue
to be the worst chapter of English church history, the "hammer of
heretics," as he was called, will always continue to be execrated. On
his death-bed at Westminster in 1555 he is reported to have said: "I
have sinned with Peter, but I have not wept with him." It has indeed
been held that in his latter days he was half a Protestant at heart,
though this is difficult to establish. There is preserved a rather
amusing appeal of Gardiner to the Privy Council, dating from 1547. He
had intended to hold in Southwark a solemn dirge and mass in memory of
Henry VIII., and writes to complain that the players who flourished in
the neighbourhood say that they will also have "a solemne playe to trye
who shal have most resorte, they in game, or I in earnest." During
Gardiner's imprisonment by Edward VI., #John Poynet#, once Cranmer's
chaplain, held his see. As the author of "On Politique Power" (1558),
where he pleads that "it is lawful to kill a tyrant," and uses some very
immoderate language, Poynet may be remembered, but as an ecclesiastic he
has left only a discreditable record in his short term of office. He
died in 1556 in Germany, whither he had retired on the Roman Catholic
revival.

#John White# (1556-1559), who succeeded Gardiner, was deposed by Queen
Elizabeth. He was born at Farnham, and educated at Winchester. Though
personally he appears to have been pious, during his tenure of the see
four burnings of religious opponents took place in the dio