t's silence, "what is to
happen to-day?" Then raising his eyes to heaven he added with a wild
burst of tears, "She who has been Queen of England on earth will this
day become a queen in heaven!" Some hours afterwards the Queen stood
before him as her judge, and passed back to the Tower and the block.

Cranmer was freed by his master's death from this helplessness of
terror only to lend himself to the injustice of the meaner masters who
followed Henry. Their enemies were at least his own, and, kindly as from
many instances we know his nature to have been, its very weakness made
him spring eagerly in such an hour of deliverance at the opportunity of
showing his power over those who so long held him down. On charges of
the most frivolous nature Bishop Gardiner and Bishop Bonner were
summoned before the Archbishop at Lambeth, deposed from their sees, and
flung into prison. It is only the record of their trials, as it still
stands in the pages of Foxe, that can enable us to understand the
violence of the reaction under Mary. Gardiner with characteristic
dignity confined himself to simply refuting the charges brought against
him and protesting against the injustice of the court. But the coarser,
bull-dog nature of Bonner turned to bay. By gestures, by scoff, by plain
English speech he declared again and again his sense of the wrong that
was being done. A temper naturally fearless was stung to bravado by the
sense of oppression. As he entered the hall at Lambeth he passed
straight by the Archbishop and his fellow-commissioners, still keeping
his cap on his head as though in unconsciousness of his presence. One
who stood by plucked his sleeve, and bade him do reverence. Bonner
turned laughingly round and addressed the Archbishop, "What, my Lord,
are you here? By my troth I saw you not." "It was because you would not
see," Cranmer sternly rejoined. "Well," replied Bonner, "you sent for
me: have you anything to say to me?" The charge was read. The Bishop had
been commanded in a sermon to acknowledge that the acts of the King
during his minority were as valid as if he were of full age. The command
was flatly in contradiction with existing statutes, and the Bishop had
no doubt disobeyed it.

But Bonner was too adroit to make a direct answer to the charge. He
gained time by turning suddenly on the question of the Sacrament; he
cited the appearance of Hooper as a witness in proof that it was really
on this point that he was brought