s, and reasonableness. To this they may be recalled if the
matters in dispute are duly examined into. It is the duty of the bishops
to do their utmost that learned men of either side should lovingly
confer together on Christian doctrine, that some one certain form of
doctrine, founded only upon the Word of God and the teaching of the
primitive fathers, should be framed; and if this were done, the Church
might easily be brought to coalesce again into one body. Nor do I doubt
that good men on both sides are so disposed that they would not only
willingly proffer their opinions, but also yield their individual
convictions if they should hear more weighty reasons from the other
side. For it is tyrannical, and specially unbecoming in a theologian, to
do that which the son reproves in the tyrant, his father, in the
tragedy. He wishes, the son says, to speak but to hear nothing in reply.
At present the good men who are most desirous to provide some remedy for
public evils keep silence, and secretly bewail the fate of the Church,
not only alarmed by fear of those in power, but crushed by a sort of
despair in this so great madness of slanderers, who have become so
domineering that they would suffer no one but themselves to gain a
hearing."

[APPENDIX F (p. 267).

THE DREAM OR VISION OF ALESIUS CONCERNING THE DECAPITATION OF ANNE
BOLEYN.

I take to witness Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, that I
am about to speak the truth. On the day upon which the Queen was
beheaded, at sunrise between two and three o'clock, there was revealed
to me (whether I was asleep or awake I know not) the Queen's neck after
her head had been cut off, and this so plainly that I could count the
nerves, the veins, and the arteries.

Terrified by this dream, or vision, I immediately arose, and, crossing
the river Thames, I came to Lambeth (this is the name of the Archbishop
of Canterbury's palace), and I entered the garden in which he was
walking.

When the archbishop saw me, he inquired why I had come so early, for the
clock had not yet struck four. I answered that I had been horrified in
my sleep, and I told him the whole occurrence. He continued in silent
wonder for a while, and at length broke out into these words, "Do not
you know what is to happen to-day?" and when I answered that I had
remained at home since the date of the Queen's imprisonment, and knew
nothing of what was going on, the archbishop then raised his eyes to