alry forlorn hope, at Haddington, when the supplies were thrown in
for the garrison.

He leapt upon the scaffold, red with the blood of his companions.
"Good morning to you all, good people," he said, looking round him
with a smile; "ye come hither to see me die, and to see what news I
have; marry, I will tell you; I have seen more in yonder terrible
place [he pointed towards the Tower] than ever I saw before throughout
all the realms that ever I wandered in; for there I have seen God, I
have seen the world, and I have seen myself; and when I beheld my
life, I saw nothing but slime and clay, full of corruption; I saw the
world nothing else but vanity, and all the pleasures and treasures
thereof nought worth; I saw God omnipotent, his power infinite, his
mercy incomprehensible; and when I saw this, I most humbly submitted
myself unto him, beseeching him of mercy and pardon, and I trust he
hath forgiven me; for he called me once or twice before, but I would
not turn to him, but even now by this sharp kind of death he hath
called me unto him. I trust the wings of his mercy shall spread over
me and save me; and I do here confess, before you all, Christ to be
the very Son of God the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, which came
into the world to fulfil the law for us, and to bear our offences on
his back, and suffered his passion for our redemption, by the which I
trust to be saved."

{p.046} Like his fellow-sufferers, Palmer then said a few prayers,
asked the queen's forgiveness, knelt, and died.

Stunned by the apostasy on the scaffold of the man whom they had
worshipped as a prophet, the ultra-faction among the Protestants
became now powerless. The central multitude, whose belief was
undefined, yielded to the apparent sentence of Heaven upon a cause
weakened by unsuccessful treason, and disavowed in his death by its
champion. Edward had died on the anniversary of the execution of More;
God, men said, had visited his people, and "the Virgin Mary" had been
set upon the throne for their redemption.[100] Dr. Watson, on the 20th
of August, preached at Paul's Cross under a guard of soldiers; on the
24th, two days after the scene on Tower Hill, so little was a guard
necessary, that mass was said in St. Paul's Church in Latin, with
matins and vespers. The crucifix was replaced in the roodloft, the
high altar was re-decorated, the real presence was defended from the
pulpit, and, except from the refugees, not a murmur was heard.[1