mours would {p.134} assume; summer was
the dangerous time in England, when the people's blood was apt to
boil.[318]

[Footnote 318: Pour ce qui ordinairement les
humeurs des Angloys boulissent plus en l'este que
en autre temps.]

Gardiner, however, was probably not acting without Mary's secret
approbation. Both the queen and the minister especially desired, at
that moment, the passing of the Heresy Bill, and Renard was obliged to
content himself with a promise that the dissolution should be as early
as possible. Though parliament could not meet at Oxford, a committee
of Convocation had been sitting there, with Dr. Weston, the adulterous
Dean of Windsor, for a president. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer had
been called upon to defend their opinions, which had been pronounced
false and damnable. They had been required to recant, and, having
refused, they were sentenced (April 20), so far as the power of the
court extended, to the punishment of heretics.

Cranmer appealed from the judgment to God Almighty, in whose presence
he would soon stand.

Ridley said the sentence would but send them the sooner to the place
where else they hoped to go.

Latimer said, "I thank God that my life has been prolonged that I may
glorify God by this kind of death."

Hooper, Ferrars, Coverdale, Taylor, Philpot, and Sandars, who were in
the London prisons, were to have been simultaneously tried and
sentenced at Cambridge. These six, however, drew and signed a joint
refusal to discuss their faith in a court before which they were to be
brought as prisoners; and for some reason the proceedings against them
were suspended; but whether they refused or consented was of little
moment to the Bishop of Winchester; they were in his hands--he could
try them when he pleased. A holocaust of heresiarchs was waiting to be
offered up, and before a faggot could be lighted, the necessary powers
had to be obtained from parliament.

The bishop, therefore, was determined, if possible, to obtain those
powers. He had the entire bench of prelates on his side; and Lord
Howard, the Earl of Bedford, and others of the lay lords who would
have been on the side of humanity, were absent. The opposition had to
be conducted under the greatest difficulties. Paget, however, fought
the battle, and fought it on broad grounds: the bishops' bill was read
twice; on the third reading, on the 1st of May, he succeeded in
t