h which he
had inflated her; and where two such persons were invested by the
circumstances of the time with irresponsible power, there is no
occasion to look further for the explanation of the dreadful events of
the three ensuing years.

[Footnote 496: Phillips.]

The victims of the summer were chiefly undistinguished persons:
Cardmaker and Bradford alone were in any way celebrated; and the
greater prisoners, the three bishops at Oxford, the court had paused
upon--not from mercy--their deaths had been long determined on; but
Philip, perhaps, was tender of his person; their execution might
occasion disturbances; and he and his suite might be the first objects
on which the popular indignation might expend itself. Philip, however,
had placed the sea between himself and danger, and if this was the
cause of the hesitation, the work could now go forward.

A commission was appointed by Pole in September, consisting of
Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White,
Bishop of Lincoln, to try Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, for obstinate
heresy. The first trial had been irregular; the country was then
unreconciled. The sentence which had been passed therefore was treated
as non-existent, and the tedious forms of the papacy continued still
to throw a shield round the archbishop.

On Saturday, the 7th of September,[497] the commissioners took their
places under the altar of St. Mary's Church, at Oxford. The Bishop of
Gloucester sat as president, Doctors Story and Martin appeared as
proctors for the queen, and Cranmer was brought in under the custody
of the city guard, in a black gown and leaning on a stick.

[Footnote 497: Foxe says the 12th; but this is
wrong.--See Cranmer's letter to the Queen: Jenkins,
vol. i. p. 369.]

"Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury," cried an officer of the court,
"appear here, and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy
charge; that is to say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; make
answer to the Bishop of Gloucester, representing his holiness the
pope."

The archbishop approached the bar, bent his head and uncovered to
Story and Martin, who were present in behalf of the crown, then drew
himself up, put on his cap again, and stood fronting Brookes. "My
lord," he said, "I mean no contempt to your person, which I could have
honoured as well as any of the others; but I have sworn never to adm