arous species of punishment, about two
hundred and eighty persons are stated to have perished during the reign
of Mary; but, to the disgrace of the learned, the rich, and the noble,
these martyrs, with the exception of a few distinguished ecclesiastics,
were almost all from the middling or lower, some from the very lowest
classes of society.

Amongst these glorious sufferers, therefore, the princess could have few
personal friends to regret; but in the much larger number of the
disgraced, the suspected, the imprisoned, the fugitive, she saw the
greater part of the public characters, whether statesmen or divines, on
whose support and attachment she had learned to place reliance.

The extraordinary cruelties exercised upon sir John Cheke, who whilst he
held the post of preceptor to her brother had also assisted in her own
education, must have been viewed by Elizabeth with strong emotion of
indignation and grief.

It has been already mentioned, that after his release from imprisonment
incurred in the cause of lady Jane Grey,--a release, by the way, which
was purchased by the sacrifice of his landed property and all his
appointments,--this learned and estimable person obtained permission to
travel for a limited period. This was regarded as a special favor; for
it was one of Mary's earliest acts of tyranny to prohibit the escape of
her destined victims, and it was only by joining themselves to the
foreign congregations of the reformed, who had license to depart the
kingdom, or by eluding with much hazard the vigilance of the officers by
whom the seaports were watched, that any of her protestant subjects had
been enabled to secure liberty of conscience in a voluntary exile. It is
a little remarkable that Rome should have been Cheke's first city of
pilgrimage; but classical associations in this instance overcame the
force of protestant antipathies. He took the opportunity however of
visiting Basil in his way, where an English congregation was
established, and where he had the pleasure of introducing himself to
several learned characters, once perhaps the chosen associates of
Erasmus.

In the beginning of 1556 he had reached Strasburgh, for it was thence
that he addressed a letter to his dear friend and brother-in-law sir
William Cecil, who appears to have made some compliances with the times
which alarmed and grieved him. It is in a strain of the most
affectionate earnestness that he entreats him to hold fast his faith,
a