are. It is strange that the Protestant Council of Zuerich, which had
scarcely won its own liberty, and was still in dread of the persecution of
the Romanists, should pass the decree which instituted the cruel
persecution of the Anabaptists.

After Muenster had fallen the harassed remnants of the Anabaptists were
gathered together under Menno Simonis, who joined them in 1537. His
moderation and piety held in check the turbulence of the more fanatical
amongst them. He died in 1561 after a life passed amidst continual dangers
and conflicts. His name remains as the designation of the Mennonites
(_q.v._), who eventually settled in the Netherlands under the protection of
William the Silent, prince of Orange.

Of the introduction of Anabaptist views into England we have no certain
knowledge. Fox relates that "the registers of London make mention of
certain Dutchmen counted for Anabaptists, of whom ten were put to death in
sundry places in the realm, _anno 1535_; other ten repented and were
saved." In 1536 King Henry VIII. issued a proclamation together with
articles concerning faith agreed upon by Convocation, in which the clergy
are told to instruct the people that they ought to repute and take "the
Anabaptists' opinions for detestable heresies and to be utterly condemned."
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) tells us from Stow's _Chronicles_ that, in the
year 1538, "four Anabaptists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bare
faggots at Paul's Cross, and three days after a man and woman of their sect
was burnt in Smithfield." In the reign of Edward VI., after the return of
the exiles from Zuerich, John Hooper (bishop of Gloucester and Worcester,
d. 1555) writes to his friend Bullinger in 1549, that he reads "a public
lecture twice in the day to so numerous an audience that the church cannot
contain them," and adds, "the Anabaptists flock to the place and give me
much trouble." It would seem that at this time they were united together in
communities separate from the established Church. Latimer, in 1552, speaks
of them as segregating themselves from the company of other men. In the
sixth examination of John Philpot (1516-1555) in 1555 we are told that Lord
Riche said to him, "All heretics do boast of the Spirit of God, and every
one would have a church by himself, as Joan of Kent and the Anabaptists."
Philpot was imprisoned [v.03 p.0372] soon after Mary's accession in 1553;
and it is very pleasing to find, amidst the records of intense bi