ance. He had thus laid himself open to prosecution for treason; and whatever penalty was due to an avowal of being the Pope's liegeman had been doubly earned by treachery. If he had been tried and had suffered like Sir Thomas More and the Monks of the Charterhouse, his sentence would have ranked with theirs. The same causes which explained the executions of honourable men would have applied with greater force to that of one who had deepened his offences by duplicity. But the Crown prosecutors, for some unknown reason, bestowed upon him a distinction in suffering.
When first arrested he was terrified: he acknowledged his offences, submitted, and was pardoned. But his conscience recovered its strength: he returned to his loyalty to the Papacy; he declared his belief that, in matters spiritual, the Pope was his proper sovereign, that the Bishop of Rochester was a martyr, as Thomas à Becket had been a martyr. Becket he held up as the pattern of all churchmen's imitation, courting for himself Becket's fortunes.[1] Like others, he attempted a
- ↑ 'He said that blessed man St Thomas of Canterbury suffered death for the rights of the Church; for there was a great man meaning thereby King Harry the Second which, because St Thomas of Canterbury would not grant him such things as he asked, contrary to the liberties of the Church, first banished him out of this realm; and at his return he was slain at his own church, for the right of Holy Church, as many holy fathers have suffered now of late; as that holy father the Bishop of Rochester: and he doubteth not but their souls be now in heaven.'He saith and believeth that he ought to have a double obedience: first, to the King's Highness, by the law of God; and the second to the Bishop of Rome, by his rule and profession.'He confesseth that he used and practised to induce men in confession to hold and stick to the old fashion
