by these gentlemen. She herself wrote to the Council, assuring them that they could do what they pleased with her body, but that death would be more welcome than life with a troubled conscience. The Council then ordered Inglefield, Rochester, and Walgrave to return and carry out their Royal commands. But they positively refused, declaring that they might send them to prison if they pleased, but that as to facing their mistress on any such errand, they would not. Rochester, therefore, was committed to the Fleet prison, and afterwards to the Tower, and a deputation of the Council were themselves dispatched to enforce this object. These deputies were Lord Chancellor Rich, Sir Anthony Wingfield, and Mr. Petre. They also carried with them a gentleman to officiate as comptroller in the place of the contumacious Rochester.
The commissioners did not succeed with Mary better than her own servants. She read the letter of the king which they brought, ordering implicit obedience, and said, "Ah! good Mr. Cecil took much pains here;" and she added, seriously, "rather than use any other service than was used at the death of the late king my father, I will lay my head on a block and suffer death. When the king's majesty shall come to such years that he may be able to judge these things himself, his majesty shall find me ready to obey his orders in religion; but now, though he, good sweet king, have more knowledge than any other of his years, yet it is not possible that he can be a judge of these things. If my chaplains do say no mass, I can hear none. They may do therein as they will; but none of your new service shall be used in my house, or I will not tarry in it."
The commissioners, at their wits' end, complained of the conduct of her own officers, who had been ordered to put down the performance of her mass; on which she replied, sarcastically, that it was none of the wisest of all Councils that seat her own servants to control her in her own house, for she was not very likely to obey those who had been always used to obey her. They then commented on the emperor's interference, on which she reminded them that the emperor had their promise that they should not do the very thing they were now doing; and added that they owed her more respect for her father's sake, who, she said, had made most of them out of nothing. On this she left them; but as they were passing through the courtyard she opened a little window, and, with more spirit and stinging wit than dignity, spoke to them. Disliking this very public address, they desired to return into the house; but she insisted on telling them there what she had to say, bidding them desire the Lords of the Council to return her the comptroller, Rochester. "For," she continued, "since his departing I take the accounts myself, and lo! I have learned how many loaves of bread be made out of a bushel of wheat. I wis my father and mother never brought me up to brewing and baking, and to be plain with you, I am a-weary of mine office. If my lords will send mine officer home again, they shall do me a pleasure; otherwise, if they send him to prison, beshrew me if he go not to it merrily, and with a good will. And I pray God send you well in your souls, and in your bodies too, for some of you have but weak ones."
Mary remained a conscious victor over her tormentors; she stood on vantage ground which none of them dared assail by any violence: but their proceedings were more deadly with less-favoured persons, and their zeal was directed not so much against the Romanists, who maintained some caution, as against Protestants who proceeded to what the new Church deemed heresy. First amongst these wore Champnies, a priest, who denied the divinity of Christ, that grace was inadmissible, and that the regenerate, though they might fall in the outward, could never sin in the innerward man. Besides him, Puttow, a tanner, Thumb, a butcher, and Ashton, a priest, who had embraced Unitarianism, were terrified into submission, and bore their fagots during the sermon at St. Paul's Cross.
But not so pliable was Joan Bocher, a lady of Kent, who had adopted the reformed opinions, and became a zealous promulgator of them. During the last reign, and in the time of Catherine Parr, she had frequently resorted to the Court, and secretly introduced there Protestant books and writings. She was a friend and fellow-labourer with the noble martyr, Anne Askew. Being now called before Cranmer, Smith, Cook, Latimer, and Lyall, and charged with certain heretical notions regarding the incarnation, she stood steadfast to her opinions, and when they threatened to send her to the stake, she daringly replied, "It is a goodly matter to consider your ignorance. It was not long ago that you burnt Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and yet came yourselves soon afterwards to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her. And now, forsooth, you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh, and in the end will come to believe this also, when you have read the Scriptures and understand them."
Edward was excessively averse to signing her death warrant. From this reluctance in the young king, she remained in prison for a whole year. He contended that it was an awful thing to put a person to death in her sin, as that would consign the soul to eternal punishment. The mild Cranmer combated this argument with the example of Moses, who caused sinners to be stoned to death; and at length the unhappy boy, drowned in tears, put his hand to the warrant. He told Cranmer that if he were doing wrong, he must answer it to God, for that he did it in submission to his authority. Cranmer seems to have been rendered rather uneasy by this observation, and both he and Ridley laboured with her, to induce her to recant, and escape the flames as others had done. It was all in vain; she stood firm as a rock, and was sent to the stake. There a preacher. Dr. Scory, undertook to refute her, but she treated him with the utmost scorn, exclaiming that "he lied like a rogue, and had better go home and study the Scriptures."
Another victim was a Dutchman of the name of Van Paris, who practised as a surgeon in London. He had imbibed Unitarian tenets, and on that account was excommunicated by the Dutch Church in that city. He was arraigned before Cranmer, Ridley, May, Coverdale, and others. He refused to abjure his creed, and was, therefore, condemned by Cranmer, and burnt on the 24th of April, enduring his sentence with stoical fortitude. These persecutions covered Cranmer and the reformed prelates and clergy with odium, and diminished greatly the public commiseration when their own turn came to suffer the same death.
