at the day of judgment.' And then he prayed 'everybody rather to die than to do as he did, for he would not feel such a hell again as he did feel for all the world's good.'[1]
Of course but one event was to be looked for; he knew it, and himself wrote to the Bishop, telling him what he had done. No mercy was possible: he looked for none, and he found none.
Yet perhaps he found what the wise authorities thought to be some act of mercy. They could not grant him pardon in this world upon any terms; but they would not kill him till they had made an effort for his soul. He was taken to the Bishop of London's coal cellar at Fulham, the favourite episcopal penance chamber, where he was ironed and put in the stocks; and there was left for many days, in the chill March weather, to bethink himself. This failing to work conviction, he was carried to Sir Thomas More's house at Chelsea, where for two nights he was chained to a post and whipped; thence, again, he was taken back to Fulham for another week of torture; and finally to the Tower, for a further fortnight, again with ineffectual whippings.
The demands of charity were thus satisfied. The pious Bishop and the learned chancellor had exhausted their means of conversion; they had discharged their consciences; and the law was allowed to take its course. The prisoner was brought to trial on the 20th of April,
- ↑ Foxe, vol. iv. p. 702.
