CHAP. VI. examined at Clare, and ings are again inter rupted. Within a few days after, Barnes was summoned to the He is again lodge at Clare College, and subjected to a further crossthe lodge of examination by the same authorities; and again a similar the proceed demonstration on the part of the university put a stop to the proceedings. An interval of about a month followed, during which no further overt measures were resorted to; but during that time Watson and Preston prepared a form of revocation to which they called upon Barnes to affix his signature; but as the document implied the correctness of He refuses to the articles originally preferred against him, he declined to cation. do this until he had first consulted with eight of his friends, among whom were Bilney and Stafford, and the result of his conference was a formal refusal. sign a revo Wolsey re solves on energetic measures. for Lutheran In the meantime his enemies had not been idle in London; and when Wolsey heard how his 'pillars and poleaxes' had been singled out for scorn, his tolerance was at an end. A Dr. Capon and a serjeant-at-arms named Gibson were forthwith despatched to the university with instructions to make strict search for Lutheran books and to bring the Search made prior to London. On their arrival they were enabled, by books. information treacherously supplied, to go straight to the different hiding places where the poor 'Germans' had concealed their treasures. They were however forestalled by Forman, the president of Queens', who gave private warning to his party; and when the inquisitors entered the different college rooms, and took up planks and examined walls, the objects of their search had already been removed. Barnes, who had Barnes is ar- either received no warning or scorned to fly, was arrested in conveyed to the schools and brought to London; and soon found himself face to face with Wolsey in the gallery at Westminster. At first his natural intrepidity and confidence in the justice of his cause sustained him. Even in that dread presence before which the boldest were wont to quail, he still defended his theory of bishoprics, and dared to say that he thought it would be more to God's honour if the cardinal's Is tried before' pillars and poleaxes' were 'coined and given in alms.' But other bishops the interview with Wolsey was succeeded by the public ordeal in the chapter-house, before six bishops (of whom Fisher and rested and London. Fisher and at West minster, Gardiner were two), and other doctors. So far as may be CHAP. VI. inferred, Fisher inclined to a favorable view of the matter; and when the first article, charging Barnes with contempt for the observance of holy days, was read over, he declared that he for one 'would not condemn it as heresy for a hundred pounds; but,' he added, turning to the prior, it was a foolish thing to preach this before all the butchers of Cambridge.' On the other hand, Clerk, bishop of Bath and Wells', who had recently been promoted to that see in acknowledgement of his services against the Lutheran party, was evidently little disposed to mercy, and pressed more than one point with vindictive unfairness against the accused. The proceedings, extending over three days, followed the course almost invariably pursued when the accused was a clergyman. There was a great parade of patristic and scholastic divinity; a continual fencing in dialectics between the bishops and the prior; the usual recourse to threats, subterfuges, entreaties; and at last, the sole alternative before him being death at the stake, Barnes consented to read aloud before the assembled spectators the roll of his recantation. The story cannot be better concluded than in his own words : me. rative of the 'Then was all the people that stode ther, called to here His own nar For in the other thre dayes, was there no man suffered conclusion. to here one worde that I spake. So after theyr commandement that was gyven me, I red it, addyng nothyng to it, nor saying no word, that might make for myn excuse, supposyng that I shuld have founde the byshops the better. 'After this I was commaunded to subscribe it, and to make a crosse on it. Than was I commaunded to goe knel downe before the byshop of Bathe, and to require absolucion of hym, but he wolde not assoyle me, except I wold first swere, that I wolde fulfyll the penaunce that he shuld enjoyn to me. So did I swere, not yet suspectynge, but these men had had some crom of charite within them. But whan I had sworne, than enjoyned he me, that I shuld retourne that nighte agayne to prisone. And the nexte day, 1 He had been educated at Cambridge, though at what college does not appear. CHAP. VI. which was fastyngame Sonday, I shuld do open penaunce at Paules. Hugh b. 1485 (?). 'And that the worlde shulde thynke that I was a merveylous haynous heretyke, the cardynal came the nexte daye, with all the pompe and pryde that he could make, to Paules Church, and all to brynge me poor soule out of conseite. And moreover were ther commaunded to come all the byshoppes that were at London. And all the abbotes dwellynge in London, that dydde were myters, in so muche that the pryour of sainte Mary's Spittal, and another monke, whyche I thinke was of Towre Hylle, were ther also in theyr myters. And to set the matter more forthe, and that the worlde shulde perfytly knowe and perceive, that the spiritual fathers had determined my matter substancially, the byshop of Rochester must preache ther that same daye, and all his sermon was agaynst Lutherians, as thoughe they had convicted me for one: the whyche of truth, and afore God, was as farre from those thinges as any man coulde be, savynge that I was no tyraunt nor no persecutour of God's worde. And al this gorgyous fasyng with myters and cros-staves, abbotes, and pryours were doone, but to blynde the people, and to outface me. God amende all thyng that is amisse. In the sequel Barnes was sentenced to imprisonment in the house of his order at Northampton. From thence, after nearly three years' confinement, he effected his escape and fled to Germany. Here he made the acquaintance of many of the leaders of the Lutheran party. It is evident however, that, though his career was terminated at the stake, he only partially embraced the doctrines of Protestantism; and from the time of his recantation his history can no longer be associated with that of the Cambridge Reformers. But before Barnes was lost to the cause, there had been added to the reform party another convert, who, if inferior to the prior in learning, was at least his equal in courage and oratorical power, and certainly endowed with more discretion and practical sagacity. This man was the famous Hugh Latimer. At the time that Barnes preached his Christmas 1 The Supplication of doctour Barnes, etc., (quoted by Cooper, Annals, 1322). career and Eve sermon, Latimer was probably over forty years of age, CHAP. VI. and his adhesion to the new doctrines had not been given in until long after the time when such a step could justly be represented as that of a rash and enthusiastic youth. A fellow of Clare College, he was distinguished in the earlier His early part of his career by everything that could inspire the confi- character. dence and esteem of the grave seniors of the conservative party. He was studious, ascetic, devout, and of irreproachable life; and without being altogether unversed in the new learning, he nevertheless shewed a far greater liking for the old; he looked upon Greek with suspicion, nor does he appear indeed ever to have made any real attainments in the language; he inveighed with warmth against Stafford's innovations, and even went so far, on one occasion, as to enter the schools and harangue the assembled students on the folly of forsaking the study of the doctors for that of the Scriptures; while at the time that the rising genius of Melanchthon at Wittenberg first began to challenge the admiration of the learned throughout Europe, he availed himself of the oppor- He attacks tunity afforded when keeping his 'act' for the degree of chthon. bachelor of divinity, in 1524, to declaim with all his power against the principles advocated by the young German Reformer'. There were not many among the party whose cause he had espoused who combined high character with marked ability, and the authorities lost no opportunity of shewing their appreciation of his merit. He was invested His position with the honorable office of crossbearer to the university, in versity. the public processions; he was elected one of the twelve preachers annually appointed as directed by the bull of Alexander VI; nor are other indications wanting to prove that he was regarded as a fit person to represent the university in negociations of an important and confidential nature2. Among those who listened to Latimer's harangue against Melanchthon was 'little Bilney.' He perceived that the He is conorator was zealous without knowledge,' and determined, if Bilney. possible, to open his eyes to the truth. The plan he adopted 1 Cooper, Athenæ, 1 130; Demaus, Life of Latimer, c. 11. Melan in the uni verted by CHAP. VI. in order to accomplish his purpose, was judiciously conceived; he sought out Latimer, not as an antagonist in the schools, but in the privacy of his college chamber; not as one who by virtue of superior wisdom assumed the office of a spiritual instructor, but as a penitent who sought his counsel and direction. He asked Latimer to hear his confession, and Latimer acceded to his request; and in his own words, spoken long afterwards, 'learned more than before in many years'.' In short, the confessor became the convert of him to whom he listened; and it was soon known throughout the university, that the saintly crossbearer, the denouncer of Luther and Melanchthon, had himself gone over to the 'Germans.' In Latimer's own quaint language, 'he began to smell the Word of God, and forsook the school-doctors and such fooleries.' The date of his conversion is assigned by his latest biographer to the earlier part of the year 1524, and from that time he He becomes became the intimate friend and associate of Bilney, in whose company he was now generally to be found; one particular walk where they were frequently to be seen, engaged in earnest converse, was known among their satirists as the 'Heretics' Hill.' Together they visited and comforted the sick; preached in the lazar-cots or fever hospitals; their charity extending even to the helpless prisoners confined in the tolbooth and the castle. Bilney's intimate associate. Effects of Latimer's example. The influence of Latimer's example,-unimpaired as it was by eccentricities like Bilney's or indiscretion like that of Barnes,-soon began to be perceptible in the university; his converts were important and numerous; and frequent reports at last aroused the attention of the bishop of the diocese. 1 'We cannot doubt what the tenor of Bilney's confession would be. Latimer had just been denouncing the study of the Holy Scripture as dangerous to the soul, and had recommended his hearers to seek for peace and spiritual life in implicit obedience to the teaching of the Church and the prescriptions of her ministers. In reply to all this, Bilney would repeat the touching story of his own spiritual conflict,-how he had gone about seeking to find health and comfort to his sick and languishing soul; how he had applied to those physicians that Latimer so much commended, and had diligently used all their remedies but had found no benefit; how he had fasted and done penance;...how at last he had read that Book which Latimer had condemned as fatal to the soul, and all at once he had felt himself healed as by the hand of the Divine Physician.' Demaus, Life of Latimer, pp. 36-7. |