such fidelity, zeal, and success, could be guilty of high treason. He closed his letter by telling the king, that "he was such a servant in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this realm ever had."* This appeal to the king did not, however, prevent the passing of a bill of attainder against Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, for the crimes of heresy and high treason. preamble to the bill begins thus:-"That the king having raised Thomas Cromwell from a base degree to great dignities and high trusts, yet he had now, by a great number of witnesses-persons of honour -found him to be the most corrupt traitor and deceiver of the king and the crown that had ever been known in his whole reign."

The

After this act of attainder had passed both houses of parliament, and received the royal assent, Cromwell wrote several letters to the king, imploring mercy. With one of these letters he was much affected; he commanded it to be read to him three times, and appeared just on the point of relenting. But the charms of Catherine Howard, and the importunities of Norfolk and Gardiner, at length prevailed, and an order was given for beheading him; which order was executed on Tower-Hill, July 28th, with circumstances of peculiar barbarity. Thus fell Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, a sacrifice to his popish enemies and the passions of a capricious tyrant. He certainly was one of the wisest and most upright * Herbert, page 223.

ministers that had ever served a king of England. It is to him we are indebted for the institution of parish registers of births, marriages, and burials.

The loss sustained by the Reformers, through the fall of Cromwell, was followed by the martyrdom of a number of their most learned and zealous ministers. Two days after the execution of Cromwell, Dr. Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret, and William Hierome, were burnt in Smithfield, being condemned for heresy, on the act of the six articles; and at the same time and place three papists, Powel, Fetherstone, and Abell, were hanged, drawn, and quartered, being found guilty of treason for denying the king's supremacy; which induced a foreigner, who witnessed the horrid scene, to exclaim, "Good God! how unhappy are the people of this country, who are hanged for being papists, or burnt for being enemies to popery." It was about this period that Dr. Edmund Bonner began to act a conspicuous part in the affairs of the church. For the zealous manner in which he had advocated the king's cause against the pope, on the recommendation of Cromwell, secretary of state, he was promoted to the see of Hereford; but, before his consecration, he was translated by archbishop Cranmer to the see of London. The honest secretary of state and the unsuspecting archbishop were both deceived by Bonner, who was a bold, ambitious, unprincipled, and cruel man. He was placed at the head of the commissioners for

executing the act of the six articles in London; and, finding the interest of the popish party to prevail at court, he acted with great cruelty against the Reformers. Numbers were burnt to ashes, and multitudes were imprisoned and reduced to the greatest distress, by the violent proceedings of the commissioners. The influence of archbishop Cranmer was now rapidly declining with the king, whose imperious temper, being rendered more irritable through age, could rarely be approached by any but the adulator. The vacillancy of his conduct will appear from the following fact. On the 4th of October, 1541, he republished his injunctions for removing "out of cathedrals and other churches all shrines and images to which pilgrimages had been made, and offerings had been presented, with all tables recording pretended miracles," as the former injunctions for that purpose had been very imperfectly executed; and about the same time he published a proclamation, commanding the festivals of several saints to be restored and observed which he had previously abolished.

A dangerous conspiracy was about this time formed against archbishop Cranmer, by the popish party, having at their head the duke of Norfolk, the bishops of Winchester and London, Thornden, suffragan of Dover and prebendary of Canterbury, with a number of others, all of whom had been raised by Cranmer, for their pretended zeal for the Reformation. They were aware that the death

of Cromwell had put a check to the Reformation, and, if Cranmer could be sent after him, it would effectually crush all further attempts at a reformation. They began by selecting passages out of the sermons and private discourses of those prebendaries and preachers whom they knew to be in the archbishop's favour. Upon these they founded a number of articles, in which they represented the archbishop, by his partiality to the men of the new learning, as the cause of all the commotions and divisions which had disturbed the peace of Canterbury, and various other parts of Kent. These articles were at last presented to the king, who soon after, passing by Lambeth, took the archbishop into his barge and told him he had just discovered who was the greatest heretic in Kent. He then showed him the articles preferred against himself and his chaplains. The archbishop prayed the king to appoint a commission to examine the affair. The king suspected that it was a scheme of Gardiner's to ruin him, and would therefore appoint none on the commission but Cranmer himself. He remarked on the suspicious appearance which his sitting alone in judgment on his own case must have; but the king said he knew his integrity, and could not be prevailed with to name more than one with him in the commission.

When the archbishop went into Kent to execute his commission under such special marks of the king's favour, it operated on the conspirators as an electric shock. Some trembled with fear,

others wept and begged pardon, and some were sent to prison. The tender-hearted archbishop only executed a part of the commission himself, and left the rest in the hands of those who were secretly favourers of the party. The court was made acquainted with the circumstances of the case, and informed that, unless Dr. Leigh were sent down, who was accustomed to examinations, the conspiracy would never be found out. The doctor was sent accordingly, and a course of examinations commenced, which soon discovered the whole train. Some of the principal informers were the archbishop's domestics, who, when charged with it, fell on their knees and with tears confessed their faults. The archbishop, whose gentleness was almost without a parallel, kindly said, that he not only forgave them, but prayed God to forgive them and make them better men. At the close of these examinations a number of them were sent to prison, but were set at liberty soon after by an act of parliament.

The king gave another proof of the high estimation in which he held the archbishop. Sir John Gostwick, knight for Bedfordshire, charged Cranmer, before the house of commons, with having preached against the sacrament of the altar, both at Feversham and Canterbury. When the king heard of this he sent for Gostwick, and in his rough manner called him a varlet, and commanded him to go and ask Cranmer's pardon, or he should feel the effects of his displeasure. The