night' in February, with hard frost and a clear Cн. 6. full moon, ten miles across the wolds, to the church. A.D. 1532. found un the emer gency. The door was open as the legend declared; And are but nothing daunted, they entered bravely, and equal to lifting down the 'idol' from his shrine, with its coat and shoes, and the store of tapers which were kept for the services, they carried it on their shoulders for a quarter of a mile from the place where it had stood, 'without any resistance of the said idol.' There setting it on the ground, they struck a light, fastened the tapers to the body, and with the help of them, sacrilegiously burnt it The rood is down to a heap of ashes; the old dry wood 'blazing so brimly,' that it lighted them a full mile of their way home.* burnt. of three of For this night's performance, which, if the devil is the father of lies, was a stroke of honest work against him and his family, the world rewarded these men after the usual fashion. One of them, Robert Gardiner, escaped the search which was made, and disappeared till better times; the remaining three were swinging in Execution chains six months later on the scene of their the perpeexploit. Their fate was perhaps inevitable. Men who dare to be the first in great movements are ever self-immolated victims. But I suppose that it was better for them to be bleaching on their gibbets, than crawling at the feet of a wooden rood, and believing it to be God. trators. These were the first Paladins of the Reforma- The pro From a Letter of Robert Gardiner: FoxE, vol. iv. p. 706. testant Paladins. A.D. 1532. CH. 6. tion; the knights who slew the dragons and the enchanters, and made the earth habitable for common flesh and blood. They were rarely, as we have said, men of great ability, still more rarely men of wealth and station;' but men rather of clear senses and honest hearts. Tyndal was a remarkable person, and so Clark and Frith promised to become; but the two last were cut off before they had found scope to show themselves; and Tyndal remaining abroad, lay outside the battle which was being fought in England, doing noble work, indeed, and ending as the rest ended, with earning a martyr's crown; but taking no part in the actual struggle except with his pen. As yet but two men of the highest order power were on the side of protestantism— side of the Latimer and Cromwell. Of them we have already The two greatest men on the Reforma tion. of said something; but the time was now fast coming when they were to step forward, pressed by circumstances which could no longer dispense with them, into scenes of far wider activity; and the present seems a fitting occasion to give some closer account of their history. When the breach with the pope was made irreparable, and the papal party at home had assumed an attitude of suspended insurrection, the fortunes of the protestants entered into a new phase. The persecution ceased; and those who but lately were carrying fagots in the streets, or hiding for their lives, passed at once by a sudden alternation into the sunshine of political favour. The summer revulsion, was but a brief one, followed soon by returning winter; but Cromwell and Latimer had together The ap proaching and the use which was made of it. A.D. 1532. caught the moment as it went by; and before it CH. 6. was over, a work had been done in England which, when it was accomplished once, was accomplished for ever. The conservative party recovered their power, and abused it as before; but the chains of the nation were broken, and no craft of kings or priests or statesmen could weld the magic links again. It is a pity that of two persons to whom England owes so deep a debt, we can piece together such scanty biographies. I must attempt, however, to give some outline of the little which is known. เ a Leicester yeoman. The father of Latimer was a solid English The family of Hugh yeoman, of Thurcaston, in Leicestershire. He Latimer. had no lands of his own,' but he rented a farm His father, 'of four pounds by the year,' on which 'he tilled shire so much as kept half a dozen men;' 'he had walk for a hundred sheep, and meadow ground for thirty cows.'* The world prospered with him; he was able to save money for his son's education and his daughters' portions; but he was freehanded and hospitable; he kept open house for his poor neighbours; and he was a good citizen, too, for 'he did find the king a harness with himself and his horse,' ready to do battle for his country, if occasion called. His family were brought up 'in godliness and the fear of the Lord;' and in all points the old Latimer seems to have been a worthy, sound, upright man, of the true English mettle. * LATIMER'S Sermons, p. 101. CH. 6. A.D. 1532. former born about 1490, And brought up in the farmhouse There were several children. The Reformer was born about 1490, some five years after the The Re- usurper Richard had been killed at Bosworth. Bosworth being no great distance from Thurcaston, Latimer the father is likely to have been present in the battle, on one side or the other-the right side in those times it was no easy matter to choose--but he became a good servant of the new government-and the little Hugh, when a boy of seven years old, helped to bucklet on his armour for him, 'when he went to Blackheath field.'‡ Being a soldier himself, the old gentleman was careful to give his sons, whatever else he gave them, a as a brave sound soldier's training. 'He was diligent,' says Latimer, to teach me to shoot with the bow: he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in the bow-not to draw with strength of arm, as other nations do, but with the strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in these, my bows were made bigger and bigger.'§ Under this education, and in the wholesome atmosphere of the farmhouse, the boy prospered well; and by and bye, showing signs of promise, he was sent to He goes to school. When he was fourteen, the promises so Cambridge. far having been fulfilled, his father transferred him to Cambridge. || English boy. *Latimer speaks of sons and Where the Cornish rebels SLATIMER'S Sermons, p. 197. On which occasion, old relations perhaps shook their heads, and made objection to the expense. Some such feeling, at least, is indicated in the follow Clare Hall,, comes a student. from 'the He was soon known at the university as a CH. 6. sober, hard-working student. At nineteen, he Is elected was elected fellow of Clare Hall; at twenty, he fellow of took his degree, and became a student in divinity, and bewhen he accepted quietly, like a sensible man, divinity the doctrines which he had been brought up to believe. At the time when Henry VIII. was writing against Luther, Latimer was fleshing his maiden sword in an attack upon Melancthon;* Converted and he remained, he said, till he was thirty, 'in shadow of darkness and the shadow of death.' About this time he became acquainted with Bilney, whom he calls the instrument whereby God called him to knowledge.' In Bilney, doubtless, he found a sound instructor; but a careful reader of his sermons will see traces of a teaching for which he was indebted to no human master. His deepest Sources of knowledge was that which stole upon him uncon- knowledge, sciously through the experience of life-the world. denced in ing glimpse behind the veil of Latimer's private history: 'I was once called to one of my kinsfolk,' he says (it was at that time when I had taken my degree at Cambridge); I was called, I say, to one of my kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after my coming. Now, there was an old cousin of mine, which, after the man was dead, gave me a wax candle in my hand, and commanded me to make certain crosses over him that was dead; for she thought the devil should run away by and bye. Now, I took the candle, but I could not VOL. II. cross him as she would have me * I was as obstinate a papist H death' by Bilney. Latimer's as evi his ser mons. |