and man: and that he began his actions with putting a cheat upon the king; and, together with him, upon the Church and his country." This, and a great deal more to the same purpose, he tells the archbishop plainly and expressly, though under a show of great sanctity, which shows with what an implacable mind he stood affected towards him.

And thus we have brought this excellent prelate unto his end, after two years and a half's hard imprisonment. His body was not carried to the grave in state, nor buried, as many of his predecessors were, in his own cathedral church, nor enclosed in a monument of marble or touchstone. Nor had he any inscription to set forth his praises to posterity; no shrine to be visited by devout pilgrims, as his predecessors St. Dunstan and St. Thomas had. Shall we therefore say, as the poet doth,

"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo,
Pompeius nullo. Quis putet esse deos?"

No; we are better Christians, I trust, than so, who are taught, that the rewards of God's elect are not temporal, but eternal. And Cranmer's martyrdom is his monument, and his name will outlast an epitaph or a shrine. But methinks it is pity, that his heart, that remained sound in the fire, and was found unconsumed in his ashes, was not preserved in some urn, which, when the better times of Queen Elizabeth came, might, in memory of this truly great and good Thomas of Canterbury, have been placed among his prede cessors in his church there, as one of the truest glories of that see.

Though these three martyrs, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were parted asunder, and placed in separate lodgings, that they might not confer together, yet they were suffered sometimes to eat together in the prison of Bocardo. I have seen a book of their diet every dinner and supper, and the charge thereof,1 which was at the expense of [Thomas] Winkle and [John] Wells, bailiffs of the city at that time, under whose custody they were. As for example in this method:

'MSS. C.C.C.C. [No. cxxviii. fol. 365].

From this book of their expenses give me leave to make these few observations. They ate constantly suppers as well as dinners. Their meals amounted to about three or four shillings, seldom exceeding four. Their bread and ale commonly came to twopence or threepence. They had constantly cheese and pears for their last dish, both at dinner and supper, and always wine, the price whereof was ever threepence, and no more. The prices of their provisions (it being now an extraordinary dear time) were as follow:A goose, 14d. A pig, 12d. or 13d. A cony, 6d. A woodcock, 3d. and sometimes 5d. A couple of chickens, 6d. Three plovers, 10d. Half a dozen larks, 3d. A dozen of larks and two plovers, 10d. A breast of veal, 11d. A shoulder of mutton, 10d. Roast beef, 12d.

The last disbursements (which have melancholy in the reading) were these:

For three loads of wood-fagots to burn
Ridley and Latimer

Item, one load of furs-fagots

For the carriage of these four loads

s. d.

12

3 4

2 0

4

3 4

232130N

6

8

It seems the superiors in those days were more zealous to send these three good men to Oxon, and there to serve their ends upon them, and afterwards to burn them, than they were careful honestly to pay the charges thereof. For Winkle and Wells, notwithstanding all their endeavours to get themselves reimbursed of what they had laid out, which came to sixty-three pounds ten shillings and twopence, could never get but twenty pounds, which they received by the means of Sir William Petre, secretary of state. Insomuch that, in the year 1566, they put up a petition to Archbishop Parker and the other bishops, that they would among themselves raise and repay that sum, which the said bailiffs were out of purse in feeding of these three reverend fathers. In which petition they set forth, "That, in the second and third years of King Philip and Queen Mary, Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Latimer, and Bishop Ridley, were by order of council committed to the custody of them, and so continued a certain time; and for them they disbursed the sum of £63. 10s. 2d.; whereof but £20 was paid to them. Therefore they pray his grace, and the rest of his bishops, to be a means among themselves that the remaining sum may be paid to them, being £43. 10s. 2d., or some part thereof; otherwise they, and their poor wives and children, should be utterly undone." And, to give the better countenance to these men that were going to carry up their petition, Laurence Humfrey, president of Magdalen College, and the queen's professor, wrote this letter on their behalf to Archbishop Parker.

JEH.

"My humble commendations presupposed in the Lord. To be a suitor in another man's case, it seemeth boldness; and, in a matter of money, to write to your grace, is more than sauciness: yet charity, 'operiens multitudinem pecca

torum,' doth move me, and will persuade you to hear him. A debt is due unto him for the table of Mr. Dr. Cranmer, by the queen's majesty's appointment. And Mr. Secretary in Oxford wished him, at that time of business in progress, to make some motion to the bishops for some relief. The case is miserable. The debt is just. His charges in the suit have been great. His honesty, I assure your grace, deserves pitiful consideration. And for that my lord of Sarum1 writeth to me, as here, in Oxford, he promised that his part shall not be behind, what order soever it please my lords to take for the despatch of the same. I request your grace, as successor to that right reverend father, and chief patron of such poor suitors, to make, by your good means, some collection for him among the rest of my lords the bishops, that his goodwill, showed to that worthy martyr, may of you be considered, and so be bound to your goodness, of his part altogether undeserved. Thus recommending the common cause of reformation to you, and myself and this poor man to your good remembrance, I leave to trouble you. Requesting you once again to hear him, and tender his cause even of charity for God his sake, to whose protection I commend your grace. From Oxon, November 22, anno 1566.

"Your grace's humble orator, LAUR. HUMFREY,”2

Though I cannot trace this any further, yet I make no doubt this petition was favourably received with the archbishop and bishops. It seems, in Cranmer's lifetime, money was sent to Oxford for the sustentation of these prisoners of Christ, but embezzled, For one W. Pantry, of Oxford, received forty pounds at Mr. Stonelye's hand for my Lord Cranmer, and the other two in like case. This was declared by the bailiffs to Thomas Doyley, Esq., steward to Archbishop Parker,

1 [John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury.]

2 Ex Biblioth. C.C.C.C. [No. cxxviii. (s.)].

CHAPTER XXII.

Cranmer's Books and Writings.

HAVING brought our history of this singular and extraordinary light of the Church to this period, we will, before we take our leave of him, gather up some few fragments more, thinking it pity that anything should be lost that may either serve to communicate any knowledge of him to posterity, or to clear and vindicate him from aspersions or misrepresentations, vulgarly conceived of him. And here will fall under our consideration, first, his books and writings; after them, his acquaintance with learned men, and his favour to them and learning; then, some matters relating to his family and officers; and lastly, we shall conclude with some observations upon him.

For the pen of this great divine was not idle, being employed, as earnestly as his authority and influence, for the furtherance of religion, and rescue of this Church from Popish superstition and foreign jurisdiction. He laid a solid foundation in learning by his long and serious studies in the university, to which he was much addicted, insomuch that this was one of the causes which made him so labour, by the interest of his friends with King Henry, to be excused from taking the archbishopric of Canterbury; because this promotion would so much interrupt his beloved studies, desiring rather some smaller living, that he might more quietly follow his book. And as he had been a hard student, so he was a very great writer, both in respect of the number of books and treatises he compiled, as of the learning, judgment, and moment of them.

The first treatise he wrote was that which was done at the command of Henry VIII. viz. concerning the unlawfulness of his marriage with his brother Arthur's widow, which he made appear to be both against the word of God, and against the judgment of the ancient Fathers of the Church, and therefore a case indispensable by the Pope. And so well had he studied the point, and so well was assured of what he had wrote, that he undertook, before the king, to