reating him with a thousand indignities, transfixed his body with
arrows, and then beheaded him.

In Fifeshire, in Scotland, they burnt many of the churches, and among
the rest that belonging to the Culdees, at St. Andrews. The piety of
these men made them objects of abhorrence to the Danes, who, wherever
they went singled out the christian priests for destruction, of whom no
less than 200 were massacred in Scotland.

It was much the same in that part of Ireland now called Leinster, there
the Danes murdered and burnt the priests alive in their own churches;
they carried destruction along with them wherever they went, sparing
neither age nor sex, but the clergy were the most obnoxious to them,
because they ridiculed their idolatry, and persuaded their people to
have nothing to do with them.

In the reign of Edward III. the church of England was extremely
corrupted with errors and superstition; and the light of the gospel of
Christ was greatly eclipsed and darkened with human inventions,
burthensome ceremonies, and gross idolatry.

The followers of Wickliffe, then called Lollards, were become extremely
numerous, and the clergy were so vexed to see them increase whatever
power or influence they might have to molest them in an underhand
manner, they had no authority by law to put them to death. However, the
clergy embraced the favourable opportunity, and prevailed upon the king
to suffer a bill to be brought into parliament, by which all Lollards
who remained obstinate, should be delivered over to the secular power,
and burnt as heretics. This act was the first in Britain for the burning
of people for their religious sentiments; it passed in the year 1401,
and was soon after put into execution.

The first person who suffered in consequence of this cruel act was
William Santree, or Sawtree, a priest, who was burnt to death in
Smithfield.

Soon after this, lord Cobham, in consequence of his attachment to the
doctrines of Wickliffe, was accused of heresy, and being condemned to be
hanged and burnt, was accordingly executed in Loncoln's-Inn Fields, A.
D. 1419.

The next man who suffered under this bloody statute was Thomas Bradley,
a tailor, and a layman; and a letter having been tendered him, which he
refused, he was declared an obstinate heretic, and tied to the stake in
Smithfield; where he was burnt alive, rejoicing in the Lord his God.

The next person we read of who was tried upon this abominable statute,
was Wi