stung by his
conscience, he asked the bishop to let him see the instrument again,
when he tore it to pieces; which induced Bonner in a fury to strike him
repeatedly, and tear away part of his beard. Mr. Philpot had a private
interview with Bonner the same night, and was then remanded to his bed
of straw like other prisoners, in the coal-house. After seven
examinations, Bonner ordered him to be set in the stocks, and on the
following Sunday separated him from his fellow-prisoners as a sower of
heresy, and ordered him up to a room near the battlements of St. Paul's,
eight feet by thirteen, on the other side of Lollard's tower, and which
could be overlooked by any one in the bishop's outer gallery. Here Mr.
Philpot was searched, but happily he was successful in secreting some
letters containing his examinations. In the eleventh investigation
before various bishops, and Mr. Morgan, of Oxford, the latter was so
driven into a corner by the close pressure of Mr. Philpot's arguments,
that he said to him, "Instead of the spirit of the gospel which you
boast to possess, I think it is the spirit of the buttery, which your
fellows have had, who were drunk before their death, and went I believe
drunken to it." To this unfounded and brutish remark, Mr. Philpot
indignantly replied, "It appeareth by your communication, that you are
better acquainted with that spirit than the spirit of God; wherefore I
tell thee, thou painted wall and hypocrite, in the name of the living
God, whose truth I have told thee, that God shall rain fire and
brimstone upon such blasphemers as thou art!" He was then remanded by
Bonner, with an order not to allow him his Bible nor candlelight.
December 4th, Mr. Philpot had his next hearing, and this was followed by
two more, making in all, fourteen conferences, previous to the final
examination in which he was condemned; such were the perseverance and
anxiety of the Catholics, aided by the argumentative abilities of the
most distinguished of the papal bishops, to bring him into the pale of
their church. Those examinations, which were very long and learned, were
all written down by Mr. Philpot, and a stronger proof of the imbecility
of the Catholic doctors, cannot, to an unbiassed mind, be exhibited.
December 16th, in the consistory of St. Paul's bishop Bonner, after
laying some trifling accusations to his charge such as secreting powder
to make ink, writing some private letters, &c. proceeded to pass the
awful sen