g that your grace
was offended, I thought it my duty, before I proceeded farther, to
inform your grace." This circumstance verifies the account that the
cardinal was a humane man; and though a zealous catholic, we, as
protestants, are willing to render him that honour which his merciful
character deserves. Some of the bitter persecutors denounced him to the
pope as a favourer of heretics, and he was summoned to Rome, but queen
Mary, by particular entreaty, procured his stay. However, before his
latter end, and a little before his last journey from Rome to England,
he was strongly suspected of favouring the doctrine of Luther.

_T. Loseby, H. Ramsey, T. Thirtell, Margaret Hide, and Agnes Stanley._

These persons were successively called up, condemned, delivered over to
the sheriffs of London, in April 15, 1557, were conducted to Smithfield,
there to exchange a temporal life for a life eternal with him for whose
sake and truth they perished.

In May following, W. Morant, S. Gratwick, and ---- King, suffered in St.
George's Field, Southwark.

_Executions in Kent._

The following seven were arraigned for heresy: Joan Bainbridge, of
Staplehurst; W. Appleby, Petronella his wife, and the wife of John
Manning, of Maidstone; B. Allin, and his wife Catherine, of Freytenden;
and Elizabeth ----, a blind maiden. Allin was put in the stocks at
night, and some advised him to compromise a little, and go for the
form's sake to mass, which he did next day, but, just before the
sacring, as it is termed, he went into the churchyard, and so reasoned
with himself upon the absurdity of transubstantiation, that he staid
away, and was soon after brought back again before Sir John Baker, and
condemned for heresy. He was burnt with the six before mentioned at
Maidstone, the 18th of June, 1557.

As in the last sacrifice four women did honour to the truth, so in the
following auto-de-fe we have the like number of females and males, who
suffered June 30, 1557, at Canterbury, and were J. Fishcock, F. White,
N. Pardue, Barbary Final, widow; Bradbridge's widow; Wilson's wife; and
Benden's wife.

Of this group we shall more particularly notice Alice Benden, wife of
Edward Benden, of Staplehurst, Kent. She had been taken up in Oct. 1556,
for non-attendance, and released upon a strong injunction to mind her
conduct. Her husband was a bigoted catholic, and publicly speaking of
his wife's contumacy, she was conveyed to Canterbury castle, where