and came
at last to a bad end. But it is pleasant to find that even he, a mere
blustering arrogant official, was not wholly without redeeming points of
character; and as little good will be said for him hereafter, the
following passage in his second letter may be placed to the credit side
of his account. The tone in which he wrote was at least humane, and must
pass for more than an expression of natural kindness, when it is
remembered that he was addressing a person with whom tenderness for
heresy was a crime.

[Sidenote: Doctor London writes to the Bishop of Lincoln, advising a
general pardon.]

"These youths," he said, "have not been long conversant with Master
Garret, nor have greatly perused his mischievous books; and long before
Master Garret was taken, divers of them were weary of these works, and
delivered them to Dalaber. I am marvellous sorry for the young men. If
they be openly called upon, although they appear not greatly infect, yet
they shall never avoid slander, because my Lord's Grace did send for
Master Garret to be taken. I suppose his Grace will know of your good
lordship everything. Nothing shall be hid, I assure your good lordship,
an every one of them were my brother; and I do only make this moan for
these youths, for surely they be of the most towardly young men in
Oxford; and as far as I do yet perceive, not greatly infect, but much to
blame for reading any part of these works."[78]

[Sidenote: The bishop insists on punishment.]

Doctor London's intercession, if timid, was generous; he obviously
wished to suggest that the matter should be hushed up, and that the
offending parties should be dismissed with a reprimand. If the decision
had rested with Wolsey, it is likely that this view would have been
readily acted upon. But the Bishop of Lincoln was a person in whom the
spirit of humanity had been long exorcised by the spirit of an
ecclesiastic. He was staggering along the last years of a life against
which his own register[79] bears dreadful witness, and he would not
burden his conscience with mercy to heretics. He would not mar the
completeness of his barbarous career. He singled out three of the
prisoners--Garret, Clark, and Ferrars[80]--and especially entreated that
they should be punished. "They be three perilous men," he wrote to
Wolsey, "and have been the occasion of the corruption of youth. They
have done much mischief, and for the love of God let them be handled
thereafter."[81]

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