risonment at will while the trial was delayed; nor, if on
the trial the bishop failed in securing a conviction, was he at liberty
to detain the accused person any longer on the same charge, because the
result was not satisfactory to himself. These provisions were not
preposterously lenient. Sir Thomas More should have found no difficulty
in observing them himself, and in securing the observance of them by the
bishops, at least in cases where he was himself responsible for the
first committal. It is to be feared that he forgot that he was a judge
in his eagerness to be a partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal
scruples to interfere with the more important object of ensuring
punishment to heretics.

The first case which I shall mention is one in which the Bishop of
London was principally guilty; not, however, without More's countenance,
and, if Foxe is to be believed, his efficient support.

[Sidenote: Case of Thomas Philips.]

In December, 1529, the month succeeding his appointment as chancellor,
More, at the instance of the Bishop of London,[92] arrested a citizen of
London, Thomas Philips by name, on a charge of heresy.

The prisoner was surrendered in due form to his diocesan, and was
brought to trial on the 4th of February; a series of articles being
alleged against him by Foxford, the bishop's vicar-general. The articles
were of the usual kind. The prisoner was accused of having used
unorthodox expressions on transubstantiation, on purgatory, pilgrimages,
and confession. It does not appear whether any witnesses were produced.
The vicar-general brought his accusations on the ground of general
rumour, and failed to maintain them. Whether there were witnesses or
not, neither the particular offences, nor even the fact of the general
rumour, could be proved to the satisfaction of the jury. Philips himself
encountered each separate charge with a specific denial, declaring that
he neither was, nor ever had been, other than orthodox; and the result
of the trial was, that no conviction could be obtained. The prisoner
"was found so clear from all manner of infamous slanders and suspicions,
that all the people before the said bishop, shouting in judgment as with
one voice, openly witnessed his good name and fame, to the great reproof
and shame of the said bishop, if he had not been ashamed to be
ashamed."[93] The case had broken down; the proceedings were over, and
by law the accused person was free. But the law, excep