llowed; and on the last of the month the
drama closed in the usual manner at Smithfield. Before the fire was
lighted Bainham made a farewell address to the people, laying his death
expressly to More, whom he called his accuser and his judge.[104]

[Sidenote: The feelings with which these spectacles were witnessed by
the people.]

It is unfortunately impossible to learn the feelings with which these
dreadful scenes were witnessed by the people. There are stories which
show that, in some instances, familiarity had produced the usual effect;
that the martyrdom of saints was at times of no more moment to an
English crowd than the execution of ordinary felons,--that it was a mere
spectacle to the idle, the hardened, and the curious. On the other hand,
it is certain that the behaviour of the sufferers was the argument which
at last converted the nation; and an effect which in the end was so
powerful with the multitude must have been visible long before in the
braver and better natures. The increasing number of prosecutions in
London shows, also, that the leaven was spreading. There were five
executions in Smithfield between 1529 and 1533, besides those in the
provinces. The prisons were crowded with offenders who had abjured and
were undergoing sentence; and the list of those who were "troubled" in
various ways is so extensive, as to leave no doubt of the sympathy
which, in London at least, must have been felt by many, very many, of
the spectators of the martyrs' deaths. We are left, in this important
point, mainly to conjecture; and if we were better furnished with
evidence, the language of ordinary narrative would fail to convey any
real notion of perplexed and various emotions. We have glimpses,
however, into the inner world of men, here and there of strange
interest; and we must regret that they are so few.

[Sidenote: Suicide of a boy at Cambridge.]

A poor boy at Cambridge, John Randall, of Christ's College, a relation
of Foxe the martyrologist, destroyed himself in these years in religious
desperation; he was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an
open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards a
passage on predestination.[105]

[Sidenote: Pavier, the town clerk of London, also destroys himself,
under strange circumstances.]

A story even more remarkable is connected with Bainham's execution.
Among the lay officials present at the stake, was "one Pavier," town
clerk of London. T