aring, and
here be many that sit far off.' I marvelled at this, that I was bidden
to speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear to the chimney; and,
sir, there I heard a pen walking in the chimney, behind the cloth. They
had appointed one there to write all mine answers; for they made sure
work that I should not start from them: there was no starting from them:
God was my good Lord, and gave me answer; I could never else have
escaped it. The question was this: 'Master Latimer, do you not think, on
your conscience, that you have been suspected of heresy?'--a subtle
question--a very subtle question. There was no holding of peace would
serve. To hold my peace had been to grant myself faulty. To answer was
every way full of danger. But God, which hath always given me answer,
helped me, or else I could never have escaped it. _Ostendite mihi
numisma census._ Shew me, said he, a penny of the tribute money. They
laid snares to destroy him, but he overturneth them in their own
traps."[132]

[Sidenote: He appeals to the king, and is saved.]

The bishops, however, were not men who were nice in their adherence to
the laws; and it would have gone ill with Latimer, notwithstanding his
dialectic ability. He was excommunicated and imprisoned, and would soon
have fallen into worse extremities; but at the last moment he appealed
to the king, and the king, who knew his value, would not allow him to be
sacrificed. He had refused to subscribe the articles proposed to
him.[133] Henry intimated to the convocation that it was not his
pleasure that the matter should be pressed further; they were to content
themselves with a general submission, which should be made to the
archbishop, without exacting more special acknowledgments. This was the
reward to Latimer for his noble letter. He was absolved, and returned to
his parish, though snatched as a brand out of the fire.

Soon after, the tide turned, and the Reformation entered into a new
phase.

[Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell.]

Such is a brief sketch of the life of Hugh Latimer, to the time when it
blended with the broad stream of English history. With respect to the
other very great man whom the exigencies of the state called to power
simultaneously with him, our information is far less satisfactory.
Though our knowledge of Latimer's early story comes to us in fragments
only, yet there are certain marks in it by which the outline can be
determined with certainty. A cloud rests over the