nly
accept you into his gracious favour, all matter of displeasure past
afore this time forgotten and forgiven."[246]

[Sidenote: Fisher again refuses, and sends in his defence to the House
of Lords.]

Fisher must have been a hopelessly impracticable person. Instead of
following More's example, and accepting well-meant advice, he persisted
in the same tone, and drew up an address to the House of Lords, in which
he repeated the defence which he had made to Cromwell. He expressed no
sorrow that he had been engaged in a criminal intrigue, no pleasure that
the intrigue had been discovered; and he doggedly adhered to his
assertions of his own innocence.[247]

[Sidenote: March 6. The bill passes.]

[Sidenote: The Nun and the monks to be executed. The Bishop of Rochester
and Father Abel to be imprisoned with forfeiture of goods.]

There was nothing to be done except to proceed with his attainder. The
bill passed three readings, and the various prisoners were summoned to
the Star Chamber to be heard in arrest of judgment. The Bishop of
Rochester's attendance was dispensed with on the ground of illness, and
because he had made his defence in writing.[248] Nothing of consequence
was urged by either of the accused. The bill was most explicit in its
details, going carefully through the history of the imposture, and
dwelling on the separate acts of each offender. They were able to
disprove no one of its clauses, and on the 12th of March it was read a
last time. On the 21st it received the royal assent, and there remained
only to execute the sentence. The Nun herself, Richard Masters, and the
five friars being found guilty of high treason, were to die; the Bishop
of Rochester, Father Abel, Queen Catherine's confessor, and four more,
were sentenced for misprision of treason to forfeiture of goods and
imprisonment. All other persons implicated, whose names did not appear,
were declared pardoned at the intercession of Queen Anne.[249]

[Sidenote: April 21.]

The chief offenders suffered at Tyburn on the 21st of April, meeting
death calmly, as it appears; receiving a fate most necessary and most
deserved,[250] yet claiming from us that partial respect which is due to
all persons who will risk their lives in an unselfish cause. For the
Nun herself, we may feel even a less qualified regret. Before her death
she was permitted to speak a few words to the people, which at the
distance of three centuries will not be read without emotio