tumult.
Nor was it possible for him to do other than punish them, unless, after
their crimes had been detected, he had so far forgotten his duty as to
leave the contagion to spread unchecked, to the utter destruction of the
nation. They were in consequence thrown into the Tower, where, however,
their treatment was far different from what their demerits had deserved;
they were allowed the society of their friends; their own servants were
admitted to attend upon them, and they received all such indulgences in
food and dress as their families desired. Clemency, however, produced no
effect on persons in whom duty and allegiance had given place to treason
and malice. They chose rather to persist in their wicked courses than to
make trial by repentance of the king's goodness. For after that certain
laws had been decreed by authority of parliament, and had been by the
whole nation admitted and accepted as expedient for the realm, and
agreeable to true religion, they alone refused their consent to these
laws, hoping that something might occur to sustain them in their
impiety; and while professing to have left all care and thought for
human things, they were considering by what arguments, in furtherance
of their seditious purposes, they might, to the common hurt, elude,
refute, and disturb the said laws.

"Of this their treason there are proofs extant--letters written, when
ink failed them, with chalk or charcoal, and passed secretly from one to
the other. Our most merciful king could therefore no longer tolerate
their grievous faults. He allowed them to be tried by process of
ordinary law. They were found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to
death. Their punishment was milder than that which the law prescribed,
or which their crimes had deserved; and many persons have by this
example been brought to a better mind."[471]

To Cromwell evidently the case appeared so clear as to require no
apology. To modern writers it has appeared so clear as to admit of none.
The value of the defence turns upon the point of the actual danger to
the state, and the extent to which the conduct of the sufferers
imperilled the progress of the Reformation. As written for the eyes of
the pope and cardinals, however, such a letter could be understood only
as daring them to do their worst. It ignored the very existence of such
rules of judgment as the heads of the Roman church would alone
acknowledge, and represented the story as it appeared from th