ol. VII. p. 635.

[448] Compare _State Papers_, Vol. I. pp. 431-436, with the Reports of
the trials in the Baga de Secretis. Burnet has hastily stated that no
Catholic was ever punished for merely denying the supremacy in official
examinations. He has gone so far, indeed, as to call the assertions of
Catholic writers to this effect "impudent falsehoods." Whether any
Catholic was prosecuted who had not given other cause for suspicion, I
do not know; but it is quite certain that Haughton and Fisher were
condemned solely on the ground of their answers on these occasions, and
that no other evidence was brought against them. The government clearly
preferred this evidence as the most direct and unanswerable, for in both
those cases they might have produced other witnesses had they cared to
do so.

[449] "Omnes Cardinales amicos nostros adivi; eisque demonstravi quam
temere ac stulte fecerint in Roffensi in Cardinalem eligendo unde et
potentissimum Regem et universum Regnum Angliae mirum in modum laedunt et
injuria afficiunt; Roffensem enim virum esse gloriosum ut propter vanam
gloriam in sua opinione contra Regem adhuc sit permansurus; qua etiam de
causa in carcere est et morti condemnatus."--Cassalis to Cromwell:
_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.

[450] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.

[451] Pontifex me vehementer rogavit, ut vias omnes tentare velim,
quibus apud Regiam Majestatem excusatam hanc rem faciam, unde se
plurimum dolere dixit, cum praesertim ego affirmaverim rem esse ejusmodi
ut excusationem non recipiat.--Cassalis to Cromwell: Ibid.

[452] Ibid. p. 616.

[453] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum._

[454] Report of the Trial of John Fisher: Baga de Secretis: Appendix to
the _Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records_.

[455] If his opinions had been insufficient for his destruction, there
was an influence at court which left no hope to him: the influence of
one whose ways and doings were better known then than they have been
known to her modern admirers. "On a time," writes his grandson, "when he
had questioned my aunt Roper of his wife and children, and the state of
his house in his absence, he asked her at last how Queen Anne did. 'In
faith, father,' said she, 'never better. There is nothing else at the
court but dancing and sporting.' 'Never better?' said he; 'alas, Meg,
alas, it pitieth me to remember unto what misery she will shortly come.
These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will sp