awed by a common consent of the great Powers.]

Wolsey was not cruel. There is no instance, I believe, in which he of
his special motion sent a victim to the stake:--it would be well if the
same praise could be allowed to Cranmer. There was this difference
between the cardinal and other bishops, that while they seemed to desire
to punish, Wolsey was contented to silence; while they, in their conduct
of trials, made escape as difficult as possible, Wolsey sought rather to
make submission easy. He was too wise to suppose that he could cauterize
heresy, while the causes of it, in the corruption of the clergy,
remained unremoved; and the remedy to which he trusted, was the infusing
new vigour into the constitution of the church.[45] Nevertheless, he was
determined to repress, as far as outward measures could repress it, the
spread of the contagion; and he set himself to accomplish his task with
the full energy of his nature, backed by the whole power, spiritual and
secular, of the kingdom. The country was covered with his secret police,
arresting suspected persons and searching for books. In London the
scrutiny was so strict that at one time there was a general flight and
panic; suspected butchers, tailors, and carpenters, hiding themselves in
the holds of vessels in the river, and escaping across the Channel.[46]
Even there they were not safe. Heretics were outlawed by a common
consent of the European governments. Special offenders were hunted
through France by the English emissaries with the permission and
countenance of the court,[47] and there was an attempt to arrest Tyndal
at Brussels, from which, for that time, he happily escaped.[48]

[Sidenote: Barnes and Latimer summoned before Wolsey.]

Simultaneously the English universities fell under examination, in
consequence of the appearance of dangerous symptoms among the younger
students. Dr. Barnes, returning from the continent, had used violent
language in a pulpit at Cambridge; and Latimer, then a neophyte in
heresy, had grown suspect, and had alarmed the heads of houses.
Complaints against both of them were forwarded to Wolsey, and they were
summoned to London to answer for themselves.

[Sidenote: Latimer is dismissed.]

[Sidenote: Barnes is committed to the Fleet and abjures.]

Latimer, for some cause, found favour with the cardinal, and was
dismissed, with a hope on the part of his judge that his accusers might
prove as honest as he appeared to be, and even wi