th a general licence to
preach.[49] Barnes was less fortunate; he was far inferior to Latimer; a
noisy, unwise man, without reticence or prudence. In addition to his
offences in matters of doctrine, he had attacked Wolsey himself with
somewhat vulgar personality; and it was thought well to single him out
for a public, though not a very terrible admonition. His house had been
searched for books, which he was suspected, and justly suspected, of
having brought with him from abroad. These, however, through a timely
warning of the danger, had been happily secreted,[50] or it might have
gone harder with him. As it was, he was committed to the Fleet on the
charge of having used heretical language. An abjuration was drawn up by
Wolsey, which he signed; and while he remained in prison preparations
were made for a ceremony, in which he was to bear a part, in St. Paul's
church, by which the Catholic authorities hoped to produce some salutary
effect on the disaffected spirits of London.

[Sidenote: Preparation for a ceremony in St. Paul's church.]

Vast quantities of Tyndal's publications had been collected by the
police. The bishops, also, had subscribed among themselves[51] to buy up
the copies of the New Testament before they left Antwerp;--an
unpromising method, like an attempt to extinguish fire by pouring oil
upon it; they had been successful, however, in obtaining a large
immediate harvest, and a pyramid of offending volumes was ready to be
consumed in a solemn _auto da fe_.

[Sidenote: Procession from the Fleet.]

[Sidenote: Barnes and five Stillyard men taken to St. Paul's.]

In the morning of Shrove Sunday, then, 1527, we are to picture to
ourselves a procession moving along London streets from the Fleet prison
to St. Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the
knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could
make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed
officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a
lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots,
signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for
them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was
Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable by any
other name, but detected members of the brotherhood.

It was eight o'clock when they arrived at St. Paul's. The people had
flocked in crowds before them. The public seats an