warnings from Clark himself, whose wiser
foresight knew the risk which they were running, and shrank from
allowing weak giddy spirits to thrust themselves into so fearful
peril.[56]

[Sidenote: Garret, fellow of Magdalen, and member of the London
Society,]

[Sidenote: Introduces into Oxford the forbidden books from Germany.]

This little party had been in the habit of meeting for about six
months,[57] when at Easter, 1527, Thomas Garret, a fellow of
Magdalen,[58] who had gone out of residence, and was curate at All
Hallows church, in London, reappeared in Oxford. Garret was a secret
member of the London Society, and had come down at Clark's instigation,
to feel his way in the university. So excellent a beginning had already
been made, that he had only to improve upon it. He sought out all such
young men as were given to Greek, Hebrew, and the polite Latin;[59] and
in this visit met with so much encouragement, that the Christmas
following he returned again, this time bringing with him treasures of
forbidden books, imported by "the Christian Brothers"; New Testaments,
tracts and volumes of German divinity, which he sold privately among the
initiated.

[Sidenote: Orders for his arrest are sent down from London.]

He lay concealed, with his store, at "the house of one Radley,"[60] the
position of which cannot now be identified; and there he remained for
several weeks, unsuspected by the university authorities, till orders
were sent by Wolsey to the Dean of Christchurch for his arrest. Precise
information was furnished at the same time respecting himself, his
mission in Oxford, and his place of concealment.[61]

[Sidenote: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1528. He is warned by a proctor to escape.]

The proctors were put upon the scent, and directed to take him; but one
of them, Arthur Cole, of Magdalen, by name, not from any sympathy with
Garret's objects, as the sequel proved, but probably from old
acquaintance, for they were fellows at the same college, gave him
information of his danger, and warned him to escape.

His young friends, more alarmed for their companion than for themselves,
held a meeting instantly to decide what should be done; and at this
meeting was Anthony Dalaber, an undergraduate of Alban Hall, and one of
Clark's pupils, who will now tell the story of what followed.

[Sidenote: Dalaber's narrative.]

"The Christmas before that time, I, Anthony Dalaber, the scholar of
Alban Hall, who had books of Master Gar