. How can you require
faith of the people, when under their own eyes the court turns faith to
ridicule, and when infidels find at court aid and protection?"

"You accuse, but give no names," said the king, impatiently. "Who dares
at my court be a protector of heretics?"

"Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury!" said the three men, as with one
mouth. The signal-word was spoken, the standard of a bloody struggle set
up.

"Cranmer?" repeated the king thoughtfully. "He has, however, always
been a faithful servant and an attentive friend to me. It was he who
delivered me from the unholy bond with Catharine of Aragon: it was he
too who warned me of Catharine Howard, and furnished me with proofs of
her guilt. Of what misdemeanor do you accuse him?"

"He denies the six articles," said Gardiner, whose malicious face now
glowed with bitter hatred. "He reprobates auricular confession, and
believes not that the voluntarily taken vows of celibacy are binding."

"If he does that, then he is a traitor!" cried the king, who was fond of
always throwing a reverence for chastity and modesty, as a kind of holy
mantle, over his own profligate and lewd life; and whom nothing more
embittered than to encounter another on that path of vice which he
himself, by virtue of his royal prerogative, and his crown by the grace
of God, could travel in perfect safety.

"If he does that, then he is a traitor! My arm of vengeance will smite
him!" repeated the king again. "It was I who gave my people the six
articles, as a sacred and authoritative declaration of faith; and I
will not suffer this only true and right doctrine to be assailed and
obscured. But you are mistaken, my lords. I am acquainted with Cranmer,
and I know that he is loyal and faithful."

"And yet it is he," said Gardiner, "who confirms these heretics in their
obduracy and stiff-neckedness. He is the cause why these lost wretches
do not, from the fear of divine wrath at least, return to you, their
sovereign and high-priest. For he preaches to them that God is love and
mercy; he teaches them that Christ came into the world in order to bring
to the world love and the forgiveness of sins, and that they alone are
Christ's true disciples and servants who emulate His love. Do you not
see then, sire, that this is a covert and indirect accusation against
yourself, and that while he praises pardoning love, he at the same time
condemns and accuses your righteous and punitory wrath?"

The king d