heir fagots and stakes. Over a
thousand ministers were ejected from their livings, and such as
escaped further persecution fled to the continent. No fewer than two
hundred and eighty-eight persons, among whom were five bishops,
twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were burned
for religious opinions, besides many thousands who suffered various
other forms of persecution. The constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and
Hooper has immortalized their names on the list of illustrious
martyrs: but the greatest of all the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop
of Canterbury. The most artful and insinuating promises were held out
to him, to induce him to retract. Life and dignities were promised
him, if he would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he
yielded to the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid,
heartbroken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were
stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. But,
when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suffered
patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life was
useful; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his memory from
shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great author of the English
Reformation, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his
age; but he was timid, politic, and time-serving. The Reformation
produced no perfect characters in any country. Some great defect
blemished the lives of all the illustrious men who have justly earned
imperishable glory. But the character of such men as Cranmer, and
Ridley, and Latimer, present an interesting contrast to those of
Gardiner and Bonner. The former did show, however, some lenity in the
latter years of this reign of Mary; but the latter, the Bishop of
London, gloated to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed.
He even whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once
pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in
the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he might
realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel is religious
intolerance.

But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is
attributed to Mary, but which, in strict justice, should be ascribed
to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a popular
and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The fires of
Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, opene