om praying to saints, or for the
dead, and from the use of beads, ashes, processions, masses, dirges, and
praying to God publicly in an unknown tongue. A Mr. Body, one of the
commissioners appointed to carry out this Injunction, was pulling down
images in Helston church, near the Lizard, when a priest stabbed him with
a knife: "of which wound he instantly fell dead in that place. And though
the murderer was taken and sent up to London, tried, found guilty of
murder in Westminster Hall, and executed in Smithfield, yet the Cornish
people flocked together in a tumultuous and rebellious manner, by the
instigation of their priests in divers parts of the shire or county, and
committed many barbarities and outrages in the same." These disturbances
ended in Arundel's rebellion, the purpose of which was to demand the
restoration of the old Liturgy; and, in truth, the Seven Articles under
which they formulated this demand must have seemed very moderate indeed to
their conservative minds. The rebellion failed, of course, after a five
weeks' siege of Exeter; and was bloodily revenged, with something of the
savage humour displayed by Jeffreys in punishing a later Western
rebellion. This part of the business was committed to Sir Anthony
(_alias_ William) Kingston, Knight, a Gloucestershire man, as Provost
Marshal; and "it is memorable what sport he made, by virtue of his office,
upon men in misery." Here are one or two of his merry conceits, which
read strangely like the jests reported by Herodotus:--

(1) "One Boyer, Mayor of Bodmin in Cornwall, had been amongst the
rebels, not willingly, but enforced: to him the Provost sent word he
would come and dine with him: for whom the Mayor made great
provision. A little before dinner, the Provost took the Mayor aside,
and whispered him in the ear, that an execution must that day be done
in the town, and therefore required to have a pair of gallows set up
against dinner should be done. The Mayor failed not of the charge.
Presently after dinner the Provost, taking the Mayor by the hand,
intreated him to lead him where the gallows was, which, when he
beheld, he asked the Mayor if he thought them to be strong enough.
'Yes' (said the Mayor),'doubtless they are.' 'Well, then'(said the
Provost), 'get you up speedily, for they are provided for you.'
'I hope' (answered the Mayor), 'you mean not as you speak.'
'In faith' (s