(in this instance, perhaps, without any intentional levity) were set
to hornpipes. To crown all, a multitude of disaffected persons were
at large in the country, speaking evil of dignities, and exciting the
idle, the hungry, and the aggrieved, to riot and rebellion; bearding
the government with audacious demands of changes, both civil and
ecclesiastical, to be made at their pleasure, couched in language the
most imperative and insolent; "such," Cranmer observes in his answer to
them, "as was not at any time used of subjects to their prince since the
beginning of the world."[14]

[4] Some Account of Shrewsbury, p. 128.

[5] See the Petition of the Inhabitants of Holm Cultram, in
Cumberland, to Cromwell, praying for the preservation of the
abbey church there A.D. 1538. Ellis's Original Letters, ii. 89.

[6] Spelman, Hist. and Fate of Sacrilege, p. 202. The extract is
from a letter of John Bale to Leland.

[7] Homily on keeping clean of Churches.

[8] Strype's Cranmer, 177.

[9] Latimer's Sermons, i.60, 61.--Id. i. 176.

[10] Id. i. 167.

[11] Latimer's Sermons, i; 176, 220.

[12] Strype's Cranmer, 175.

[13] Fox, 1048. Percy's Reliques of English Poetry, ii 291.
Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, act iv. sc. 2.

[14] Strype, Append, 88.

_Fox's Book of Martyrs_.

For a history of that noble army of martyrs of whom it now becomes our
business to speak, we are indebted to John Fox, himself an exile in
Mary's reign, and like most of those who then lived abroad, a friend
of the Puritan principles at home. He had access to the archives and
registers of the bishops; Grindal, who was himself a great collector of
such materials, amongst others, supplying him with what he knew; and
in many instances to the letters of the martyrs themselves;[15] of all
which documents, says Strype, he has been found, by those who have
compared his books with his authorities, to have made a faithful use.
He lived many years after his first edition was published, which was
in 1563, and in the interval laboured to render it still more perfect;
suppressing where he found reason to doubt, as in the story of Cranmer's
heart remaining unconsumed when the rest of his body was reduced to
ashes;[16] enlarging where he was furnished with fresh matter which he
thought trustworthy, as in the story of Gardiner's being stricken with
sickness on the day of Cranmer's martyrdo