e of the pyre on which the martyrs have but now perished! Ridley and
Latimer--for months they have been face to face with death. Their
figures move through the streets. From Bocardo, the town prison, they
are led to separate confinement in other parts of the city. Now to St.
Mary's Church, now to the Divinity School are they taken to be
examined--a miserable farce--by those who seek to curry favour with a
bloody queen. At last the end. Was it this morning that the sheriff's
officers came to lead Ridley from the mayor's house, where he had passed
a peaceful night, and risen to write a letter on behalf of certain
tenants of his in London, that justice might be done them when he died?
There he goes in close custody, dressed in his bishop's gown and tippet,
with a velvet scull cap on his head. Behind him comes Latimer, an old,
old man in threadbare gown and leathern girdle, keeping up as well as he
can with the rest. They pass along what is now called Cornmarket Street,
and under the Bocardo gateway, where is St. Michael's Church, and as
they get close beneath the prison each casts a look upwards if he should
see Archbishop Cranmer at the window.

[Illustration: OXFORD FROM HEADINGTON HILL]

So they go on a few yards more till the city ditch is reached, which now
is Broad Street. There are the crowd, the faggots, and the stake. No
time is lost. Cheerfully they two embrace and strip themselves for
death. The chains secure them to the posts. The bags of gunpowder are
hung around their necks. They loudly commend their souls to God. Soon
comes release to the aged Latimer. The flames have leapt up to the
powder, and in a moment his sufferings are done. Not so merciful is the
end of his brother martyr. Slowly, with shocking agony, his lower limbs
are burnt away, and not till he has suffered the extremity of pain does
he at last join Latimer in Paradise. That little slender column of blue
smoke! So was the dream provoked, and the pathetic tragedy of 1555 has
passed before our eyes to-day.

The summer sun shines out, a gentle air blows off the mists, and from
afar the road to Woodstock is all lively with a gallant company. Mary is
dead. The University have sent a deputation to meet Elizabeth the Queen
at Godstow. No longer a prisoner at Woodstock, she rides gaily into
Oxford. At the northern gate she is welcomed by the mayor, and the city
bestows its gifts of plate and money. For days her scholarly mind is
entertained with public