rles gave any such advice; for he himself was, at
this very time, proceeding with great violence in
persecuting the reformed in Flanders. Bentivoglio, part i,
lib. i.

The persecutors began with Rogers, prebendary of St. Paul's, a man
eminent in his party for virtue as well as for learning. Gardiner's plan
was first to attack men of that character, whom, he hoped, terror
would bend to submission, and whose example, either of punishment or
recantation, would naturally have influence on the multitude: but he
found a perseverance and courage in Rogers, which it may seem strange
to find in human nature, and of which all ages and all sects do
nevertheless furnish many examples. Rogers, beside the care of his own
preservation, lay under other powerful temptations to compliance: he
had a wife whom he tenderly loved, and ten children; yet such was his
serenity after his condemnation, that the jailers, it is said, waked
him from a sound sleep when the hour of his execution approached. He had
desired to see his wife before he died; but Gardiner told him that he
was a priest, and could not possibly have a wife; thus joining insult to
cruelty. Rogers was burned in Smithfield.[*]

Hooper, bishop of Glocester, had been tried at the same time
with Rogers; but was sent to his own diocese to be executed. This
circumstance was contrived to strike the greater terror into his flock;
but it was a source of consolation to Hooper, who rejoiced in giving
testimony, by his death, to that doctrine which he had formerly preached
among them. When he was tied to the stake, a stool was set before him,
and the queen's pardon laid upon it, which it was still in his power to
merit by a recantation; but he ordered it to be removed, and cheerfully
prepared himself for that dreadful punishment to which he was sentenced.
He suffered it in its full severity: the wind, which was violent, blew
the flame of the reeds from his body: the fagots were green, and did not
kindle easily: all his lower parts were consumed before his vitals were
attacked: one of his hands dropped off: with the other he continued to
beat his breast: he was heard to pray, and to exhort the people; till
his tongue, swollen with the violence of his agony, could no longer
permit him utterance. He was three quarters of an hour in torture, which
he bore with inflexible constancy.[**]

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 119. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 302.

** Fox, vol. iii. p. 145, etc