es not only to suffer, but
even to court and aspire to martyrdom.

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 216.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 318. Heylin, p. 52.

*** Fox, vol. iii. p. 265.

The tender sex itself, as they have commonly greater propensity to
religion, produced many examples of the most inflexible courage in
supporting the profession of it against all the fury of the persecutors.
One execution in particular was attended with circumstances which, even
at that time, excited astonishment by reason of their unusual barbarity.
A woman in Guernsey, being near the time of her labor when brought to
the stake, was thrown into such agitation by the torture, that her belly
burst, and she was delivered in the midst of the flames. One of the
guards immediately snatched the infant from the fire, and attempted to
save it; but a magistrate who stood by ordered it to be thrown back:
being determined, he said, that nothing should survive which-sprang from
so obstinate and heretical a parent.[*]

The persons condemned to these punishments were not convicted of
teaching, or dogmatizing, contrary to the established religion: they
were seized merely on suspicion; and articles being offered them to
subscribe, they were immediately, upon their refusal, condemned to the
flames.[**] These instances of barbarity, so unusual in the nation,
excited horror; the constancy of the martyrs was the object of
admiration; and as men have a principle of equity engraven in their
minds, which even false religion is not able totally to obliterate, they
were shocked to see persons of probity, of honor, of pious dispositions,
exposed to punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest
ruffians for crimes subversive of civil society. To exterminate the
whole Protestant party was known to be impossible; and nothing
could appear more iniquitous, than to subject to torture the most
conscientious and courageous among them, and allow the cowards and
hypocrites to escape. Each martyrdom, therefore, was equivalent to
a hundred sermons against Popery; and men either avoided such horrid
spectacles, or returned from them full of a violent, though secret,
indignation against the persecutors. Repeated orders were sent from the
council to quicken the diligence of the magistrates in searching out
heretics; and in some places the gentry were constrained to countenance
by their presence those barbarous executions. These acts of violence
tended only to render