hey
were presented before James Amy, then dean of the island,
who, finding in them that they held opinions contrary to
those then allowed about the sacrament of the altar,
pronounced them heretics, and condemned them to the fire.
The poor women, on the other side, pleaded for themselves,
that that doctrine had been taught them in the time of King
Edward; but if the queen was otherwise disposed, they were
content to be of her religion. This was fair but it would
not serve; for by the dean they were delivered unto Helier
Gosselin, then bailiff, and by him unto the fire, July 18,
1556. One of these daughters, Perotine Massey, she was
called, was at that time great with child; her husband, who
was a minister, having in those dangerous times fled the
island; in the middle of the flames and anguish of her
torments, her belly broke in sunder, and her child, a goodly
boy, fell down into the fire, but was presently snatched up
by one W. House, one of the by-standers. Upon the noise of
this strange incident, the cruel bailiff returned command
that the poor infant must be cast again into the flames,
which was accordingly performed; and so that pretty babe was
born a martyr, and added to the number of the holy
innocents.

Parsons, the English Jesuit, has asserted that the women were felons
and were executed for theft, while other apologists have described
them as prostitutes and generally infamous in character. The original
sentences, however, which still exist at the Guernsey _Greffe_, and
which I have examined, conclusively settle the question. Both the
ecclesiastical sentence, which is in Latin, and the civil sentence,
which is in French, distinctly describe the charge as one of _heresy_,
and make no mention whatever of any other crime as having aught to do
with the condemnation.

It has been questioned too whether a child could be born alive under
such circumstances. Mr. F.B. Tupper, in his _History of Guernsey_
(page 151), says: "We are assured by competent surgical authority that
the case is very possible"; and he further mentions that in a volume
entitled _Three Visits to Madagascar_, by the Rev. Wm. Ellis,
published in London, in 1858, a precisely similar case is stated to
have occurred in that island. A native woman was burnt for becoming a
convert to Christianity, and her infant, born in the flames, was
thrus