he Register was the Inquisition under another
name. There was no limit, except in the humanity or the prudence of
the bishops, to the tyranny which they would be enabled to exercise.
The cardinal professed to desire that, before heretics were punished
with death, mild means should {p.190} first be tried with them;[439]
the meaning which he attached to the words was illustrated in an
instant example.

[Footnote 439: The opinion of Pole, on the
propriety of putting men to death for
nonconformity, was strictly orthodox. He regarded
heretics, he said, as rebellious children, with
whom persuasion and mild correction should first be
tried. "Nec tamen, negarim fieri posse," he
continued, "ut alicujus opiniones tam perniciosae
existant, ipseque jam corruptus tam sit ad
corrumpendos alios promptus ac sedulus ut non
dubitarim dicere eum e vita tolli oportere et
tanquam putridum membrum e corpore exsecari. Neque
id tamen priusquam ejus sanandi causa omnis leviter
medendi tentata sit ratio."--Pole to the Cardinal
of Augsburg: _Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol. iv.]

The instructions were the signal for the bishops to commence business.
On the day of their appearance, Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstal, and three
other prelates, formed a court in St. Mary Overy's Church, in
Southwark; and Hooper, and Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, were brought
up before them.

Rogers had been distinguished in the first bright days of
Protestantism. He had been a fellow-labourer with Tyndal and
Coverdale, at Antwerp, in the translation of the Bible. Afterwards,
taking a German wife, he lived for a time at Wittenberg, not unknown,
we may be sure, to Martin Luther. On the accession of Edward, he
returned to England, and worked among the London clergy till the end
of the reign; and on Mary's accession he was one of the preachers at
Paul's Cross who had dared to speak against the reaction. He had been
rebuked by the council, and his friends had urged him to fly; but,
like Cranmer, he thought that duty required him to stay at his post,
and, in due time, without, however, having given fresh provocation, he
was shut up in Newgate by Bonner.

Hooper, when the unfortunate garment controversy was brought to an
en