.245} and the dreary
sense that he was alone, forsaken of man, and perhaps of God, began to
wear into the firmness of a many-sided susceptible nature. Some vague
indication that he might yield had been communicated to Pole by Soto
before Christmas,[531] and the struggle which had evidently commenced
was permitted to protract itself. If the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
father of the Reformed Church of England, could be brought to a
recantation, that one victory might win back the hearts which the
general constancy of the martyrs was drawing off in tens of thousands.
Time, however, wore on, and the archbishop showed no definite signs of
giving way. On the 14th of December, a mock trial was instituted at
Rome; the report of the examination at Oxford was produced, and
counsel were heard on both sides, or so it was pretended. Paul IV. then
pronounced the final sentence, that Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of
Canterbury, having been accused by his sovereigns of divers crimes and
misdemeanours, it had been proved against him that he had followed the
teachings of John Wicliff and Martin Luther of accursed memory;[532]
that he had published books containing matters of heresy, and still
obstinately persisted in those his erroneous opinions: he was
therefore declared to be anathema, to be deprived of his office, and
having been degraded, he was to be delivered over to the secular arm.

[Footnote 531: Pole to Philip: _Epistolae_ Reg.
Pol., vol. v. p. 47.]

[Footnote 532: _Damnatae memoriae._ Sentence
Definitive against Thomas Cranmer: Foxe, vol.
viii.]

There was some delay in sending the judgment to England. It arrived at
the beginning of February, and on the 14th, Thirlby and Bonner went
down to finish the work at Oxford. The court sat this time in Christ
Church Cathedral. Cranmer was brought to the bar, and the papal
sentence was read. The preamble declared that the cause had been heard
with indifference, that the accused had been defended by an advocate,
that witnesses had been examined for him, that he had been allowed
every opportunity to answer for himself. "O Lord," he exclaimed, "what
lies be these! that I, being in prison and never suffered to have
counsel or advocate at home, should produce witness and appoint
counsel at Rome; God must needs punish this shameless lying."

Silence would perhaps have been more dignified; to spea