e pope as the head of the church,
out of which was no salvation; to acknowledge the real presence in the
Eucharist, the seven sacraments as received by the Roman Catholics,
and purgatory. He professed his penitence for having once held or
taught otherwise, and he implored the prayers of all faithful
Christians, that those whom he had seduced might be brought back to
the true fold.

[Footnote 541: Of this fifth submission there is a
contemporary copy among the MSS. at Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. It was the only one known to Foxe;
and this, with the fact of its being found in a
separate form, gives a colour of probability to Mr.
Southey's suspicion that the rest were forgeries.
The whole collection was published by Bonner, who
injured his claims to credit by printing with the
others a seventh recantation, which was never made,
and by concealing the real truth. But the balance
of evidence I still think is in favour of the
genuineness of the first six. The first four lead
up to the fifth, and the invention of them after
the fifth had been made would have been needless.
The sixth I agree with Strype in considering to
have been composed by Pole, and signed by Cranmer.]

The demands of the church might have been satisfied by these last
admissions; but Cranmer had not yet expiated his personal offences
against the queen and her mother, and he was to drain the cup of
humiliation to the dregs.

A month was allowed to pass. He was left with the certainty of his
shame, and the uncertainty whether, after all, it had not been
encountered in vain. On the 18th of March, one more paper was
submitted to his signature, in which he confessed to be all which Pole
had described him. He called himself a blasphemer, and a persecutor;
being unable to undo his evil work, he had no hope, he said, save in
the example of the thief upon the cross, who when other means of
reparation were taken from him, made amends to God with his lips. He
was unworthy of mercy, and he deserved eternal vengeance. He had
sinned against King Henry and his wife; he was the cause of the
divorce, from which, as from a seed, had sprung up schism, heresy, and
crime; h