ueen's menaces by crowding about the stake with passionate
demonstrations of affection, and Thomas Bentham, a friend of Lever the
preacher, when the faggots were lighted, stood out in the presence of
the throng, and cried:

[Footnote 649: _Privy Council Register, MS._]

"We know that they are the people of God, and therefore we cannot
choose but wish well to them and say, God strengthen them. God
almighty, for Christ's sake, strengthen them."

The multitude shouted, in reply, "Amen, Amen."[650]

[Footnote 650: Bentham to Lever: Strype's
_Memorials_, vol. vi.]

Alarmed himself, this time, at the display of emotion, Bonner dared
not outrage the metropolis with the deaths of the remaining six. Yet,
not to let them escape him, he tried them privately in his own house
at Fulham, and burnt them at Brentford at night in the darkness.[651]

[Footnote 651: "This fact," says Foxe, "purchased
him more hatred than any that he had done of the
common people."]

So fared the Protestants, murdered to propitiate Providence, and, if
possible, extort for the queen a return of the Divine favour. The
alarm of invasion diminished as summer advanced. England had again a
fleet upon the seas which feared no enemy, and could even act on the
offensive. In May, two hundred and forty ships, large and small, were
collected at Portsmouth;[652] and on the day of the burning at
Brentford, accident gave a small squadron among them a share in a
considerable victory.

[Footnote 652: Swift to the Earl of Shrewsbury:
Lodge's _Illustrations_.]

Lord Clinton, who was now admiral in the place of Howard, after an
ineffectual cruise in the south of the Channel, returned to Portsmouth
on the 8th of July. A few vessels remained in the neighbourhood of
Calais, when M. de Thermes, whom the Duke of Guise left in command
there, with the garrison of Boulogne, some levies collected in
Picardy, and his own troops, in all about 9000 men, ventured an inroad
into the Low Countries, took Dunkirk, and plundered it. Not caring to
penetrate further, he was retreating with his booty, when Count
Egmont, with a few thousand Burgundians and Flemings, cut in at
Gravelines between the French and their own frontiers. They had no
means of passing, except at low water, between the town of Gravelines
and the sea, and the Englis