y of such a number as was in
the Commons House."[246] Henry consented to their request, it is likely
with no great difficulty, and availed himself of the opportunity to read a
lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and
with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other bishops. The
speaker's message was laid before them, and they were asked what they had
to say. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they
could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to
believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there
is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to
support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by
courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The
Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive
any one; he said that "he meant only the doings of the Bohemians were for
lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House"--"which saying was
confirmed by the bishops present." The king allowed the excuse, and the
bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and
thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with
contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After
seventy-six years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have
hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy
waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to
contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it,
was soon piteously to perish.

Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December,
closed its session, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national
victory. "The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with
the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings,
and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;"[247] the members of
the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in
town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops
carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church
and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to
listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into
treason.

Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on t