seemed to desire to punish,
Wolsey was contented to silence; while they, in their conduct of trials,
made escape as difficult as possible, Wolsey sought rather to make
submission easy. He was too wise to suppose that he could cauterise heresy,
while the causes of it, in the corruption of the clergy, remained
unremoved; and the remedy to which he trusted, was the infusing new vigour
into the constitution of the church.[493] Nevertheless, he was determined
to repress, as far as outward measures could repress it, the spread of the
contagion; and he set himself to accomplish his task with the full energy
of his nature, backed by the whole power, spiritual and secular, of the
kingdom. The country was covered with his secret police, arresting
suspected persons and searching for books. In London the scrutiny was so
strict that at one time there was a general flight and panic; suspected
butchers, tailors, and carpenters, hiding themselves in the holds of
vessels in the river, and escaping across the Channel.[494] Even there they
were not safe. Heretics were outlawed by a common consent of the European
governments. Special offenders were hunted through France by the English
emissaries with the permission and countenance of the court,[495] and there
was an attempt to arrest Tyndal at Brussels, from which, for that time, he
happily escaped.[496]

Simultaneously the English universities fell under examination, in
consequence of the appearance of dangerous symptoms among the younger
students. Dr. Barnes, returning from the continent, had used violent
language in a pulpit at Cambridge; and Latimer, then a neophyte in heresy,
had grown suspect, and had alarmed the heads of houses. Complaints against
both of them were forwarded to Wolsey, and they were summoned to London to
answer for themselves.

Latimer, for some cause, found favour with the cardinal, and was dismissed,
with a hope on the part of his judge that his accusers might prove as
honest as he appeared to be, and even with a general licence to
preach.[497] Barnes was less fortunate; he was far inferior to Latimer; a
noisy, unwise man, without reticence or prudence. In addition to his
offences in matters of doctrine, he had attacked Wolsey himself with
somewhat vulgar personality; and it was thought well to single him out for
a public, though not a very terrible admonition. His house had been
searched for books, which he was suspected, and justly suspected, of having
brought