their
discretion. Except under these conditions, they were not at liberty to
imprison.

By the act of Henry V., a heretic, if he was first indicted before a
secular judge, was to be delivered within ten days (or if possible, a
shorter period) to the bishop, "to be acquit or convict" by a jury in the
spiritual court, and to be dealt with accordingly.[539]

The secular judge might detain a heretic for ten days before delivering him
to the bishop. The bishop might detain him for three months before his
trial. Neither the secular judge nor the bishop had power to inflict
indefinite imprisonment at will while the trial was delayed; nor if on the
trial the bishop failed in securing a conviction, was he at liberty to
detain the accused person any longer on the same charge, because the result
was not satisfactory to himself. These provisions were not preposterously
lenient. Sir Thomas More should have found no difficulty in observing them
himself, and in securing the observance of them by the bishops, at least in
cases where he was himself responsible for the first committal. It is to be
feared that he forgot that he was a judge in his eagerness to be a
partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal scruples to interfere with the
more important object of ensuring punishment to heretics.

The first case which I shall mention is one in which the Bishop of London
was principally guilty; not, however, without More's countenance, and, if
Foxe is to be believed, his efficient support.

In December, 1529, the month succeeding his appointment as chancellor,
More, at the instance of the Bishop of London,[540] arrested a citizen of
London, Thomas Philips by name, on a charge of heresy.

The prisoner was surrendered in due form to his diocesan, and was brought
to trial on the 4th of February; a series of articles being alleged against
him by Foxford, the bishop's vicar-general. The articles were of the usual
kind. The prisoner was accused of having used unorthodox expressions on
transubstantiation, on purgatory, pilgrimages, and confession. It does not
appear whether any witnesses were produced. The vicar-general brought his
accusations on the ground of general rumour, and failed to maintain them.
Whether there were witnesses or not, neither the particular offences, nor
even the fact of the general rumour, could be proved to the satisfaction of
the jury. Philips himself encountered each separate charge with a specific
denial, declaring