possible to learn the feelings with which these
dreadful scenes were witnessed by the people. There are stories which show
that, in some instances, familiarity had produced the usual effect; that
the martyrdom of saints was at times of no more moment to an English crowd
than the execution of ordinary felons--that it was a mere spectacle to the
idle, the hardened, and the curious. On the other hand, it is certain that
the behaviour of the sufferers was the argument which at last converted the
nation; and an effect which in the end was so powerful with the multitude,
must have been visible long before in the braver and better natures. The
increasing number of prosecutions in London shows, also, that the leaven
was spreading. There were five executions in Smithfield between 1529 and
1533, besides those in the provinces. The prisons were crowded with
offenders who had abjured and were undergoing sentence; and the list of
those who were "troubled" in various ways is so extensive, as to leave no
doubt of the sympathy which, in London at least, must have been felt by
many, very many, of the spectators of the martyrs' deaths. We are left, in
this important point, mainly to conjecture; and if we were better furnished
with evidence, the language of ordinary narrative would fail to convey any
real notion of perplexed and various emotions. We have glimpses, however,
into the inner world of men, here and there of strange interest; and we
must regret that they are so few.

A poor boy at Cambridge, John Randall, of Christ's College, a relation of
Foxe the martyrologist, destroyed himself in these years in religious
desperation; he was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an
open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards a
passage on predestination.[553]

A story even more remarkable is connected with Bainham's execution. Among
the lay officials present at the stake, was "one Pavier," town clerk of
London. This Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames were about to
be kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language. The fire blazed
up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering tongues licked the flesh
from off his bones, turned to him and said, "May God forgive thee, and shew
more mercy than thou, angry reviler, shewest to me." The scene was soon
over; the town clerk went home. A week after, one morning when his wife had
gone to mass, he sent all his servants out of his house on one p