preached a sermon: and the sermon over, Barnes turned to the people, declaring that 'he was more charitably handled than he deserved, his heresies were so heinous and detestable.'
There was no other religious service: mass had perhaps been said previous to the admission into the church of heretics lying under censure; and the knight marshal led the prisoners down from the stage to the fire underneath the crucifix. They were taken within the rails, and three times led round the blazing pile, casting in their fagots as they passed. The contents of the baskets were heaped upon the fagots, and the holocaust was complete. This time, an unbloody sacrifice was deemed sufficient. The Church was satisfied with penance, and Fisher pronounced the prisoners absolved, and received back into communion.[1]
So ended this strange exhibition, designed to work great results on the consciences of the spectators. It may be supposed, however, that men whom the tragedies of Smithfield failed to terrify, were not likely to be affected deeply by melodrame and blazing paper.
A story follows of far deeper human interest, a story in which the persecution is mirrored with its true lights and shadows, unexaggerated by rhetoric; and which, in its minute simplicity, brings us face to face with thatold world, where men like ourselves lived, and worked, and suffered, three centuries ago.
Two years before the time at which we have now
- ↑ Foxe, vol. iv.
