or subterfuge, chose, with deliberate nobleness, rather
to die than to perjure themselves. This is no
place to enter on the great question of the justice
or necessity of those executions; but the story of
the so-called martyrdoms convulsed the Catholic world.
The Pope shook upon his throne; the shuttle of diplomatic
intrigue stood still; diplomatists who had lived so
long in lies that the whole life of man seemed but
a stage pageant, a thing of show and tinsel, stood
aghast at the revelation of English sincerity, and
a shudder of great awe ran through Europe. The
fury of party leaves little room for generous emotion,
and no pity was felt for these men by the English
Protestants. The Protestants knew well that if
these same sufferers could have had their way, they
would themselves have been sacrificed by hecatombs;
and as they had never experienced mercy, so they were
in turn without mercy. But to the English Catholics,
who believed as Fisher believed, but who had not dared
to suffer as Fisher suffered, his death and the death
of the rest acted as a glimpse of the judgment day.
Their safety became their shame and terror: and
in the radiant example before them of true faithfulness,
they saw their own falsehood and their own disgrace.
So it was with Father Forest, who had taught his penitents
in confession that they might perjure themselves,
and who now sought a cruel death in voluntary expiation;
so it was with Whiting, the Abbot of Glastonbury;
so with others whose names should be more familiar
to us than they are; and here in Woburn we are to
see the feeble but genuine penitence of Abbot Hobbes.
He was still unequal to immediate martyrdom, but he
did what he knew might drag his death upon him if
disclosed to the Government, and surrounded by spies
he could have had no hope of concealment.
“At the time,” deposed Robert Salford,
“that the monks of the Charter-house, with other
traitors, did suffer death, the abbot did call us
into the Chapterhouse, and said these words:—’Brethren,
this is a perilous time, such a scourge was never
heard since Christ’s passion. Ye hear how
good men suffer the death. Brethren, this is
undoubted for our offences. Ye read, so long
as the children of Israel kept the commandments of
God, so long their enemies had no power over them,
but God took vengeance of their enemies. But
when they broke God’s commandments, then they
were subdued by their enemies, and so be we.
Therefore let us be sorry for our offences. Undoubted
He will take vengeance of our enemies; I mean those
heretics that causeth so many good men to suffer thus.
Alas, it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood
should be shed. Therefore, good brethren, for
the reverence of God, every one of you devoutly pray,
and say this Psalm, “O God, the heathen are
come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have
they defiled, and made Jerusalem a heap of stones.
The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to
be meat to the fowls of the air, and the flesh of