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~ H i s t o r y o f t h e E n g l i s h B i b l e ~ |
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MAY TO JULY 1533 John Frith — Part II ~
E x c e r p t e d f r o m ~
The enemy was on the watch: the second period of Frith’s captivity, that which was to terminate in martyrdom, was beginning. Henry’s bishops, who, while casting off the pope to please the king, had remained devoted to scholastic doctrines, feared lest the reformer should escape them: they therefore undertook to solicit Henry to put him to death. Frith had on his side the queen, Cromwell, and Cranmer. This did not discourage them, and they represented to the king that although the man was shut up in the Tower of London, he did not cease to write and act in defense of heresy. It was the season of Lent, and Frith’s enemies came to an understanding with Dr. Curwin, the king’s chaplain, who was to preach before the court. He had no sooner got into the pulpit than he began to declaim against those who denied the material presence of Christ in the host. Having struck his hearers with horror, he continued: ‘It is not surprising that this abominable heresy makes such great progress among us. A man now in the Tower of London has the audacity to defend it, and no one thinks of punishing him.’ When the service was over, the brilliant congregation left the chapel, and each as he went out asked what was the man’s name. ‘Frith’ was the reply, and loud were the exclamations on hearing it. The blow took effect, the scholastic prejudices of the king were revived, and he sent for Cromwell and Cranmer. ‘I am very much surprised,’ he said, ‘that John Frith has been kept so long in the Tower without examination. I desire his trial to take place without delay; and if he does not retract, let him suffer the penalty he deserves.’ He then nominated six of the chief spiritual and temporal peers of England to examine him: they were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, the lord chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, and the Earl of Wiltshire. This demonstrated the importance which Henry attached to the affair. Until now, all the martyrs had fallen beneath the blows either of the bishops or of More; but in this case it was the king himself who stretched out his strong hand against the servant of God. Henry’s order plunged Cranmer into the cruellest anxiety. On the one hand, Frith was in his eyes a disciple of the Gospel; but on the other, he attacked a doctrine which the archbishop then held to be Christian; for, like Luther and Osiander, he still believed in consubstantiation. ‘Alas!’ he wrote to Archdeacon Hawkins, ‘he professes the doctrine of Oecolampadius.’ He resolved, however, to do everything in his power to save Frith. The best friends of the young reformer saw that a pile was being raised to consume the most faithful Christian in England. ‘Dearly beloved,’ wrote Tyndale from Antwerp, fear not men that threat, nor trust men that speak fair. Your cause is Christ’s Gospel, a light that must be fed with the blood of faith. The lamp must be trimmed daily, that the light go not out.’ There was no lack of examples to confirm these words. ‘Two have suffered in Antwerp unto the great glory of the Gospel; four at Ryselles in Flanders. At Rouen in France they persecute, and at Paris are five doctors taken for the Gospel. See, you are not alone: follow the example of all your other dear brethren, who choose to suffer in hope of a better resurrection. Bear the image of Christ in your mortal body, and keep your conscience pure and undefiled… Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem: the only safety of the conquered is to look for none. If you could but write ‘red tell us how you are.’ In this letter from a martyr to a martyr there was one sentence honorable to a Christian woman: ‘Your wife is well content with the will of God, and would not for her sake have the glory of God hindered.’ If friends were thinking of Frith on the banks of the Scheldt, they were equally anxious about him on the banks of the Thames. Worthy citizens of London asked what was the use of England’s quitting the pope to cling to Christ, if she burnt the servants of Christ? The little Church had recourse to prayer. Archbishop Cranmer wished to save Frith: he loved the man and admired his piety. If the accused appeared before the commission appointed by the king, he was lost: some means must be devised without delay to rescue him from an inevitable death. The archbishop declared that, before proceeding to trial, he wished to have a conference with the prisoner, and to endeavor to convince him, which was very natural. But at the same time the primate appeared to fear that if the conference took place in London the people would disturb the public peace, as in the time of Wickliffe. He settled therefore that it should be held at Croydon, where lie had a palace. The primate’s fear seems rather strange. A riot on account of Frith, at a time when king, commons, and people were in harmony, appeared hardly probable. Cranmer had another motive. Among the persons composing his household was a gentleman of benevolent character, and with a leaning towards the Gospel, who was distressed at the cruelty of the bishops, and looked upon it as a lawful and Christian act to rob them, if possible, of their victims. Giving him one of the porters of Lambeth palace as a companion, Cranmer committed Frith to his care to bring him to Croydon. They were to take the prisoner a journey of four or five hours on foot through fields and woods, without any constables or soldiers. A strange walk and a strange escort. Lord Fitzwilliam, first Earl of Southampton and governor of the Tower, at that time lay sick in his house at Westminster, suffering severe pain. On the 10th of June, at the desire of my Lord of Canterbury, the archbishop’s gentleman, and the Lambeth porter, Gallois, surnamed Perlebeane, were introduced into the nobleman’s bedchamber, where they found him lying upon his bed in extreme agony. Fitzwilliam, a man of the world, was greatly enraged against the evangelicals, who were the cause, in his opinion, or all the difficulties of England. The gentleman respectfully presented to him the primate’s letter and the king’s ring. ‘What do you want?’ he asked sharply, without opening the letter. ‘His grace desires your lordship to deliver Master Frith to us.’ The impatient Southampton flew into a passion at the name, and cursed Frith and all the heretics. He thought it strange that a gentleman and a porter should have to convey a prisoner of such importance to the episcopal court: were there no soldiers in the Tower? Had Fitzwilliam any suspicion, or did he regret to see the reformer leave the walls within which he had been kept so safely? We cannot tell: but he must obey, for they brought him the king’s signet. Accordingly, taking his own hastily from his finger: ‘Frith,’ he said, ‘Frith… Here, show this to the lieutenant of the Tower, and take away your heretic quickly. I am but too happy to get rid of him.’ A few hours later Frith, the gentleman, and Perlebeane entered a boat moored near the Tower, and were rowed speedily to the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. At first the three persons preserved a strict silence, only interrupted from time to time by the deep sighs of the gentleman. Being charged to begin by trying to induce Frith to make some compromise, he broke the silence at last. ‘Master Frith,’ he said, ‘if you are not prudent you are lost. What a pity! you that are so learned in Latin and Greek and in the Holy Scriptures, the ancient doctors, and all kinds of knowledge, you will perish, and all your admirable gifts will perish with you, with little profit to the world, and less comfort to your wife and children, your kinsfolk and friends.’ The gentleman was silent a minute, and then began again: ‘Your position is dangerous, Master Frith, but not desperate: you have many friends who will do all they can in your favor. On your part do something for them, make some concession, and you will be safe. Your opinion on the merely spiritual presence of the body and blood of the Savior is premature: it is too soon for us in England; wait until a better time comes!’ Frith did not say a word: no sound was heard but the dash of the water and the noise of the oars. The gentleman thought he had shaken the young doctor, and, after a moment’s silence, he resumed: ‘My lord Cromwell and my lord of Canterbury feel great affection for you: they know that, if you are young in years, you are old in knowledge, and may become a most profitable citizen of this realm. If you will be somewhat advised by their counsel, they will never permit you to be harmed; but if you stand stiff to your opinion, it is not possible to save your life, for as you have good friends so have you mortal enemies.’ The gentleman stopped and looked at the prisoner. It was by such language that Bilney had been seduced; but Frith kept himself in the presence of God, ready to lose his life that he might save it. He thanked the gentleman for his kindness, and said that his conscience would not permit him to recede, out of respect to man, from the true doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. ‘If I am questioned on that point, I must answer according to my conscience, though I should lose twenty lives if I had so many. I can support it by a great number of passages from the Holy Scriptures and the ancient doctors, and, if I am fairly tried, I shall have nothing to fear.’ — ’Marry!’ quoth the gentleman,’ if you be fairly tried, you would be safe; but that is what I very much doubt. Our Master Christ was not fairly tried, nor would he be, as I think, if he were now present again in the world. How, then, should you be, when your opinions are so little understood and are so odious?’ — ‘I know,’ answered Frith, ‘that the doctrine which I hold is very hard meat to be digested just now; but listen to me.’ As he spoke, he took the gentleman by the hand: ‘If you live twenty years more, you will see the whole realm of my opinion concerning this Sacrament of the altar — all, except a certain class of men. My death, you say, would be sorrowful to my friends, but it will be only for a short time. But, all things considered, my death will be better unto me and all mine than life in continual bondage. God knoweth what he hath to do with his poor servant, whose cause I now defend. He will help me, and no man shall prevail on me to step backwards.’ The boat reached Lambeth. The travelers landed, entered the archbishop’s palace, and, after taking some refreshment, started on foot for Croydon, twelve miles from London. The three travelers proceeded over the hills and through the plains of Surrey. Here and there flocks of sheep were grazing in the scanty pastures, and to the east stretched vast woods. The gentleman walked mournfully by the side of Frith. It was useless to ask him again to retract; but another idea engrossed Cranmer’s officer, — that of letting Frith escape. The country was then thinly inhabited: the woods which covered it on the east and the chalky hills might serve as a hiding-place for the fugitive. The difficulty was to persuade Perlebeane. The gentleman slackened his pace, called to the porter, and they walked by themselves behind the prisoner. When they were so far off that he could not hear their conversation, the gentleman said: ‘You have heard this man, I am sure, and noted his talk since he came from the Tower.’ — ‘I never heard so constant a man,’ Perlebeane answered, ‘nor so eloquent a person.’ — ‘You have heard nothing,’ resumed the gentleman, ‘in respect both of his knowledge and his eloquence. If you could hear him at the university or in the pulpit, you would admire him far more. England has never had such a one of his age with so much learning. And yet our bishops treat him as if he were a very dolt or an idiot. They abhor him as the devil himself, and want to get rid of him by any means.’ — ‘Marry!’ said the porter, ‘if there were nothing else in him but the consideration of his person both comely and amiable, his disposition so gentle, meek, and humble, it were pity he should be cast away.’ — ‘Cast away,’ interrupted the gentleman, ‘he will certainly be cast away if we once bring him to Croydon.’ And lowering his voice, he continued: ‘Surely, before God I speak it, if thou, Perlebeane, wert of my mind, we should never bring him thither.’ — ’What do you mean?’ asked the astonished porter. Then, after a moment’s silence, he added: ‘I know that you have a great deal more responsibility in this matter than I have; and therefore, if you can honestly save this man, I will yield to your proposal with all my heart.’ The gentleman breathed again. Cranmer had desired that all possible efforts should be made to change Frith’s sentiments; and these failing, he wished to save him in another way. It was his desire that the Reformer should go on foot to Croydon; that he should be accompanied by two only of his servants, selected from those best disposed towards the new doctrine. The primate’s gentleman would never have dared to take upon himself, except by his master’s desire, the responsibility of conniving at the escape of a prisoner who was to be tried by the first personages of the realm, appointed by the king himself. Happy at having gained the porter to his enterprise, he began to discuss with him the ways and means. He knew the country well, and his plan was arranged. ‘You see yonder hill before us,’ he said to Perlebeane; ‘it is Brixton
Causeway, two miles from London. There are great woods on both sides.
When we come to the top, we will permit Frith to escape to the woods on
the left hand, whence he may easily get into Kent, where he was born, and
where he has many friends. We will linger an hour or two on the road after
his flight, to give him time to reach a place of safety, and when night
The gentleman, we see, was not very scrupulous about the means of rescuing a victim from the Roman priests. Perlebeane thought as he did. ‘Your plan pleases me,’ he answered; ‘now go and tell the prisoner, for we are already at the foot of the hill.’ The delighted gentleman hurried forward. ‘Master Frith,’ he said, ‘let us talk together a little. I cannot hide from you that the task I have undertaken, to bring you to Croydon, as a sheep to the slaughter, grieves me exceedingly, and there is no danger I would not brave to deliver you out of the lion’s mouth. Yonder good fellow and I have devised a plan whereby you may escape. Listen to me. The gentleman having described his plan, Frith smiled amiably, and said: ‘This, then, is the result of your long consultation together. You have wasted your time. If you were both to leave me here and go to Croydon, declaring to the bishops you had lost me, I should follow after as fast as I could, and bring them news that I had found and brought Frith again.’ The gentleman had not expected such an answer. A prisoner refuse his liberty! ‘You are mad,’ he said: ‘do you think your reasoning will convert the bishops? At Milton Shone you tried to escape beyond the sea, and now you refuse to save yourself!’ — ‘The two cases are different,’ answered Frith; ‘then I was at liberty, and, according to the advice of St. Paul, I would fain have enjoyed my liberty for the continuance of my studies. But now the higher power, as it were by Almighty God’s permission, has seized me, and my conscience binds me to defend the doctrine for which I am persecuted, if I would not incur our Lord’s condemnation. If I should now run away, I should run from my God; if I should fly, I should fly from the testimony I am bound to bear to his Holy Word, and I should deserve a thousand hells. I most heartily thank you both for your good will towards me; but I beseech you to bring me where I was appointed to be brought, for else I will go thither all alone.’ Those who desired to save Frith had not counted upon so much integrity. Such were, however, the martyrs of protestantism. The archbishop’s two servants continued their route along with their strange prisoner. Frith trod a calm eye and cheerful look, and the rest of the journey was accomplished in pious and agreeable conversation. When they reached Croydon, he was delivered to the officers of the episcopal court, and passed the night in the lodge of the primate’s porter. The next morning he appeared before the bishops and peers appointed to examine him. Cranmer and Lord Chancellor Audley desired his acquittal; but some of the other judges were men without pity. The examination began: Do you believe,’ they said, ‘that the sacrament of the altar is or is not the real body of Christ?’ Frith answered, simply and firmly: ‘I believe that the bread is the body of Christ in that it is broken, and thus teaches us that the body of Christ was to be broken and delivered unto death to redeem us from our iniquities. I believe the bread is the body of Christ in that it is distributed, and thus teaches us that the body of Christ and the fruits of his passion are distributed unto all faithful people. I believe that the bread is the body of Christ so far as it is received, and it teaches us that even as the outward man receiveth the sacrament with his teeth and mouth, so doth the inward man truly receive through faith the body of Christ and the fruits of his passion.’ The judges were not satisfied: they wanted a formal and complete retractation. ‘Do you not think,’ asked one of them, ‘that the natural body of Christ, his flesh, blood, and bones, are contained under the sacrament and are there present without any figure of speech?’ — ‘No,’ he answered; ‘I do not think so;’ adding with much humility and charity: ‘notwithstanding I would not have that any should count my saying to be an article of faith. For even as I say, that you ought not to make any necessary article of the faith of your part; so I say again, that we make no necessary article of the faith of our part, but leave it indifferent for all men to judge therein, as God shall open their hearts, and no side to condemn or despise the other, but to nourish in all things brotherly love, and to bear one another’s infirmities.’ The commissioners then undertook to convince Frith of the truth of transubstantiation; but he quoted Scripture, St. Augustine and Chrysostom, and eloquently defended the doctrine of the spiritual eating. The court rose. Cranmer had been moved, although he was still under the influence of Luther’s teaching. ‘The man spoke admirably,’ he said to Dr. Heath as they went out, ‘and yet in my opinion he is wrong.’ Not many years later he devoted one of the most important of his writings to an explanation of the doctrine now professed by the young reformer; it may be that Frith’s words had begun to shake him. Full of love for him, Cranmer desired to save him. Four times during the course of the examination he sent for Frith and conversed with him privately, always asserting the Lutheran opinion. Frith offered to maintain his doctrine in a public discussion against any one who was willing to attack it, but nobody accepted his challenge. Cranmer, distressed at seeing all his efforts useless, found there was nothing more for him to do; the cause was transferred to the ordinary, the Bishop of London, and on the 17th of June the prisoner was once more committed to the Tower. The bishop selected as his assessors for the trial, Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester: there were no severer judges to be found on the episcopal bench. At Cambridge, Frith had been the most distinguished pupil of the clever and ambitious Gardiner; but this, instead of exciting the compassion of that hard man, did but increase his anger. ‘Frith and his friends,’ he said, ‘are villains, blasphemers, and limbs of the devil.’ On the 20th of June, Frith was taken to St. Paul’s before the three bishops, and though of a humble disposition and almost timid character, he answered boldly. A clerk took down all his replies, and Frith, snatching up the pen, wrote: ‘I, Frith think thus. Thus have I spoken, written, defended, affirmed, and published in my writings.’ The bishops having asked him if he would retract his errors, Frith replied: ‘Let justice have its course and the sentence be pronounced.’ Stokesley did not keep him waiting long. ‘Not willing that thou, Frith; who art wicked,’ he said, ‘shouldst become more wicked, and infect the Lord’s flock with thy heresies, we declare thee excommunicate and cast out from the Church, and leave thee unto the secular powers, most earnestly requiring them in the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ that thy execution and punishment be not too extreme, nor yet the gentleness too much mitigated.’ Frith was taken to Newgate and shut up in a dark cell, where he was bound with chains on the hands and feet as heavy as he could bear, and round his neck was a collar of iron, which fastened him to a post, so that he could neither stand upright nor sit down. Truly the ‘gentleness’ was not ‘too much mitigated.’ His charity never failed him. ‘I am going to die,’ he said, ‘but I condemn neither those who follow Luther nor those who follow Oecolampadius, since both reject transubstantiation.’ A young mechanic of twenty-four, Andrew Hewet by name, was placed in his cell. Frith asked him for what crime he was sent to prison. ‘The bishops,’ he replied, ‘asked me what I thought of the sacrament, and I answered, “I think as Frith does.” Then one of them smiled, and the Bishop of London said: “Why Frith is a heretic, and already condemned to be burnt, and if you do not retract your opinion you shall be burnt with him.” “Very well,” I answered, “I am content.” So they sent me here to be burnt along with you.’ On the 4th of July they were both taken to Smithfield: the executioners fastened them to the post, back to back; the torch was applied, the flame rose in the air, and Frith, stretching out his hands, embraced it as if it were a dear friend whom he would welcome. The spectators were touched, and showed marks of lively sympathy. ‘Of a truth,’ said an evangelical Christian in after days, ‘he was one of those prophets whom God, having pity on this realm of England, raised up to call us to repentance.’ His enemies were there also. Poke, a fanatic priest, observing some persons praying, called out: ‘Do not pray for such folks, any more than you would for a dog.’ At this moment a sweet light shone on Frith’s face, and he was heard beseeching the Lord to pardon his enemies. Hewet died first, and Frith thanked God that the sufferings of his young brother were over. Committing his soul into the Lord’s hands, he expired. ‘Truly,’ exclaimed many, ‘great are the victories Christ gains in his saints.’ So many souls were enlightened by Frith’s writings, that this reformer contributed powerfully to the renovation of England. ‘One day, an Englishman, says Thomas Becon, prebendary of Canterbury and chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, ‘having taken leave of his mother and friends, traveled into Derbyshire, and from thence to the Peak, a marvelous barren country,’ and where there was then ‘neither learning nor yet no spark of godliness.’ Coming into a little village named Alsop in the Dale, he chanced upon a certain gentleman also named Alsop, lord of that village, a man not only ancient in years, but also ripe in the knowledge of Christ’s doctrine. After they had taken ‘a sufficient repast,’ the gentleman showed his guest certain books which he called his jewels and principal treasures: these were the New Testament and some books of Frith’s. In these godly treatises this ancient gentleman occupied himself among his rocks and mountains both diligently and virtuously. ‘He did not only love the Gospel,’ adds Cranmer’s chaplain, he ‘lived it also.’ Frith’s writings were not destined to be read always with the same avidity: the truth they contain is, however, good for all times. The books of the apostles and of the reformers which that gentleman of Alsop read in the sixteenth century were better calculated to bring joy and peace to the soul than the light works read with such avidity in the world. ~ End ~
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