Rogers, who said the same. Next morning
the two were brought up to be sentenced,
and then Rogers said that, his poor wife
being a German woman and a stranger in the
land, he hoped she might be allowed to come
to speak to him before he died. To this the
inhuman Gardiner replied, that she was not
his wife. "Yea, but she is, my lord," said
Rogers, "and she hath been my wife these
eighteen years." His request was still
refused, and they were both sent to Newgate;
all those who stood in the streets to sell
things, being ordered to put out their lights
that the people might not see them. But, the
people stood at their doors with candles in
their hands, and prayed for them as they
went by. Soon afterwards, Rogers was taken
out of jail to be burnt in Smithfield; and, in
the crowd as he went along, he saw his poor
wife and his ten children, of whom the
youngest was a little baby. And so he was
burnt to death.

The next day, Hooper, who was to be
burnt at Gloucester, was brought out to take
his last journey, and was made to wear a
hood over his face that he might not be
known by the people. But, they did know
him for all that, down in his own part of the
country, and when he came near Gloucester
they lined the road, making prayers and
lamentations. His guards took him to a
lodging, where he slept soundly all night,
and at nine o'clock next morning was brought
forth, leaning on a staff; for he had taken
cold in prison and was infirm. The iron
stake, and the iron chain which was to bind
him to it, were fixed up near a great
elm-tree in a pleasant open place before
the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays,
he had been accustomed to preach and to
pray, when he was Bishop of Gloucester. This
tree, which had no leaves then, it being
February, was filled with people; and the priests of
Gloucester College were looking complacently
on from a window, and there was a great
concourse of spectators in every spot from which a
glimpse of the dreadful sight could be beheld.
When the old man kneeled down on the small
platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed
aloud, the nearest people were observed to be
so attentive to his prayers that they were
ordered to stand further back; for it did not
suit the Romish Church to have those
Protestant words heard. His prayers concluded,
he went up to the stake and was stripped to
his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One
of his guards had such compassion on him
that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some
packets of gunpowder about him. Then they
heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set
them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood
was green and damp, and there was a wind
blowing that blew what flame there was,
away. Thus, through three quarters of an
hour, the good old man was scorched and
roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank;
and all that time they saw him, as he burned,
moving his lips in prayer, and beating his
breast with one hand, even after the other
was burnt away and had fallen off.

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were taken
to Oxford to dispute with a commission of
priests and doctors about the mass. They
were shamefully treated, and it is recorded
that the Oxford scholars hissed and howled
and groaned, and misconducted themselves in
an anything but scholarly way—which, of
course, they have never done, on any public
occasion, since. The prisoners were taken
back to jail, and afterwards tried in St.
Mary's Church. They were all found guilty.
On the sixteenth of the month of October,
Ridley and Latimer were brought out, to
make another of the dreadful bonfires.

The scene of the suffering of these two good
Protestant men was in the City ditch, near
Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful
spot, they kissed the stakes, and then
embraced each other. And then a learned doctor
got up into a pulpit which was placed there,
and preached a sermon from the text
"Though I give my body to be burned, and
have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
When you think of the charity of burning
men alive, you may imagine that this learned
doctor had a rather brazen face. Ridley would
have answered his sermon when it came to
an end, but was not allowed. When Latimer
was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed
himself, under his other clothes, in a new
shroud; and, as he stood in it before all the
people, it was noted of him, and long
remembered, that, whereas he had been
stooping and feeble but a few minutes
before, he now stood upright and handsome,
in the knowledge that he was dying for
a just and a great cause. Ridley's brother-
in-law was there, with bags of gunfpowder;
and when they were both chained up, he
tied them round their bodies. Then, a light
was thrown upon the pile to fire it. "Be
of good comfort, Master Ridley," said
Latimer, at that awful moment, "and play
the man! We shall this day light such a
candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust
shall never be put out." And then he was
seen to make motions with his hands as if
he were washing them in the flames, and
to stroke his aged face with them, and was
heard to cry: "Father of Heaven, receive
my soul!" He died quickly, but the fire,
after having burned the legs of Ridley, sunk.
There he lingered chained to the iron post,
and crying, "O! I cannot burn! O! For
Christ's sake let the fire come unto me!" And
still when his brother-in-law had heaped on
more wood, he was heard through the
blinding smoke, still dismally crying: "O! I
cannot burn, I cannot burn!" At last, the
gunpowder caught fire, and ended his miseries.

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner
went to his tremendous account before
God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted
in committing.