missioners appointed to confer with him, and was also one of those from whom, every negociation having failed, Gardiner finally received sentence of deprivation.

At the same time that he was engaged in this unwelcome business, he was also involved in that celebrated controversy respecting the use of the vestments in religious worship, which originating with the scruples of Hooper, Bishop elect of Gloucester, agitated not only England, but also the Reformed Churches on the Continent. Hooper indeed had imbibed his prejudices against the use of the vestments from a residence at Zuric, whither he had fled when the act of the Six Articles passed, and by objecting to be consecrated in the Episcopal habit, raised the question in England. A conference began at first privately between Ridley and Hooper on the subject, but the matter at length attracted the notice of the Court, and as both the Archbishop and Ridley were resolute in not dispensing with the law which enforced the use of the habits, and Hooper as obstinately adhered to his scruples, the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln were appointed together with Ridley to confer with Hooper, and bring him, if possible, to a conformity of opinion. But it was not until measures of severity were adopted by the Council, who were anxious to obtain for the cause of the Reformation, one whom they knew to be capable of serving it well, that Hooper at length complied, so far as to be consecrated in a surplice and cope.

Nearly at the same period, Ridley interested himself with charitable zeal, in providing relief for the numerous poor, who by the late spoliation of Church lands and other endowments had been reduced to the greatest distress. By application to Sir William Cecil, the King's Secretary, he succeeded in obtaining a grant of Bridewell, the ancient mansion of many English Kings, as an asylum for correcting and reclaiming vagrants, finding them work, and training up the young to useful trades.

While he was thus actively engaged in public duties, he was no less an ornament to his high station by the exemplary tenor of his private life. Exercising a Christian watchfulness over himself, he was given to prayer and contemplation. With respect to his family he was careful and instructive. It was his practice as soon as he rose, and had dressed himself, to continue in private prayer half an hour; then to retire to his study, where he continued until ten o'clock, at which hour he came to common prayer with his family, and there daily read a lecture to them, beginning at the Acts of the Apostles, and so going regularly through St. Paul's Epistles, giving to every one that could read a New Testament, and inducing them by rewards to learn by heart some chosen chapters, especially the 13th of the Acts. And to shew the rule of his conduct, he would have the 101st Psalm often repeated to his household;-endeavouring to make his family a spectacle of virtue and honesty to others. After prayers he went to dinner, where, as the occasion required, he would converse with great wisdom and discretion-and sometimes with much liveliness. This conversation he indulged for an hour after dinner, or else played at chess. He then returned to his study and remained there until five, except when inter

rupted by suitors or any business. Prayer with his family then fol lowed as in the morning, after which he supped; then after another hour of relaxation he resumed the labour of his study, in which he was occupied until eleven at night, when he retired to private prayer, and after that to his repose.

He was still Master of Pembroke Hall, but from the pressure of other duties, had not been able to give the advantage of his personal superintendence to the Society. We find him at this time (1552), visiting his College, where, by permission of the Bishop of Ely, he held an ordination. In returning to London, he stopped by the way at his house at Hadham; and from thence waited on the Princess Mary, at Hunsdon. After a courteous reception from the Princess, he offered to preach before her the next Sunday if she would permit him. On hearing this, her countenance changed, and she was for some time silent, at last she said; "As for this matter I pray you, my Lord, make the answer to it yourself." The Bishop proceeding to tell her, that his office and duty required him to make this offer, she again desired him "to make the answer to himself, as he could not but know what it would be. Yet, if the answer must come from her, she added, the doors of the parish church should be open to him if he came, and that he might preach if he pleased, but that neither would she hear him, nor should any of her servants."." Madam," said the Bishop, "I trust you will not refuse God's word." "I cannot tell," said the Princess, "what you call God's word. That is not God's word now, which was God's word in my father's days." The Bishop observed, "God's word is all one in all times, but has been better understood and practised in some ages than in others." Upon which she could restrain her anger no longer, but told him, "You durst not for your ears have avouched that for God's word in my father's days that now you do. As for your new books, I thank God, I never read any of them: I never did, nor ever will." Having indulged then in many invectives against the late public acts, of which she disclaimed the authority, she asked Ridley if he were one of the Council: on hearing that he was not, she observed, "You might well enough, as the Council goeth now a-days;" and parted from him with these words: "My Lord, for your civility in coming to see me, I thank you; but for your offering to preach before me, I thank you not a whit." After this the Bishop was conducted to the room where they had dined, where having drunk a glass of wine, he suddenly recollected himself, observing, "surely I have done amiss." Upon being asked the reason of this observation, he reproached himself for having drunk in that place where God's word had been refused, whereas, said he, "if I had remembered my duty, I ought to have departed immediately, and to have shaken off the dust from my feet, for a testimony against this house." These expressions the Princess never forgave.

Soon indeed he was destined to feel, that this avowal of his sentiments had been more honest than prudent. Not a year passed, before Mary had the power of wreaking her resentment upon him, and satiating her spirit of bigotry with the sacrifice of so illustrious a victim. But the short space of liberty and life which remained to

him, was not without its active usefulness. He had already shewn his care for the poor in providing in some measure for their relief. His charity was further shewn, in his obtaining a grant of linen from the spoils of the Church, which had in many instances been wantonly diverted to common uses by the rapacity of private individuals, for the benefit of the hospital of Christ's Church, then recently founded. It was at his instance also, and through the impression produced by a sermon which he had preached on charity before the King, that those munificent royal grants were made, by which the poor population were provided with relief in distinct classes; the infirm both in mind and body, the old, and orphans, forming one class,-the sick and wounded, a second,—the idle and disorderly, a third,-with separate endowments appropriated to them.

Had the life, indeed, of Edward been prolonged, it was intended that Ridley should receive new accession of honour, in his promotion to the See of Durham, vacated by the deprivation of Tonstal-but the premature death of the King occurred before his translation could be effected.

Immediately upon the death of the King, he was employed by the Council, then entirely under the influence of the Duke of Northum berland, in recommending from the pulpit at Paul's Cross, the claims of the Lady Jane Grey to the succession of the throne. But the people, not disposed to concede the disposal of the crown to the ambitious views of Northumberland, scarcely listened with patience to the discourse; and even the Protestant party, preferring a trust in the fair promises of Mary, who pledged herself to make no innovation on the established religion, to the alternative of a government decidedly Protestant, but swayed by Northumberland, who was the object of universal detestation. The Lady Jane being thus compelled to recede from her pretensions, and Mary being called to the throne by the voice of the people, Ridley, with others who had openly opposed themselves to her claims, hastened thereupon to meet her at Framlingham, to implore her mercy. But mercy was not designed for so distinguished an opponent. He was immediately taken into custody, and conveyed to the Tower, on the 26th of July, 1553, performing the journey on a lame horse.

Bonner, being released soon after from his imprisonment in the Marshalsea, lost no time in using his interest with the Queen to have his sentence of deprivation reversed. Delegates were appointed accordingly to examine his cause, and by these it was decided, that the sentence against him was rashly attempted to his prejudice, and was null in law, and they decreed him therefore to be restored to the possession of

* The Church was so robbed of its revenues, that many persons in holy orders were compelled to apply themselves for a subsistence to mechanical trades or mean employments. The lay patrons, who had purchased rectories and advowsons of the Crown, either farmed their benefices, appointing the rent at their own pleasure, or else held the benefices in their own hands, and allowed five or six pounds a year to a clerk, who never came near them. Many clergymen from poverty were carpenters and tailors, and some kept ale-honses. C

VOL. VII. NO. I.

his bishopric, with all its rights and appurtenances; allowing him to take his course for the expenses and incommodities of his imprisonment.

A bill was then brought into Parliament, to make void all leases which Ridley had granted. But the Parliament was not prepared to concur with the iniquity of Bonner, and the bill was thrown out.

Inveterate, however, as the Queen was against him, it appears that he might yet have saved his life, if he would have brought over the weight of his learning and authority to that religion which was after her heart. To hold out such inducement to him, he was treated with more respect and indulgence than the other prisoners in the Tower, having the liberty of walking about within its boundaries. Neither compliment nor argument were spared to win him over. On one occasion he was invited to dine at the Lieutenant's table with Secretary Bourne, Feckenham, Dean of St. Paul's, and others, (who acted in reality as Commissioners from the Queen to examine him) when a debate took place respecting the controverted points in religion, and especially on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. But nothing was extorted from him in this conference, in which he set forth his opinion against transubstantiation with great triumph of authority and reason over his adversaries.

Cranmer and Latimer were now his companions in imprisonment, having been sent soon after him to the Tower. He thus enjoyed the opportunity of conferring with these, his noble fellow-martyrs, upon those matters for which they were now suffering together, and of strengthening his own faith by their concurrent expositions of the truth. With Latimer he entered more particularly into a minute conference in writing on the several articles, in which they dissented from the creed of Rome,

Ridley derived so much comfort from this conference, that he sought to relieve his mind again by a second, in which he stated further his objections to the mass, and begged the counsel and assistance of Latimer, whom he addresses as an old soldier and an expert warrior in the Lord's service. This second conference was occasioned by the importunity of Gardiner and Bonner, who, through their emissaries, laboured to induce him to be present at the mass, that they might thus appear to the world to have gained him over to their cause. To them Ridley alludes, under the names of Diotrephes and Antonius*, placing in the mouth of Antonius the objections which it is his purpose to refute. Hitherto, the three distinguished prisoners had been confined in separate apartments in the Tower. Wyatt's rebellion, which broke out after their commitment, had now crowded the Tower with State prisoners to such a degree, that they were from this time confined all together in one apartment—a circumstance which proved some alleviation to their sufferings, as they were thus enabled to confer more freely, and

This Antonius, Ridley informs Latimer, was a most cruel Bishop of the Arians, and a very violent persecutor of them that were Catholics and of a right judgment, to whom Hunric, a tyrant of the Vandals, committed his authority, to turn the true Christians to his false religion, or else to punish and torment them."

to strengthen each other, as well by argument, as by the spectacle of pious and courageous resignation which each presented to the other.

When they had been imprisoned already some months, a little before Easter, in the course of March, 1554, they were all removed to Oxford, to undergo the solemn mockery of a disputation and trial, before the Convocation assembled there for the purpose of debating points relative to the doctrine of the Corporal Presence. On their reaching Oxford, their persecutors, with a malice which spoke their sentence to be predetermined before they had been heard, increased the rigour of their confinement-they were deprived of every thing but the garments which they wore;—their own servants were removed from them, strangers being appointed to attend them, and they were kept severally apart from each other.

The Commissioners having met on the 14th of April, and opened the Convocation in great state, with the celebration of a mass of the Holy Ghost,-in the afternoon of the same day, the three Prelates were separately brought before them, and interrogated as to the articles proposed, from which having expressed their dissent, they were re-committed to their prison, each having his day of disputation appointed for him to answer for himself. Ridley signified his perfect readiness to defend the cause in which he had engaged; answering that "as long as God gave him life, he should not only have his heart, but also his mouth and pen, to defend his truth." He only required time and books. The Tuesday following being the day on which he was appointed to appear before them, they conceded to him the use of his books until that time.

On Tuesday accordingly Ridley came before the Commissioners, and defended the true doctrine of the Real Presence against the gross interpretation of his Papist adversaries-fourteen of whom advanced to support each other against him. With great learning and dexterity, he turned the very authorities to which they appealed against themselves, shewing that even the Fathers, on whom they rested so much, were clearly against their erroneous views. The proceedings were conducted, as in the case of the two other illustrious disputants, with great tumult and uproar from the prejudiced assembly, and in the absence of sound reason to parry his arguments, he was silenced by the clamour of his dogmatic and sophistical assailants.

On Friday, April 20th, the three Prelates were again brought toge ther before the Commissioners, and required peremptorily to say whether they would subscribe the articles proposed, and, on their refusing, to subscribe, sentence was pronounced, that they were no members of the Church. They were then condemned as heretics. During the reading of their sentence they were asked, whether they would turn or

Gloucester Ridley very justly censures the opinion of Gilpin, that Cranmer and Ridley were wrong in appealing to the fathers and schoolmeu for confutation of the Papists, for surely no argument could be more effectual with such men, than that which exposed the futility of those authorities, uuder which they took refuge from the cogency of arguments derived from the Scriptures alone.