Council to take place before Sir John Mason and Dr. Wotton, as Commissioners, and these received Ferrar's answers to them, which were delivered in order to the several articles brought against him. In these answers he clears himself from all imputation of any intention of acting in defiance of the King's authority-or of maintaining superstition, since on the contrary he had laboured to abolish it by true doctrine ;-or of covetousness, which he alleges could be disproved by his neighbours ;-or of wilful negligence, shewing that he had exerted himself to the utmost ;- -or lastly, of folly, setting forth " that his desire was, in true simple manner of words, and deeds, and other honest behaviour, through God's grace, to shew godly wisdom."

After the answers exhibited by Ferrar to the mass of frivolous accusations brought against him, Constantine and Young, came forward as witnesses; against whose evidence Ferrar first laid exceptions, and then proceeded to adduce matter in justification of himself. Whereupon Constantine and Young, finding their depositions to be insufficient, asked and obtained a commission for examining further witnesses in the country. And two distinct commissions being granted by the Council, severally to Rawlins and Lee, these persons contrived, through the favour of the officers, to join both in one, in order to diminish the costs. Three months were assigned them to make their

return.

During all this time, while the process against him was pending before the Council, Ferrar was detained in London, his enemies alleging, that if he were suffered to go down to his diocese he would prevent their collecting the requisite proofs of the charges. Thus having full opportunity of collecting such evidence as they wished, without his being able to confront them on the spot, they returned to London at the end of the time appointed, and reported that they had examined no less than an hundred and twenty-seven witnesses. This body of evidence naturally produced a strong impression against the unfortunate Bishop, among the members of the Council. The delay also which intervened, before he could learn the nature of the evidence against him, (for on account of the bulk of the manuscript containing the depositions, it was five weeks still before he could obtain a copy of them,) must have served to heighten the unfavourable colouring of his case. Thus it was that even his friend, the Archbishop, was disposed to give credit to the injurious calumnies maintained with such malignant perseverance; though afterwards he appears to have seen through the malice of the prosecution, understanding by means of letters which Ferrar wrote in his affliction, both to him and to Bishop Goodrick, the Lord Chancellor, the flagrant injustice of the whole proceeding.

To enable him to meet his enemies on their own ground, he then asked for a commission for himself also to examine witnesses—which was granted to him, but the great dispatch which he was required to use, and the interruption which happened to him from his being required to answer at the Bar daily during the Sessions at Carmarthen, on the charge of præmunire, conspired to render his persecutors an over match for him, and he sunk at last a victim to their evil designs. His detention in London had also given them a more plausible plea against him, for, as he was thus prevented from being exact in the payment of

the tenths and first fruits and subsidies due from the Clergy of his diocese, this circumstance also was another crime laid to his charge. The result was that he was committed to prison, and remained in confinement during the subsequent part of Edward's reign.

Nor did his troubles cease on the accession of Mary, in 1553, but as he had been persecuted during the Protestant ascendancy, so he obtained no respite from the Papists, to whom he was obnoxious on account of his religion.

In the King's Bench, where he was confined, he now had as companions in suffering, Taylor, Bradford and Philpot; men with whom it was no small glory to be numbered in that day of trial to the infant Reformed Church of England. With these it was intended by the Queen's Council in the following year, that Ferrar, as well as Hooper, Rogers and Crome, should be conveyed to Cambridge, in order to submit them to the solemn mockery of a disputation, similar to that which had previously been exhibited at Oxford, where sophistry, backed by clamour and outrage, had obtained a false triumph over the scriptural wisdom of the Three great Heads of the Reformation. Ferrar, and his associates, obtained information of this intention of the Papists, and not only consulted together, but also sent to Ridley, at Oxford, to obtain his advice, as to the mode of conduct which they should pursue in the proposed disputation. The project however of the Papists, it seems, was afterwards abandoned.

It was during this period of Ferrar's imprisonment, that the wellknown dispute took place between the Protestant sufferers among themselves on the doctrines of Predestination and Original Sin-one party rushing into the Pelagian extreme, and derogating from the grace of God, in their zeal for asserting the free-will of man. Bradford, fearful of the spreading of such opinions, wrote to Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, to consult them on the matter; and in this consultation, we find also the name of Ferrar subjoined, with those of Rowland Taylor and Philpot.

We hear nothing more of Ferrar, until the 4th of February of the next year, 1555, when he was summoned before the Bishop of Winchester. It was intended at once to condemn him, but the Bishop of Winchester, for some reason, determined to postpone the sentence, and he was sent back to prison, where he continued until the 14th of the same month. At this first appearance before Bishop Gardiner, with whom were associated as Commissioners, Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, Heath, Bishop of Worcester, Bourne, Southwel, and Rochester, he was examined respecting his past conduct, not without much rudeness of retort and unceremonious treatment. He was accused of being in the Queen's debt, and at the same time the royal favour was held out to him on the condition of his returning to the Papal Church. As to any debts due from him to the Queen, he referred them to the Lord Treasurer; but as to any acknowledgment of the Papal supremacy he reminded them, "that he had made an oath, never to consent or agree, that the Bishop of Rome should have any jurisdiction within this realm." Bourne then charged him with having been abjured for heresy in Oxford, which he strenuously denied ; and asked other frivolous questions, such as, whether he had not gone from St. David's to Scotland-whether he had not carried books out of Oxford to the Archbishop of

York-whether he had not supplanted his master? Then, turning to Gardiner, Bourne observed, that Ferrar "had an ill name in Wales as ever had any," and repeated the charge of his having deceived the Queen in several sums of money. On his boldly disclaiming these imputations, Gardiner called him a false knave. Upon which Ferrar rose up (for he was all the previous time kneeling) and said, “No, my Lord, I am a true man, I thank God for it. I was born under King Henry VII.; I served King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI. truly, and have served the Queen's Majesty, that now is, truly with my poor heart and word: more I could not do, and I was never false, nor shall be by the grace of God." Gardiner then said, "How saist thou, wilt thou be reformable ?" My Lord," replied Ferrar, "I have made an oath to God and to King Henry VIII. and also to King Edward, and in that to the Queen's Majesty, the which I can never break while I live, to die for it." The Bishop of Durham objected to him, that he had made another oath before and a vow: both which assertions he simply denied. Gardiner observed, "that he had made a profession to live without a wife"-to which Ferrar answered, "that he had made profession to live chaste, but not to live without a wife." After an altercation of this kind, when they found Ferrar still resolute in adhering to his oath, they called another of the prisoners, and dismissed him.

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On the 14th of February he was removed from the place of his present confinement in London, and sent down into Wales, to receive condemnation there.

On the 26th of the same month, he was conducted by Griffith Leyson, Sheriff of the county of Carmarthen, into the church of Carmarthen, and presented before Henry Morgan, who had now supplanted him in the Bishopric of St. David's. Constantine, who had formerly served him in the capacity of Registrar, and had been amongst the treacherous authors of his calamity during the reign of Edward, acting as Public Notary. Little was the mercy, of course, which Ferrar had to expect from such a tribunal. Morgan, having discharged the Sheriff, and received the prisoner into his own custody, further committed him to the charge of a keeper, (by name Owen Jones), and at the same time declared to him "the great mercy and clemency which it was the pleasure of the King and Queen's Highness should be offered unto him, and which he there offered to him,-that is to say, that if he would submit himself to the laws of this realm, and conform himself to the unity of the Universal Catholic Church, he should be received and pardoned." After that, when he found that Ferrar would give no answer to the proposed terms, Morgan laid before him the following articles :

*

1. Whether he believed the marriage of Priests lawful by the laws of God, and Holy Church, or no?

2. Whether he believed that in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar, after the words of consecration pronounced by the Priest, the very

*This use of the synonymous terms together will not perhaps be objected to, if it be referred to the times of the speaker when Greek was a dead language indeed. In fact, even at this day, the terms are quite distinct, according to the popular use of them-Catholic being generally employed only in its second intention-to denote a party in the Church, acknowledging the Bishop of Rome as their spiritual Head, and in the face of manifest contradiction from matter of fact claiming to be the whole Church,

body and blood of Christ is really and substantially contained, without the substance of bread and wine?

To these articles Morgan required Ferrar to answer upon his allegiance to which Ferrar replied, that he would answer when he saw a lawful commission, but would make no further answer at that time. Nothing further passed on this occasion, and Jones, his keeper, was ordered to take him back to prison, there to be detained until a new monition should be had; and he was instructed to employ the intervening time in deliberation concerning his answer to the propositions.

On the last day of February he was again examined before Bishop Morgan, when articles and interrogatories in writing being presented to him, he again refused to answer until he might see a lawful commission and authority. Upon this the Bishop pronounced him contumacious, and for the punishment of his contumacy to be accounted pro confesso, and accordingly declared him to be so by a written instrument. Appearing again on the Monday following, the 4th of March, he submitted himself as ready to answer to the articles and positions before mentioned, only requiring that he should be furnished with a copy of the articles, and that a competent time should be allowed him to answer for himself.

Thursday, March 7, being appointed him for that purpose, he again appeared, and delivered a written answer to the last articles proposed by Morgan, which were to the following effect :

:

1st. That he required him, being a Priest, to renounce matrimony. 2ndly. To grant the natural presence of Christ in the Sacrament under the forms of bread and wine.

Srdly. That the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead. 4thly. That general Councils, lawfully congregated, never did, nor

can err.

5thly. That men are not justified before God by faith only, but that hope and charity are also necessarily required to justification.

6thly. That the Catholic Church, which only hath authority to expound Scriptures, and to define controversies of religion, and to ordain things appertaining to public discipline, is visible, and like unto a city set upon a mountain for all men to understand.

To these articles thus objected to him, Ferrar refused to subscribe, affirming, "that they were invented and excogitated by man, and pertain nothing to the Catholic faith." Whereupon a copy of the articles was delivered to him, and the Monday following was appointed for him to answer and subscribe to the same, either affirmatively or negatively.

On Monday accordingly, the 11th of March, Ferrar came again before Morgan, but his subscription to the articles, to which he subjoined "tenens se de equitate et justitia esse Episcopum Menevensem,” was not such as to satisfy his judge, who, with the hope probably of inducing him yet to acknowledge the authority of the Papal Church, still further delayed pronouncing the final sentence, until the Wednesday following.

Appearing on that day for the last time, he was once more demanded by Morgan," whether he would renounce and recant his heresies, schisms, and errors which hitherto he had maintained, and if he would subscribe to the Catholic articles, otherwise than he had done before." Ferrar then exhibited a certain schedule, written in English, appealing

at the same time from Morgan, as from an incompetent Judge, to Cardinal Pole. But, notwithstanding this appeal, Morgan proceeded in his rage against him, and pronounced the definitive sentence from a written document, by which he condemned Ferrar "as an heretic excommunicate, and to be given up forthwith to the secular power."

His degradation from the office of priesthood then followed, and he was delivered up to the Sheriff of Carmarthen for execution.

On the 30th of March, which was the Saturday before Passion Sunday, he was led out to the place of execution, in the town of Carmarthen, the stake being prepared for him in the market-place, on the south side of the market cross: and there he endured the torments of the fire with great patience and constancy. He had pledged himself, indeed, to bear the tortures of his dreadful death with a fortitude becoming the holy cause in which they were undergone. For, when shortly before his execution, a person named Richard Jones, the son of a Knight, paid him a visit of condolence, lamenting to him the painfulness of the death which he had to suffer:-Ferrar observed to him, "that if he saw him once to stir in the pains of his burning, he should then give no credit to his doctrine:" thus identifying his personal courage with the sincerity of his profession, and binding himself to a patience worthy of the truth. And, according to his word, so he faithfully exhibited himself an example of extraordinary firmness throughout the scene of agony. As he was bound to the stake, so he stood to the last, never moving, but still holding up his arms, while they were gradually burnt to mutilated stumps, until at length some compassionate bystander, with friendly violence, relieved him of his sufferings, by forcibly striking him upon the head with a staff, and causing him to fall lifeless amidst the flames.

To enable us to form our judgment of the character of Bishop Ferrar, unfortunately but very scanty materials have been transmitted to us, by any who have spoken of the events of his life. He appears, however, undoubtedly, by his patient endurance of persecution, as well from some unworthy individuals of his own party as from the Papists, to have been actuated by a sincere love of the truth, and not by mere party-spirit, in advocating the cause of the Reformation. And his testimony, as a Martyr, is on that account highly to be valued. Had he been merely a time-serving teacher of the reformed doctrine in the days of Edward VI. with the hope that his accommodation of his opinions. to. those of his Patron, the Duke of Somerset, and the rest of the Court, might lead to his promotion in the Church-the ill requital which he met with from the Council, who gave too ready a credence to the scandalous charges and suborned evidence of his enemies, would have readily disposed him to retaliate on his ungrateful friends, by espousing the cause of Popery, when that in its turn obtained the ascendancy. But we find him the same man in profession and in suffering under Mary, as well as under Edward. At the same time his fortitude in the last extremity reflects a strong light on his former suffering, and convinces us of his innocence of the charges brought against him. Those very enemies, indeed, who had persecuted him in the first instance, afterwards repented of their malignity, and came to him before his death to implore his forgiveness, which he, as a true Christian, freely granted, and was reconciled to them.