Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/109

 Rev. JOHN Fox, the Martyrologist.

A false fearful Imagination of fire at Oxford University.

[Acts and Monuments, 1576. The passages in brackets, from 1563 Edition.]

A merry and pleasant Narration, touching a false fearful Imagination of Fire raised among the Doctors and Masters of Oxford in St. Mary's church, at the recantation of Master MALARY, Master of Arts of Cambridge.

Hitherto, [gentle reader, we have remembered a great number of lamentable and bloody tragedies of such as have been slain through extreme cruelty: now I will here set before thee again a merry and comical spectacle, whereat thou mayest now laugh and refresh thyself, which, forasmuch as it did necessarily accord with our present enterprise, I have not thought it good to pass it over with silence.]

There was one Master MALARY, Master of Arts of Cambridge, Scholar of Christ's College, who, for the like opinions to those above rehearsed, holden contrary to the Catholic determination of holy mother Church of Rome; that is, for the right truth of CHRIST'S gospel, was convented before the bishops: and, in the end, sent to Oxford, there openly to recant, and to bear his faggot; to the terror of the students of that University. The time and place were appointed that he should be brought solemnly into St. Mary's church upon a Sunday; where a great number of the head Doctors and Divines and others of the University were