Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/126

92 Strype has preserved a memorial that the famous John Fox, the martyrologist, gave in against him at his trial, as to his cruel persecuting spirit, copied from a paper in Fox's own hand-writing:

"Story, by his confession, the chiefest cause and doer, in putting most of the martyrs to death.

Story caused a faggot to be cast at the face of Mrs. Denley, singing a psalm in the fire, saying, he had marred the fashion of an ld song.

Story scourged Thomas Green.

Story, coming from the burning of two, at the lord mayor, Mr. Curtys his table, said, that as he had dispatched them, so he trusted within a month he should also dispatch all the rest; saying, moreover, that if he were of the queen's council, he would devise to torment them after another sort. And there shewed the way most cruel, which he would use.

Story, at another time coming from the burning of Richard Gibson, and being demanded of the Lord Mayor what he would do if the world should alter, said, If he were so sick in his bed that he could not stir without hands, yet would he fit up to give sentence against an heretick; and though he knew the world would turn the next day after.

Story was sorry (as he said in the Parliament House) that they struck not at the root.

In summa, Story worse than Boner.

Yet, notwithstanding, Story is made a saint at Rome, and his martyrdom printed and set up in the English college there."

Such were the sentiments of our old martyrologist, exaggerated, no doubt, by party spirit, concerning this extraordinary character, who seems far to have outdone, in acts of cruelty, even that prelate to whose name the horrid and most inconsistent epithet of "bloody" has been annexed by posterity, who was, however, not only an Rh