Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/230

210 being the informer, John Staunton, and the confessor of Sion Monastery, who had professed the most excessive loyalty to the Crown. The informer, it must be allowed, was a good-for-nothing person. He had gone to the confessor, he said, to be shriven, and had commenced his confession with acknowledging 'the seven deadly sins particularly,' 'and next the misspending of his five wits.' As an instance of the latter, he then in detail had confessed to heresy; he could not persuade himself that the priest had power to forgive him. 'Sir,' he professed to have said to the confessor, 'there is one thing in my stomach which grieveth my conscience very sore; and that is by reason of a sermon I heard yesterday of Master Latimer, saying that no man of himself had authority to forgive sins, and that the Pope had no more authority than another bishop; and therefore I am in doubt whether I shall have remission of my sins of you or not, and that the pardon is of no effect.'

The priest answered, 'That Latimer is a false knave;' and seven or eight times he called him false knave, and said he was an eretycke. 'Marry, this I heard Latimer say,' the confessor continued, 'that if a man come to confession, and be not sorry for his sins, the priest hath no power to forgive him. I say the Pope's pardon is as