Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/473

1536.] say that God has shown more to me than he has shown to any man who will use his understanding. You think that the offspring of your harlot will be allowed to sit on the throne, that the pure blood of England will endure to be her subjects. No, truly. If you dream thus, you have little of your father's wisdom.. There is not a peer in all the land who will not hold his title better than the title of a, harlot's bastard. Like Cadmus, you have flung a spear among your people, and armed them for mutual slaughter. And you—you the vilest of plunderers—a thief—a robber—you call yourself supreme head of the Church! I acquit the nation of the infamy of their consent. They have not consented. The few suffrages which you can claim have been extorted by terror. Again, how do I know this? I, who was absent from my country? Yes, I was absent. Nor have I heard one word of it from any creature. And yet so it is. I have a more sure testimony than the testimony of eyes and ears, which forbids me to be mistaken.'

The witness was the death of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks; and the story of their martyrdom was told with some power and passion.

The remedy for all its evils rested with England. England must rebel He called on it with solemn earnestness, to consider its position: its Church infected with heresy, its saints slaughtered, its laws uprooted, its