Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/128

108 where it is written, 'Insuper universæ terræ rex imperat servienti'—that is to say, the King commandeth the whole country as his subjects; and therefore it followeth that the Bishop of Rome, which is in Italy where the Emperor is king, is subject to the Emperor, and that the Emperor may command him; and if he should be head of the universal Church, then he should be head over the Emperor, and command the Emperor, and that is directly against the said text, Ecclesiastes v. Wherefore, to stand in it opiniatively is heresy.' In the spirit, if not in the letter of this monstrous reasoning, Forest was indicted for heresy in a court where we would gladly believe that Cranmer did not sit as president. He was found guilty, and was delivered over, in the usual form, to the secular arm.

An accidental coincidence contributed to the dramatic effect of his execution. In a chapel at Llan Dderfel, in North Wales, there had stood a figure of an ancient Welsh saint, called Dderfel Gadern. The figure was a general favourite. The Welsh people 'came daily in pilgrimage to him, some with kyne, some with oxen and horses, and the rest with money, insomuch' (I quote a letter of Ellis Price, the Merionethshire visitor) 'that there were five or six hundred, to a man's estimation, that offered to the said image the fifth day of this month of April. The innocent people hath been sore allured and enticed to worship, insomuch that there is a common saying amongst them