Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/197

1545.] been educated at Cambridge. At the University he had borne the character of saintliness; not perhaps the mild and feminine disposition which the word now suggests to us, but a character like Latimer's or Tyndal's. He had afterwards in England exposed himself to honourable peril. A letter of the Mayor of Bristol to Cromwell, in 1539, complains of his presence and his teaching; and Bristol was the hotbed of orthodoxy, the most dangerous of English towns to an Evangelical preacher. From this time (unless he was the messenger who carried to Hertford the intimation of the conspiracy against the Cardinal) his name disappears until he came forward in his own country, on the brief service by which he was to earn his martyrdom.

In the autumn of 1545 he began to preach in the fields in various parts of Scotland, followed, like his Master, by crowds of the poor, and, like Him, teaching them to abandon their sins, and to lead pure, sober, and industrious lives. Such an occupation might have been considered innocent, perhaps even laudable; but it is likely that he did not conceal his opinion of those whose functions he was obliged to usurp. He became formidable by a popularity as extensive as it was rapid; and the Cardinal, as the readiest method of delivering himself from a troublesome person, commissioned a priest to stab him. The priest prepared to obey; but Wishart