Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/29

1543.] tail, and a paper on his head setting forth that he was a detected perjurer. In each town he was placed in a pillory, where every voice might revile and every hand might hurl filth at him; and then he was thrust away into the Fleet Prison, where he miserably died.

These events happened towards the fall of 1543, amidst the heat and eagerness of the preparations for war. The punishment of a worthless ecclesiastic was not the only result which followed from the persecution.

Parliament was called for the 14th of January; and although it was meeting for a session unusually busy, it could find time to limit the opportunities of cruelty which it had lately bestowed. The Six Articles Bill had been provoked by excesses and extravagances. It was still necessary to leave the bishops some weapon to repress disorder; but it should be a weapon with a blunter edge.

A recent statute, said the preamble of the new measure, had established that offenders convicted of specified heresies should suffer pains of death: 'But in as much as, by force of the same statute, secret and untrue accusations and presentments might be maliciously conspired against the King's subjects, and kept secret unrevealed, that such as were accused should not have knowledge thereof until a time might be espied to have them by malice convicted, to the great peril and danger of the King's Majesty's subjects, if the same statute should not be tempered or qualified; and to the intent that all presentments and indictments of such offences as were contained in the said statute should be taken in