Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/544

524 their lives, some great service for their country. Cardmaker, on his first examination, had turned his back and flinched. But the consciousness of shame, and the example of others, gave him back his courage; he was called up again under the Queen's mandate, condemned, and brought out on the 30th of May, to suffer at Smithfield, with an upholsterer named Warne. The sheriffs produced the pardons. Warne, without looking at them, undressed at once, and went to the stake; Cardmaker 'remained long talking;' 'the people in a marvellous dump of sadness, thinking he would recant.' He turned away at last, and knelt, and prayed; but he had still his clothes on; 'there was no semblance of burning;' and the crowd continued nervously agitated, till he rose and threw off his cloak. 'Then, seeing this, contrary to their fearful expectations, as men delivered out of great doubt, they cried out for joy, with so great a shout as hath not been lightly heard a greater, 'God be praised; the Lord strengthen thee, Cardmaker; the Lord Jesus receive thy spirit.'' Every martyr's trial was a battle; every constant death was a defeat of the common enemy; and the instinctive consciousness that truth was asserting itself in suffering, converted the natural emotion of horror into admiring pride.

Yet, for the great purpose of the Court, the burnt-offerings were ineffectual as the prayers of the priests. The Queen was allowed to persuade herself that she had