Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/618

598 his astonished hearers could collect themselves. 'Play the Christian man,' Lord Williams at length was able to call; 'remember yourself; do not dissemble.' 'Alas! my Lord,' the Archbishop answered, 'I have been a man that all my life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now, which I am most sorry for.' He would have gone on; but cries now rose on all sides, 'Pull him down,' 'Stop his mouth,' 'Away with him,' and he was borne off by the throng out of the church. The stake was a quarter of a mile distant, at the spot already consecrated by the deaths of Ridley and Latimer. Priests and monks 'who did rue to see him go so wickedly to his death, ran after him, exhorting him, while time was, to remember himself.' But Cranmer, having flung down the burden of his shame, had recovered his strength, and such words had no longer power to trouble him. He approached the stake with 'a cheerful countenance,' undressed in haste, and stood upright in his shirt. Soto and another Spanish friar continued expostulating; but finding they could effect nothing, one said in Latin to the other, 'Let us go from him, for the devil is within him.' An Oxford theologian—his name was Ely—being more clamorous, drew from him only the answer that, as touching his recantation, 'he repented him right sore, because he knew that it was against the truth.'

'Make short, make short!' Lord Williams cried, hastily.