Page:VCH London 1.djvu/345

 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY ' damnable abusions ' were permitted in London.'" The new opinions had evidently gained ground in the City, those who held them relying to a certain extent upon royal protection in return for their support of the king in the matter of the divorce. Barnes had been living unmolested in London since 1531,'*^ and Latimer's experiences in 1532 had little effect in silencing him, for the next year Stokesley twice found it necessary to forbid his preaching.'*^ John Frith, a brilliant young scholar who had been abroad with Tyndale, and since his return in 1532 had been imprisoned in the Tower, was allowed to go out at night to ' consult with godly men,' and thus had an opportunity of disseminating his opinions with regard to purgatory and transubstantiation ; concerning the latter he had a notable controversy with Sir Thomas More. Cranmer and Gardiner vainly endeavoured to convert him, and the Council handed him over to Stokesley, who, ' after much disputing,' sorrowfully condemned him. He was burnt in Smithfield on 4 July 1533 together with a young London tailor, Andrew Huet, ' simple and utterly unlearned,' who had adopted his opinions and could not be persuaded to recant. According to Hall,'" Dr. Cooke, rector of AUhallows Honey Lane, and the Master of the Temple ' willed the people to pray no more for them than they would pray for dogs, at which uncharitable words Frith smiled and prayed God to forgive them, and the people sore grudged at them for so saying.' '^* It appears from a document which cannot be later than June 1535 that a society of ' Christian brethren ' was formed in the City for the spreading of Lollard opinions on the Eucharist. Priests holding those opinions were to be paid by regular subscriptions and sent into all quarters of the realm, and ' they had already 2,000 books out against the blessed sacrament in the commons' hands, with books concerning divers other matters.' ''' In the case of Richard Hilles some record has been preserved of the experiences of an ordinary citizen who early became interested in the ' new opinions.' In 1532, when he was in the service of a merchant tailor, he wrote a treatise on Abraham's justification by works, about which another young man had asked his opinion. This treatise fell into the hands of the Bishop of London, and Hilles's master and another ' honest merchant ' urged him to revoke, asking if he thought he was wiser than all other men. He refused, and though loath to lose his services his master dared not keep him for fear of the bishop, and no one else would employ him. He and his mother appealed to Cromwell, who apparently induced his master to take him back, for three years later he was living unmolested in London and had been admitted to the Merchant Taylors' Company.'" '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, vi, I 3 1 1. '" Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Gairdner, Hist, of Engl. Ch. In ti Cent. 125-6. '" L. and P. Hen. Vlll, vi, 1214. '" For convenience salce the writer of the Union of the two noble . . . families will be thus quoted till the end of the reign, but it must be remembered that after 1532 that Chronicle was partly the work of Richard Grafton, though founded on Hall's notes. ^'^ Foxe, op. cit. V, App. xxii ; L. and P. Hen. Vlll, vi, 403, 661 ; Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc), 25-8 ; ¥i.^,Chron. 26 Hen. VIII (the narrative is misplaced by Hall) ; Wriothesley, Chron. (Camd. Soc), i, 22 ; Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 195 ; ^ Letter of a Tonge Gentylman, ut sup. ; Diet. Nat. Biog. "" Foxe, op. cit. V, App. xiii ; cf L. and P. Hen. Fill, xi, 1097, 1250. "' L. and P. Hen. Fill, vi, 99, 100 ; Clode, Early Hist, of the Merchant Taylors, ii, 63-4 ; cf 58-236, passim. For the case of the town cleric who threatened to commit suicide if the king set forth the Scripture in English, see Hall, Chron. 25 Hen. VIII ; Foxe, op. cit. iv, 705, App. 772. For Stokesley's opposition to any such translation see Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc), 272. 261