Page:VCH London 1.djvu/360

 reproved him sharply, and ordered him to ask the bishop's pardon. After some hesitation he signed a full recantation; Jerome and Garret also signed it, and all three were ordered to preach at the Spital in Easter week. The accounts of their sermons are conflicting, and it would seem that they contrived to give many people the impression that their recantations were genuine. But Henry learnt that his orders had not been obeyed 'sincerely,' and on the following Saturday not only the three preachers but ten or twelve citizens and some foreign Anabaptists were committed to the Tower. Cromwell had apparently regained his influence when Parliament met on 12 April, and several of these men were released. The three preachers, however, still remained in the Tower, while the bishops contended about their doctrine; and on 3 May two foreigners and an Englishman, all de bien basse condition, were burnt in Southwark for heresy against the Sacrament of the Altar. A few days later a rich and popular citizen named Farmer was condemned by the Court of King's Bench to perpetual imprisonment and the forfeiture of all his goods for giving food and money to a priest who had been his chaplain and who was in prison for upholding the authority of the pope, while two other rich citizens, apparently of the same opinions as Farmer, secretly left the kingdom with their property. People were being imprisoned 'every day' for eating flesh in Lent or not receiving the Communion at Easter; but apparently they were not severely dealt with, and it is probable that members of the reforming party were just then in less danger than their opponents. Barnes seems to have been allowed to go out of prison to visit his friends; he was still carrying on a 'fierce controversy' with Gardiner, but, 'although many persons approve my statements, yet no one stands forward except Latimer.' On 29 May the two most prominent members of Gardiner's party in London, Dr. Sampson and Dr. Wilson, were both committed to the Tower, charged with having sent alms to three priests, named Powell, Fetherston, and Abell, who had been in prison for six years; and the keeper of Newgate was arrested for having allowed Powell and Abell to go out under bail. Wilson was also accused of treasonable communication with a chaplain of Bishop Tunstall's who had fled to Scotland after advising religious houses not to surrender, and he admitted that he had only satisfied his conscience about the Dissolution by throwing the responsibility on the king. Sampson's fall must have been quite unexpected, for he had just resigned the deanery of St. Paul's on his preferment. Cranmer now began to preach at St. Paul's doctrine quite