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 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY contrary to Gardiner's, and it was rumoured that Latimer would again be given a bishopric. On i June Cromwell appeared to the French ambassador to have the advantage,^*** but ten days later he was sent to the Tower, and Gardiner remained victorious. Hall says that many Londoners lamented for him, but more rejoiced ; they banqueted and triumphed together that night. The Bill of Attainder which condemned him to death specially mentions his support of the ' new preachers.' ^^° His fall was the signal for an outbreak of persecution. In London four or five of the chief ' preachers of the gospel ' were imprisoned. Crome is said to have interceded successfully with the king,^^° and a general pardon was granted for offences committed before i July ; it was not, however, to extend to Anabaptists or to persons holding heretical opinions about the Sacrament of the Altar, and many others were excepted. Latimer was released, but he was forbidden to preach or to come within some miles of the City.^" Acts of Attainder were passed against Powell, Fetherston, Abell, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome,"'* who were executed together on 30 July, three as traitors and three as heretics. According to the French ambassador the people murmured so much that if they had had a leader there might have been grosse sedition. On the other hand, Hilles could only conjecture that the king ordered the execution of the three preachers in order to acquire fresh popularity for financial reasons. This admission of the general unpopu- larity of the preachers is the more significant since Hilles says that they had not spoken against the Six Articles since that Act came into force. The simultaneous punishment of papists and Lutherans probably seemed far more strange to a foreigner like the ambassador and to later historians than it did to the Londoners of 1 540. It is noteworthy that at their execution Barnes and his friends were careful to say nothing against any of the doctrines asserted in the Act of Six Articles, to denounce the 'abominable and detestable opinion' of the Anabaptists about the Blessed Virgin, and to state their theory of justifi- cation in terms far more guarded than those they had formerly used in their sermons. '"'' Prominent citizens who held the ' new opinions' must have been feeling their position dangerous ever since Easter. Hilles went abroad on the pretext of carrying on his trade; Bishop Gardiner failed to get evidence against him,'"" but some persons were arrested in Southwark, and a man was burnt there on 7 July for sacramental heresy.'" An inquiry under the Act of Six Articles was made in London about the same time. It seems probable that Hall's well-known description of the 'first quest ' ''"^ refers to this ; according "' Z,. and P. Hen. Fill, xiv (2), 748, 749 ; xv, 125, 719, 747, 758, 831 (13) ; Marillac, Corresp. I June ; Or'ig. Letters, i, 2 1 1 ; Hall, Chron. ; Stow, Annah ; Diet. Nat. Biog. For Abell cf. supra, p. 260. '" Marillac, Corresp. 11 June ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xv, 498 (i, 60), 765, 929, 939 ; Hall, Chron. 32 Hen. VIII ; Foxe, op. cit. v, 399. "^ Orlg. Letters (Parker Soc), i, 208. Possibly Hilles was mistaken in placing this occurrence before the general pardon, and it really belongs to the persecution under the Act of Six Articles in July. '" Ibid. 207, 215 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xv, 498 (ii, cap. 49) ; cf. xiv (i), 867. »» Ibid. XV, 498 (i, 57, 58). "' Marillac, Corresp. 29 July, 6 Aug.; Orig. Letters, i, 209-1 1 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xv, 981 ; xvi, 106 ; Hall, Chron. 32 Hen. VIII ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 120 ; Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 203 ; Foxe, op. cit. V, 434 et seq. "" Orlg. Letters (Parker Soc), i, 198, 232. "" Ibid. 200 ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 119. "" It is generally assumed that this occurred in 1539, because Hall says it was a 'short time after ' the Act. But in February 1539-40 no preacher had yet been molested {Orig. Letters [Parker Soc], ii, 614), and the writ in Letter Bk. P (see below) agrees with Hall's account of the king's intervention. Cf the allusions in Foxe, op. cit. v, 443, and Marillac, Corresp. 6 Aug. 1540. See note 305 below. 277