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 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Most of the Londoners whose cases are recorded had some connexion with him, but three priests are mentioned independently — the curate of St. Katha- rine Coleman, Robert Wisdom, and the rector of St. Peter Cornhill. In June Anne Askew, Dr. Shaxton, sometime Bishop of Salisbury, a London lawyer named White, and an Essex tailor, were indicted at the Guildhall, confessed their heresies, and were condemned to be burnt. The next day Shaxton and White were converted to ' the true belief,' by the efforts of Bonner and ' other doctors,' but Anne Askew was taken to the Tower, where she was tortured in order to make her accuse other ladies of sharing her opinions. The Imperial ambassador wrote at the beginning of July that a great examination and punishment of heretics was going on, no class being spared ; the pardon of those who recanted had had a very good effect upon the common people, who were greatly infected. On the 1 2th an Essex priest, and Crome's friend Lascelles, a lawyer, con- fessed their heresy at the Guildhall and were condemned ; Blage, a favourite of the king, who was also condemned, received a pardon just in time. Dr. Shaxton preached at the execution of Anne Askew and her three companions, Anne, undaunted by all her suffering, commenting on his arguments as he proceeded. Their constancy probably did much to encourage others. Less than a week later the servant of a citizen confessed to the same heresy, but seems to have escaped execution. By the middle of September the Imperial ambassador thought the king was more inclined to favour the Protestants than he had been a year before, and although on the 26th a number of heretical books were burnt at Paul's Cross, the persecution ceased with the return of the Earl of Hertford and the Lord Admiral to court at the beginning of October. The majority of the people seemed to the ambassador to belong to ' these perverse sects,' and they did not conceal their wish to see the Bishop of Winchester and other adherents of the ancient faith sent to the Tower.'" A change had taken place since 1540, which was not merely in the attitude of the Londoners towards persons accused of heresy. Feckenham, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, preaching at Paul's Cross in January 1547, lamented that ' sanctimony of life is put away, with fastings on Wed- nesdays and Saturdays, and beads. And therefore good men dare not now use them for fear they should be laughed to scorn.' '^° The cause of this change is not so clear. Perhaps there had been a gradual leavening of opinion by the ideas already expounded in the sermons of men like Latimer, and there is little doubt that the ' forbidden books ' had a large circulation in London, and that the English Bible was studied by people of all classes in spite of the Act of 1543 forbidding women, apprentices, servants, and others of low degree to read it. Many, no doubt, who had disliked the ' new learning ' in the time of its triumph would be far more "' Jets of P.C. i, 394-509, passim ; Strype, Mem. iii (l), l6l et seq. (cf. L. and P. Hen. Fill, xxi (l), 776) ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xxi (i), 813, 1027, 1180, 1383 (49, 71, 72) ; State Papers Hen. Fill, i, 842-50, 866, 878 ; Foxe, op. cit. v, 543-53, 564-6, App. xvi, xvii, xviii ; Ca/. Spanish State Papers, viii, 262, 266, 291, 320, 370, 386 ; Rec. Corp. Repert. xi, fol. 275^, 277 ; Wriothesley, Chron. (Camd. Soc), i, 166-70, 175; Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc), 40-5, 300-11 ; Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 211, 212; Hall, Chron.; Diet. Nat. Biog. "° S.P. Dom. 16 Jan. 1546-7. But cf. Hooper's opinion in Jan. 1546 ; Orig. Letters (Parker Soc), i, 36. 28s