Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/128

 a second and final time, having had them ‘sewed on again’ before: William Prynne, Barrister; Dr. John Bastwick; and the Rev. Henry Burton, Minister of Friday-street Church. Their sin was against Laud and his surplices at Allhallowtide, not against any other man or thing. Prynne, speaking to the people, defied all Lambeth, with Rome at the back of it, to argue with him, William Prynne alone, that these practices were according to the Law of England; ‘and if I fail to prove it,’ said Prynne, ‘let them hang my body at the door of that Prison there,’ the Gate-house Prison. ‘Whereat the people gave a great shout,’—somewhat of an ominous one, I think. Bastwick’s wife, on the scaffold, received his ears in her lap, and kissed him. Prynne’s ears the executioner ‘rather sawed than cut.’ ‘Cut me, tear me,’ cried Prynne; ‘I fear thee not; I fear the fire of Hell, not thee!’ The June sun had shone hot on their faces. Burton, who had discoursed eloquent religion all the while, said, when they carried him, near fainting, into a house in King-street, ‘It is too hot to last.‘

Too hot indeed. For at Edinburgh, on Sunday the 23d of July following, Archbishop Laud having now, with great effort and much manipulation, got his Scotch Liturgy and Scotch Pretended-Bishops ready, brought them fairly out to action,—and Jenny Geddes hurled her stool at their head. ‘Let us read the Collect of the day,’ said the Pretended-Bishop from amid his tippets;—‘De’il colic the wame of thee! answered Jenny, hurling her stool at his head. ‘Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at my lug?’ I thought we had