Thy mercy must be greater than all sin.
Forgive me, Father, for no merit of mine, But that Thy name by man be glorified, And Thy most blessed Son's, who died for man.
Good people, every man at time of death Would fain set forth some saying that may live After his death and better humankind; For death gives life's last word a power to live, And, like the stone-cut epitaph, remain After the vanish'd voice, and speak to men.
God grant me grace to glorify my God!
And first I say it is a grievous case, Many so dote upon this bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly, They care for nothing else. What saith St. John: 'Love of this world is hatred against God.'
Again, I pray you all that, next to God, You do unmurmuringly and willingly Obey your King and Queen, and not for dread Of these alone, but from the fear of Him Whose ministers they be to govern you.
Thirdly, I pray you all to live together Like brethren; yet what hatred Christian men Bear to each other, seeming not as brethren, But mortal foes! But do you good to all As much as in you lieth. Hurt no man more Than you would harm your loving natural brother Of the same roof, same breast. If any do, Albeit he think himself at home with God, Of this be sure, he is whole worlds away.
PROTESTANT _murmurs_. What sort of brothers then be those that lust To burn each other?
WILLIAMS. Peace among you, there!
CRANMER. Fourthly, to those that own exceeding wealth, Remember that sore saying spoken once By Him that was the truth, 'How hard it is For the rich man to enter into Heaven;'
Let all rich men remember that hard word.
I have not time for more: if ever, now Let them flow forth in charity, seeing now The poor so many, and all food so dear.
Long have I lain in prison, yet have heard Of all their wretchedness. Give to the poor, Ye give to God. He is with us in the poor.
And now, and forasmuch as I have come To the last end of life, and thereupon Hangs all my past, and all my life to be, Either to live with Christ in Heaven with joy, Or to be still in pain with devils in hell; And, seeing in a moment, I shall find [_Pointing upwards_.
Heaven or else hell ready to swallow me, [_Pointing downwards_.
I shall declare to you my very faith Without all colour.
COLE. Hear him, my good brethren.
CRANMER. I do believe in God, Father of all; In every article of the Catholic faith, And every syllable taught us by our Lord, His prophets, and apostles, in the Testaments, Both Old and New.
COLE. Be plainer, Master Cranmer.
CRANMER. And now I come to the great cause that weighs Upon my conscience more than anything Or said or done in all my life by me; For there be writings I have set abroad Against the truth I knew within my heart, Written for fear of death, to save my life, If that might be; the papers by my hand Sign'd since my degradation--by this hand [_Holding out his right hand_.
Written and sign'd--I here renounce them all; And, since my hand offended, having written Against my heart, my hand shall first be burnt, So I may come to the fire.
[_Dead silence_.
PROTESTANT _murmurs_.
FIRST PROTESTANT. I knew it would be so.
SECOND PROTESTANT. Our prayers are heard!
THIRD PROTESTANT. God bless him!
CATHOLIC _murmurs_. Out upon him! out upon him!
Liar! dissembler! traitor! to the fire!
WILLIAMS (_raising his voice_).
You know that you recanted all you said Touching the sacrament in that same book You wrote against my Lord of Winchester; Dissemble not; play the plain Christian man.
CRANMER. Alas, my Lord, I have been a man loved plainness all my life; I _did_ dissemble, but the hour has come For utter truth and plainness; wherefore, I say, I hold by all I wrote within that book.
Moreover, As for the Pope I count him Antichrist, With all his devil's doctrines; and refuse, Reject him, and abhor him. I have said.
[_Cries on all sides_, 'Pull him down! Away with him!'
COLE. Ay, stop the heretic's mouth! Hale him away!
WILLIAMS. Harm him not, harm him not! have him to the fire!
[CRANMER _goes out between Two Friars, smiling; hands are reached to him from the crowd_. LORD WILLIAM HOWARD _and_ LORD PAGET _are left alone in the church_.
PAGET. The nave and aisles all empty as a fool's jest!
No, here's Lord William Howard. What, my Lord, You have not gone to see the burning?
HOWARD. Fie!
To stand at ease, and stare as at a show, And watch a good man burn. Never again.
I saw the deaths of Latimer and Ridley.
Moreover, tho' a Catholic, I would not, For the pure honour of our common nature, Hear what I might--another recantation Of Cranmer at the stake.
PAGET. You'd not hear that.
He pass'd out smiling, and he walk'd upright; His eye was like a soldier's, whom the general He looks to and he leans on as his God, Hath rated for some backwardness and bidd'n him Charge one against a thousand, and the man Hurls his soil'd life against the pikes and dies.
HOWARD. Yet that he might not after all those papers Of recantation yield again, who knows?
PAGET. Papers of recantation! Think you then That Cranmer read all papers that he sign'd?
Or sign'd all those they tell us that he sign'd?
Nay, I trow not: and you shall see, my Lord, That howsoever hero-like the man Dies in the fire, this Bonner or another Will in some lying fashion misreport His ending to the glory of their church.
And you saw Latimer and Ridley die?
Latimer was eighty, was he not? his best Of life was over then.
HOWARD. His eighty years Look'd somewhat crooked on him in his frieze; But after they had stript him to his shroud, He stood upright, a lad of twenty-one, And gather'd with his hands the starting flame, And wash'd his hands and all his face therein, Until the powder suddenly blew him dead.
Ridley was longer burning; but he died As manfully and boldly, and, 'fore God, I know them heretics, but right English ones.
If ever, as heaven grant, we clash with Spain, Our Ridley-soldiers and our Latimer-sailors Will teach her something.
PAGET. Your mild Legate Pole Will tell you that the devil helpt them thro' it.
[_A murmur of the Crowd in the distance_.
Hark, how those Roman wolfdogs howl and bay him!
HOWARD. Might it not be the other side rejoicing In his brave end?
PAGET. They are too crush'd, too broken, They can but weep in silence.
HOWARD. Ay, ay, Paget, They have brought it in large measure on themselves.
Have I not heard them mock the blessed Host In songs so lewd, the beast might roar his claim To being in God's image, more than they?
Have I not seen the gamekeeper, the groom.
Gardener, and huntsman, in the parson's place, The parson from his own spire swung out dead, And Ignorance crying in the streets, and all men Regarding her? I say they have drawn the fire On their own heads: yet, Paget, I do hold The Catholic, if he have the greater right, Hath been the crueller.
PAGET. Action and re-action, The miserable see-saw of our child-world, Make us despise it at odd hours, my Lord.
Heaven help that this re-action not re-act Yet fiercelier under Queen Elizabeth, So that she come to rule us.
HOWARD. The world's mad.
PAGET. My Lord, the world is like a drunken man, Who cannot move straight to his end--but reels Now to the right, then as far to the left, Push'd by the crowd beside--and underfoot An earthquake; for since Henry for a doubt-- Which a young lust had clapt upon the back, Crying, 'Forward!'--set our old church rocking, men Have hardly known what to believe, or whether They should believe in anything; the currents So shift and change, they see not how they are borne, Nor whither. I conclude the King a beast; Verily a lion if you will--the world A most obedient beast and fool--myself Half beast and fool as appertaining to it; Altho' your Lordship hath as little of each Cleaving to your original Adam-clay, As may be consonant with mortality.