" LOLLARDY AND THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND."
[To TER EDITOR OF THR " SPXOTATOR."] SIR,—I am really a good deal astonished at your editorial comment on my letter in the Spectator of December 12th. But for the painful contrast between trivial things and tragic, I should say your view of Bilney represents him as somewhat like "the boy who wrote up 'No Popery' and ran away " ; and you think that when overtaken and castigated he was a martyr! I would plead for the boy that he got into bad company and knew that he was doing wrong, but was sorry for it afterwards. For what cause was Bilney a martyr P If for any, I should say for the principles of the Church of Rome. Foxe himself admits that he believed in the Mass and the Sacrament of the Altar all his days. " He never differed therein," says that writer (quoted in my book, I., 393), "from the most gross Catholics." He had only abused the clergy, inveighed against images and pilgrimages and some other things sanctioned by authority, thus breaking his vows as a priest, encouraged by influential support,—all which things he was very sorry for. He had been prosecuted years before he suffered, and had met with unexampled favour, the prosecution being stopped on his mendacious denial that he had preached what he had preached, and on his taking oath never to countenance heresy in future, which oath he broke once more. But he always believed in the Mass, and was anxious to be reconciled to the Church before he died ; and surely we may well trust Sir Thomas More's statement that it was with some hesitation that, even at his own earnest request, he was admitted by the Chancellor of the Bishop of Norwich to receive the Sacrament before he suffered. His recantation was altogether unlike "evidence obtained under torture."—I am, Sir, &c., [We are afraid we cannot pursue this correspondence further. Another editorial note might call forth another reply from Dr. Gairdner, and so on ad infinitum. Our prudent silence must not, however, be taken as an admission that Bilney was not a martyr, or that the man who inveighed against images and pilgrimages and abused the clergy deserved to be burnt.— ED. Spectator.]
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