A POET OF THE COUNTER- REFORMATION
SIR,—! Will give Mr. Harold Drown a pound for every living AngliCan Bishop who holds Latimer's opinions if he will give me a penny for every Roman Catholic Bishop who holds Southwell's.
It is not easy to compile an unambiguous and coherent statement of belief from our records of Latimer's life but these are some of the pro- positions he certainly held: That Henry VIII's marriage to Katherine of Aragon was invalid.
That the civil authority has the right to im- pose changes of faith on its subjects; in particu- lar that Northumberland and the Council had the right to enforce the second Prayer Book of Edward VI.
That stone altars are abominable.
That at death the soul is immediately com- mitted to Heaven or to eternal torture without the hope of Purgatory. Given a little time I think I can produce a stiffer paper of examination.
Whoever composed Latimer's last words (possibly it was he himself) plainly intended to prophesy not that there would survive some dissenters and heretics in England but that the national Church would revert to the principles of the last years of Edward VI. Latimer was strongly authoritarian and (in the Doctor's robes to which he was not entitled) was re- garded as a stern judge of 'heresy.' He enjoyed two periods of royal favour. During the first he made himself conspicuous at the slow burn- ing of John Forest, a Roman Catholic. In the second he condemned to the stake Joan Bocher. a Protestant of rather more advanced views than his own.—Yours faithfully,
EVELYN WAUGH Piers Court. Stinehcombe, Nr. Dursley, Glos
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