SAUTRE, PROTO-MARTYR OF ENGLAND.

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church of St. John's hospital in the same town, as no doubt at Tilney also. He was deprived of his office of Confessor in that diocess, and, for some reason not known, removed to London, and became parish Priest of the church of St. Osyth, then standing in Size-Lane. But his conviction of the sinfulness of image-worship and the mass deepened; he could not conceal the truth; and being known as a Lollard, and marked as one that had relapsed, was just such a subject as Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pleased to find ready for his purpose. Threatened with death, he appealed to the Parliament to be heard at their bar in justification of himself, and "for the commodity of the whole realm.” But the Parliament no longer represented the realm. Its independence was crushed. It could not now protect life. The Archbishop called him into his own presence, and he appeared before him in the Chapter-House; but after one sitting, Arundel repaired to the Parliament, there to watch that House, and left a deputy to go through the formalities of a mock trial. These accomplished, the Primate set his hand to a sentence, which declared Sautre to be a heretic, and a heretic to be punished. A few days afterwards my Lord of Canterbury took the Bishop's chair in St. Paul's, attended by six Bishops, performed on Sautre the tedious process of degradation in the presence of the multitude, put a coloured cap on his head, and handed him over, as a layman, to the High Constable and Marshal of England there present, with other civil authorities, "beseeching them that they would regard favourably the said William, unto them thus recommended." But that recommendation was the established form in which Inquisitors on the Continent demanded of the civil authorities that they should put heretics to death; to burn the body being considered as a deed of mercy to the soul. This was done accordingly, by virtue of an order bearing the royal signature, and ready written, being of equal date with the sentence of degradation (Feb. 26th, 1401). He was forthwith committed to the flames in Smithfield, being the first person judicially put to death for Christ's sake in this country.* It must be observed, that when standing before his Judges in the ChapterHouse, he attempted not any defence, neither denied nor qualified any of his opinions, but meekly smiled with acquiescence in the will

*As this is the first writ for burning a heretic that was issued by a King of England, was the model of all that followed, and is exceedingly characteristic of those by whom it was dictated, a translation (excepting the preamble) may be interesting. "We therefore, keeper (zelator) of justice, and preserver (cultor) of the Catholic faith, desiring to maintain and defend Holy Church, and the rights and liberties of the same, and to extirpate heresies and errors of this kind out of our kingdom of England, and to punish heretics thus convicted with condign animadversion; and bearing in mind that heretics of this kind, convicted and condemned in the aforesaid form, ought, according to divine and human law, canonical institutes, and, in this part, customarily, to be burned with burning of fire: We command you as strictly as possibly we can, and firmly enjoin, that ye cause the aforesaid William (Sautre), who is now in your custody, in some public and open place, within the liberty of the aforesaid city, (London,) the cause above recited being published before the people, to be committed to fire, and himself in the same fire to be really burned, in detestation of such a crime, and for a manifest example to other Christians. And this, at your peril, you will not fail to do. Given at Westminster, the King being witness, on the 26th day of February."-Rymeri Fœdera, tom. viii., p. 178.