62 AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE CHARACTER 



his charge."^ This arraignment appeal's mighty plausible at first, 

 but, if well examined, it will prove unfounded in fact ; for if there 

 had been any substantial ground for it, why were not the sayings 

 of these conspirators, their actions, their plans disclosed ? These 

 surely might have been obtained from repentant traitors, from ac- 

 complices, and from informers. There was no risk of popular com- 

 motion, no cogent, imperative, perceptible motive of state expediency 

 or security, to prevent these disclosures. The accusation is as va- 

 lueless as motes in the sun-beam. Fisher's property was not put 

 in sequestration, or confiscated, and his bishopric and life forfeited, 

 because he had mixed himself up in the elements of treason, accord- 

 ing to the assumptions of Burnett, Mr. Turner, and others, but he 

 was crushed by the strong hand of power, as we shall presently de- 

 monstrate, on account of his denial of the supremacy. True it is, 

 in reference to those combinations which gave birth to the supposed 

 treason of Fisher, that Cromwell, in a state paper addressed to the 

 English ambassadors in France, has thus expressed himself : " For, 

 touching Mr. More and the Bishop of Rochester, with suche others 

 as were executed here, their treasons, conspiracies, and practises se- 

 cretly practisyd, as well within the realme as without, to move and 

 styrre discension, and to sowe sedicyon within the realm, intending 

 thereby, not onelye the destruction of the kyng, but also the whole 

 subversion of his highnes realme, being explained and declared, and 

 so manifestly proved afore them that they could not avoyde or denye 

 it, and they thereof openly detected, and lawfully convicted, ad- 

 judged, and condempned of high treason, by the due order of the 

 lawes of this realme; it shall and may well appere to all the worlde 

 that they, having such malice roted in their herts agenst their 

 pry nee and sovereigne, and the totall distruction of the comen 

 weale of this realme, were well worthie, if they had had a thousand 

 lyves, to have suffered ten tymes a more terrible deth and execution 

 than any of them did suffer." t 



Upon this Mr. Turner remarks, " It is not likely that a minister 

 of state would have used such strong language as this to its foreign 

 ambassadors without some adequate grounds.''^ . But this minister 

 knew as well as Henry that the death of Fisher was the theme of 

 lament and execration throughout Europe, that men o^ all descrip- 

 tions, of all ranks of society, were loud and vehement in expressing 



• History of the Reform., v. iii, p. 192. 

 + History of the Reform., v. vL, p. 110. 

 X Reign of Henry VJII., p. 500, Note m. 



