By the act of Henry IV., the bishops were bound to bring offenders to trial in open court, within three months of their arrest, if there were no lawful impediment.  If conviction followed, they might imprison at their discretion.  Except under these conditions, they were not at liberty to imprison.

By the act of Henry V., a heretic, if he was first indicted before a secular judge, was to be delivered within ten days (or if possible, a shorter period) to the bishop, “to be acquit or convict” by a jury in the spiritual court, and to be dealt with accordingly.[539]

The secular judge might detain a heretic for ten days before delivering him to the bishop.  The bishop might detain him for three months before his trial.  Neither the secular judge nor the bishop had power to inflict indefinite imprisonment at will while the trial was delayed; nor if on the trial the bishop failed in securing a conviction, was he at liberty to detain the accused person any longer on the same charge, because the result was not satisfactory to himself.  These provisions were not preposterously lenient.  Sir Thomas More should have found no difficulty in observing them himself, and in securing the observance of them by the bishops, at least in cases where he was himself responsible for the first committal.  It is to be feared that he forgot that he was a judge in his eagerness to be a partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal scruples to interfere with the more important object of ensuring punishment to heretics.

The first case which I shall mention is one in which the Bishop of London was principally guilty; not, however, without More’s countenance, and, if Foxe is to be believed, his efficient support.

In December, 1529, the month succeeding his appointment as chancellor, More, at the instance of the Bishop of London,[540] arrested a citizen of London, Thomas Philips by name, on a charge of heresy.

The prisoner was surrendered in due form to his diocesan, and was brought to trial on the 4th of February; a series of articles being alleged against him by Foxford, the bishop’s vicar-general.  The articles were of the usual kind.  The prisoner was accused of having used unorthodox expressions on transubstantiation, on purgatory, pilgrimages, and confession.  It does not appear whether any witnesses were produced.  The vicar-general brought his accusations on the ground of general rumour, and failed to maintain them.  Whether there were witnesses or not, neither the particular offences, nor even the fact of the general rumour, could be proved to the satisfaction of the jury.  Philips himself encountered each separate charge with a specific denial, declaring that he neither was, nor ever had been, other than orthodox; and the result of the trial was, that no conviction could be obtained.  The prisoner “was found so clear from all manner of infamous slanders and suspicions, that all the people before the said bishop, shouting in judgment